A Battle from the Start

Sherman called him "That devil, Forrest" and "the most remarkable man our Civil War produced on either side." Bruce Catton rated him "one of the authentic military geniuses of the whole war." And Grant said, "For the particular kind of warfare which Forrest had carried on neither army could present a more effective officer." Not only does A Battle from the Start describe Forrest's incredible and dramatic feats on the battlefield, it covers his childhood and youth as the oldest son of a poor farmer on the Mississippi frontier, who took over responsibility for the family's survival as a young boy when his father died, and his later move to Memphis, where he became a millionaire in the slave trade. It describes Forrest's life after the war: his acceptance of the defeat of the Southern cause rather than defiant flight to foreign shores, his declining business fortunes, his deteriorating health from a body worn down by the war's rigors, and his premature death. - Jacket flap.

Beyond its central premise, the book can be read through the connected lenses of Nonfiction. Those themes offer useful points of attention as the characters, ideas, or world develop, especially where the book complicates the expectations of its primary category.