| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 92.2

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| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 92.2 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Brigadier General Tyree H. Bell, C.S.A.: Forrest's Fighting Lieutenant. By Nathaniel Cheairs Hughes Jr. with Connie Walton Moretti and James Michael Browne. (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2004. xii, 346 pp. $45.00, ISBN 1-57233-309-X.)

American Civil War biographers are increasingly focusing on subordinates of the commanding generals, and this book demonstrates the value of studying the war from the point of view of a key lieutenant of a field commander. Nathan Bedford Forrest was such a dynamic leader that one almost assumes he had no need for assistance, that he won battles and campaigns by his own strength without significant subalterns. This first biography of the Confederate general Tyree H. Bell, one of Forrest's brigade commanders, establishes that from October 1863 to the end of the war Bell was essential as "Forrest's right arm" (p. 258). After the battle of Chickamauga, when Forrest reorganized his command, Bell was his principal recruiter. Previously as colonel of the Twelfth Tennessee Infantry and now for Forrest's cavalry, Bell cared for his men and was a model of bravery in combat. Bell turned malingerers and deserters into soldiers and helped with discipline, but his congenial nature balanced Forrest's gruffness and served as a valuable buffer between Forrest and Forrest's enemies in the Confederate army. Bell remained friendly with Braxton Bragg, even while maintaining friendship with Bragg's bitter critic Leonidas Polk and regardless of the fact that Forrest hated Bragg.

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