Tupelo is known for something else, which I'll get to in my next post. Long before Elvis Presley was born there, Tupelo was viewed as an strategic town--a railroad ran through it and the line was a vital line of supply for General Maj. Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman's Military Division of the Mississippi during the Battle of Atlanta. (That railroad still runs through Tupelo, and the trains kept me up much of the night I stayed there.
Union Major General Andrew Smith was ordered to secure Tupelo, and was met by forces led by Lt. Gen. Stephen D. Lee and Maj. Gen. Nathan B. Forrest and July 14. The next day the Northern forces succeeded in securing Sherman's supply line, although Forrest and Lee's armies escaped.
Forrest would cause wreak havoc against the Union forces, particularly the killing of unarmed black soldiers during the Battle of Fort Pillow.
Forrest later was named an honorary grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, although like many members of the group during its incarnations, Forrest denied membership.
As with Corinth, much of the battlefield has been enveloped by development. The National Park Service runs a one-acre site on Main Street near the Natchez Trace.
The marker on bottom has an inscription that would not pass muster today. "To our Confederate dead that gave their lives in battle here on July 14, 1864. For their rights. Erected 1918."
Those rights included owning slaves.
UPDATE March 31, 2009: Besides Nathan Bedford Forrest, another famous American fought in the Battle of Tupelo. William F. Cody of the Kansas 7th Cavalry. Cody of course is better known as "Buffalo Bill." Shortly before his death, Cody revisited the battlefield site.
Previous My Mississippi Manifest Destiny posts:
Corinth
Shiloh Part Four
Shiloh Part Three
Shiloh Part Two
Shiloh Part One
Carl Perkins
The Varsity Theatre in Martin, Tennessee
Lincoln and Kentucky
Metropolis
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Civil War 
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photos 
military 
Mississippi 
African American 
Elvis Presley
3 comments:
Hey John,
Just read your story on Obama/Rezko. Good info. I then read down the page and came across BNP.
Do you have solid evidence and links regarding BNP as racist? Is there anything in their party bylaws, etc., that excludes people based upon color, ethnic background? I'd like to know the truth. When people throw "racist" around so easily as they do in the states from the left, one can never be to careful or skeptical.
As I look at you rebel flag, it is very easy for people to hype something out of proportion against you if they like.
Britain is in much trouble. I do not doubt that part of the population that is beginning to pull together will be unlike the Asian or African muslim immmigrants. I expect it to be indigenous Scots, Irish and English fighting for their survival as they feel greater threats surround them. From what I've read it is very common for Muslim men to entice young white girls into drugs and turn them into prostitutes. There are large no-go areas. Several priest have been attacked by Muslim gangs.
Curious to see any links you provide.
thanks
Thanks for dropping in, Michael:
Griffin (BNP leader) also has a criminal record, having been prosecuted for inciting racial hatred. He has also publicly denied and belittled the Holocaust.
http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/1127/p07s01-woeu.html?page=2
From the BNP web site:
On current demographic trends, we, the native British people, will be an ethnic minority in our own country within sixty years. To ensure that this does not happen, and that the British people retain their homeland and identity, we call for an immediate halt to all further immigration, the immediate deportation of criminal and illegal immigrants, and the introduction of a system of voluntary resettlement whereby those immigrants who are legally here will be afforded the opportunity to return to their lands of ethnic origin assisted by a generous financial incentives both for individuals and for the countries in question.
http://www.bnp.org.uk/sms-news-texts/
As an American, I don't believe that British values should be limited to those of the "indigenious" population of the island.
England has a strangle hold on
Ireland! Almost a century later no
less. Belfast.
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