Scott Broden, Daily News Journal, June 29, 2015
MURFREESBORO – A Sons of Confederate Veterans monument to honor 26 killed cavalrymen with a Nathan Bedford Forrest-led raid will be erected where they’re buried at Old City Cemetery.
Rutherford County Historian Greg Tucker speaks Monday about the future Confederate soldiers memorial to be built at Old City Cemetery. (Photo: Brian Wilson/DNJ)
“It’s going to mark graves that were previously unmarked,” Rutherford County Historian Greg Tucker said Monday. “That was the only city cemetery at the time.”
The monument ceremony is scheduled for 10 a.m. July 11 at Old City Cemetery on East Vine Street, about four blocks from the County Courthouse Square in Murfreesboro where the Forrest raid took place on July 13, 1862.
The planned event comes at a time when others are seeking to remove monuments that honor the Forrest name and displays of Confederate battle flags in response to a gunman who killed nine worshipers at a historic black church in Charleston, S.C., the state where the Civil War started. The accused gunman was known to recently identify with the Confederate flag and express racist sentiments.
The debates pertaining to Confederate symbols came to Tennessee with Democratic U.S. Rep. Jim Cooper, of Nashville, Republican Gov. Bill Haslam and others calling for a bust of Forrest to be removed from the state Capitol. Middle Tennessee State University President Sidney McPhee then announced MTSU officials in Murfreesboro were ready to discuss whether to consider renaming Forrest Hall.
Tucker questions why officials are calling for removal of the Forrest name.
A Confederate soldiers memorial at Old City Cemetery is set to be complete by July 11. (Photo: Brian Wilson/DNJ)
“Forrest had nothing to do with that tragedy in South Carolina,” said Tucker, a retired attorney who also writes a local history column for The Daily News Journal. “He’s part of our history. He saved the population of Murfreesboro and Woodbury for what could have been unjustified executions.”
The federal troops occupying Murfreesboro were about to kill six people, including Dr. Lunsford Black, a physician, Tucker said.
“He was going to be executed as part of an effort to intimidate the local population into submission,” said Tucker, adding that the Union troops were prepared to put to death Elder W.R. Owen, a Primitive Baptist preacher. “The reason Forrest is a hero is because there are people today in this community and Woodbury who wouldn’t be here if the executions had taken place. Should they be denied their opportunity to celebrate their heritage? They should not be.”
Although many monuments are not accurate, Tucker stands by the research conducted for several years for the one that the Sons of Confederate Veterans Murfreesboro Camp 33 will be placing at Old City Cemetery after raising money for the 6-foot-high marker.
The front of the monument that faces Vine Street will name the 26 Confederate soldiers who died in the Forrest-led raid, a group that includes seven Texas Rangers, Tucker said. The back side of the marker will tell the history of the raid.
Those opposed to honoring the Forrest name mention how he was a slave dealer whose troops killed hundreds of black Union soldiers at the Fort Pillow Massacre and that he was the first Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan after the Civil War.
Tucker points out that many people who owned a lot of land also had slaves, including Col. Hardy Murfree, the namesake for Murfreesboro. Congress after the Civil War investigated whether Forrest was a war criminal and concluded that he was innocent of the charges in serving for the Confederate Army, Tucker said.
Although Forrest emerged as a leader of the original KKK that opposed the Radical Republicans during the Reconstruction era of union forces occupying the South following the Civil War, he called for the fraternity of former Confederate soldiers to end because of their abuses, Tucker said.
“He told them to disband,” Tucker said. “This is over.”
State Sen. Bill Ketron, a Republican who owns a Murfreesboro home off Wilkinson Pike where part of the Stones River Battle was fought about six months after the Forrest raid, supports the marker being erected at Old City Cemetery.
“I don’t have any issues with that,” said Ketron, who majored in political science and history as an MTSU graduate in 1976. “If there were a remembrance of the colored troops, I would support that, as well, because it still continues to recognize history. It doesn’t matter to me, as long as we are recognizing pieces of history.”
Ketron authorized a law a couple of years ago that requires approval of the Tennessee General Assembly to remove historical monuments from state, county or city government property. He supports keeping the Forrest bust at the Capitol and the name on the MTSU building.
“Leave history alone,” Ketron said.
Contact Scott Broden at 615-278-5158 or [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @ScottBroden.