A statue depicting Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest was removed Tuesday morning from alongside Interstate 65 in South Nashville. The statue was on late Bill Dorris’ property, and after it was removed was relocated to a storage shed on Dorris’ property. The statue of Forrest stood for 23 years, despite the controversy that surrounded him.
NewsChannel 5 released a video of the removal, where it showed a forklift used to remove the statue. During the removal, many parts of the statue, including one of Forrests’s legs and part of the horse’s head crumbled off.
Part of Dorris’s property was left to the Battle of Nashville Trust, which included the portion of land that the statue was on.
In a statement shared with The Tennessee Star, Trust spokesman James D. Kay, Jr. said that Dorris had no prior affiliation with the group, and they were not aware that the land would be left to them until after his passing. The statement said that while the Trust was grateful for the gift from Dorris, that they would be removing the statue.
The area Dorris left was only a portion of The Battle of Nashville, the Trust’s statement said. It was not a part of the battlefield and only “a sliver of the retreat.”
The statement articulated six reasons behind The Battle of Nashville Trust’s decision to remove the statue:
- Forrest was not present at the Battle of Nashville
- The property has no historical significance related to the battle other than a spring house and ice house that was part of a large estate where CSA Brig. General Claudius Sears was taken for a leg amputation-the home has long since been destroyed by Interstate 65
- The statue is ugly
- Even Forrest would think it is ugly
- It hinders our mission and what we are trying to accomplish
- The Trust supports the removal of this statue
Over the years, the statue had been vandalized. In October of last year, the word “monster” was spray-painted several times onto the statue, and in 2017, was shot at with pink paintball guns, almost completely covering the statue.
WKRN spoke to Dorris in 2017 about the vandalism, and he said he would just live with it. “If they think the public will be pleased with painting it red, we will leave it red for a while,” he reportedly said.
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Morgan Nicole Veysey is a reporter for The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network. Follow her on Twitter. Email tips to [email protected]
Photo “Nathan Bedford Statue” by Brent Moore. CC BY 2.0.
Good riddance to bad rubbish! Forrest is the early version of Stalin and Hitler!
William Delzell is the current version of a mind controlled zombie who has no actual understanding about real history or how the world is actually run. Bleat Bleat says the sheep!
the care they took in removing this statue was pitiful. It did not have to be damaged.
It’s funny how all of the Soy Boys and Karen’s are applauding this on Next Door. They even manager to drag the Lush, Heidi Campbell, out of her watering hole for comment.
Now that Racism has finally ended, we can move on to other things. Like the gifting Homeless Advocates.
How sad! Not only did the Battle of Nashville Trust remove an iconic landmark, it misrepresented the reasons for doing it! Everybody knows that General Forrest is just one of the targets of Leftist groups like BLM, who masquerade as social justice warriors.
Somebody had better start building a really BIG storage shed for all of the MLK memorials. Once these Leftists are done using Blacks as their pawns, they’ll vilify their heroes too!
I can think of a lot of “ugly” people that should be removed from office..