In  1859,  Forrest  gave  up  his  real  estate  busi¬
ness  and  slave  trading,  in  order  to  devote  him¬
self  to  cotton  planting.  He  had  bought  vast
tracts  of  land  in  Mississippi,  which  he  farmed
most  successfully;  he  is  said  to  have  raised  a
thousand  bales  of  cotton  a  year,  yielding  a
profit  of  $30,000.  This  was  a  very  large  income
for  those  days.  Starting  out  as  a  boy  of  six¬
teen  with  nothing  in  the  world  and  a  family  to
support,  he  had  risen  to  be  one  of  the  wealthiest
and  most  respected  men  in  his  section.  What
he  had  done  had  been  done  by  means  of  hard
work  and  good  common  sense.  Fie  had  earned
his  success.
Not  long  after  moving  to  Memphis,  Forrest
showed  his  power  over  other  men,  that  power
which  was  later  to  make  him  a  famous  soldier.
THE  BUSINESS  MAN


25


One  day  as  he  walked  along  the  street  he  heard
a  great  noise  and  found  that  a  mob  was  break¬
ing  into  the  county  jail  for  the  purpose  of  lynch¬
ing  a  prisoner.
With  no  thought  of  his  own  safety  but
anxious  only  to  save  a  life,  Forrest  rushed  into
the  jail  and  threw  himself  between  the  prisoner
and  the  mob.  Drawing  a  knife  and  holding  it
high  in  his  hand,  he  called  out  in  loud  tones  that
he  would  kill  anyone  who  laid  hands  on  the
trembling  man.  He  then  made  so  strong  an
appeal  to  the  better  feelings  of  the  crowd  that
the  lynching  was  at  once  dropped.
