Was Nathan Bedford Forrest a Villain?

[johnsilver]

He was a product of his time, no better or worse than the man beside him.  The travesty is that today's society tries to quantify behavior of the ages with modern standards.

He was worse.  Even in the 1850s, it was considered a Bad Thing for a businessman to shoot a dissatisfied customer.

Think Judge Roy Bean killed many of his customers with a rope 

In the West early times things were handled more often with a gun than with lawbooks also.