He was exactly six feet in hight, and although not at all corpulent, weighed one hundred and eighty-five pounds.
His form was perfect and the rarest combination of strength, activity and grace. His constitution seemed impervious to the effects of privation and exposure, and it was scarcely possible to perceive that he suffered from fatigue or lack of sleep. After marching for days and nights without intermission, until the hardiest men in his division were exhausted, I have known him, as soon as a halt was called, and he could safely leave his command, ride fifty miles to see his wife. Although a most practical man in all of his ideas, he irresistibly reminded one of the heroes of romance. He seemed the _Fra-Moreale_ come to life again, and, doubtless, was as much feared and as bitterly denounced as was that distinguished officer.
Men are not often born who can wield such an influence as he exerted, apparently without an effort--who can so win men's hearts and stir their blood. He will, at least, be remembered until the Western cavalrymen and their children have all died. The bold riders who live in the border-land, whose every acre he made historic, will leave many a story of his audacity and wily skill. They will name but one man as his equal, "The wizard of the saddle," the man of revolutionary force and fire, strong, sagacious, indomitable Forrest, and the two will go down in tradition together, twin-brothers in arms and in fame.
The position assumed by Kentucky, at the inception of the late struggle, and her conduct throughout, excited the surprise, and, in no small degree, incurred for her the dislike of both the contending sections.
But while both North and South, at some time, doubted her good faith and complained of her action, all such sentiments have been entirely forgotten by the latter, and have become intensified into bitter and undisguised animosity upon the part of a large share of the population of the former.
The reason is patent. It is the same which, during the war, influenced the Confederates to hope confidently for large assistance from Kentucky, if once enabled to obtain a foothold upon her territory, and caused the Federals, on the other hand, to regard even the loudest and most zealous professors of loyalty as Secessionists in disguise, or, at best, Unionists only to save their property. It is the instinctive feeling that the people of Kentucky, on account of kindred blood, common interests, and identity of ideas in all that relates to political rights and the objects of political institutions, may be supposed likely to sympathize and to act with the people of the South. But a variety of causes and influences combined to prevent Kentucky from taking a decided stand with either of the combatants, and produced the vacillation and inconsistency which so notably characterized her councils and paralyzed her efforts in either direction, and, alas, it may be added, so seriously affected her fair fame.