It is well documented that when Nathan Bedford Forrest first encountered an enemy, he would involuntarily use his left hand to reach for his sword, and then sheepishly grab it with his right.
You see, Bedford, as he was called by his family and friends, was a lefty!
Back in his day, and well into the 20th century, being left-handed was considered to be unacceptable. Lefties were forced by family to use their right hands, as there was an ongoing suspicion that being left-handed was a mark of the devil.
It is often pointed out that Forrest only had nine months of formal schooling as a child. Later in life, he would depend entirely on a secretary to write all his correspondence for him. He would swear it was because he couldn’t spell, but I think there was another explanation.
Learning to write with something other than your dominant hand is very difficult. I’m sure during those nine months of schooling, Forrest would have been forced to use his right hand. There is no way he could have mastered it in such a short period of time.
We lefties are often assigned certain characteristics that we are more likely to have. One of them is creativity. Another one is that we have a greater capacity to multi-task.
I believe Forrest possessed both those characteristics, and expressed them quite well on the battlefield. His brilliant military tactics, often repeated by those who came after him, showed his creativity. His ability to organize and maintain a force of soldiers with absolutely no military training showed his high capacity to multi-task.
So, for all my fellow lefties out there, here is another example of one of us making a mark on the world!