place
Jackson, in honor of the general, but Jackson himself, it is said,
decided on the name Memphis, because the position of the town suggested
that of ancient Memphis, on the Nile.

In 1857 Memphis got her first railroad--the Memphis &
Charleston--connecting her with Charleston, South Carolina. About the
time the road was completed there were severe financial panics which
held the city back; also there was trouble, as in so many other river
towns, with hordes of gamblers and desperadoes. Judge J.P. Young, in
his "History of Memphis," tells of an interesting episode of those
times. There were two professional gamblers, father and son, of the name
of Able. The father shot a man in a saloon brawl, and soon after, the
son committed a similar crime of violence. A great mob started to take
the younger Able out of jail and lynch him, but one firm citizen,
addressing them from the balcony of a hotel, persuaded them to desist.
Next day, however, there was a mass meeting to discuss the case of Able.
At this meeting the hotheads prevailed, and Able was taken from the jail
by a mob of three thousand men. When the noose was around his neck, and
he and his mother and sister were pleading that his life be spared, the
same man who had previously prevented mob action, stepped boldly up, cut
the rope from Abel's neck, and assisted him to fly, standing between him
and the mob, fighting the mob off, and finally getting Able back into
the jail. When the mob stormed the jail, furious at having been
circumvented by a single man, the same powerful figure appeared at the
jail door with a pistol, and, incredible though it seems, actually held
the mob at bay until it finally dispersed. This man was Nathan Bedford
Forrest, later the brilliant Confederate cavalry leader. Forrest and his
wife are buried in Memphis, in a square called Forrest Park, under a
fine equestrian monument, by C.H. Niehaus.

Before the war Forrest was a member of the slave-dealing firm of Forrest
& Maples, of Memphis. Subjoined is a photographic reproduction of an
advertisement of this firm, which appeared in the Memphis City
Directory for 1855-6.

[Illustration:

CITY DIRECTORY. 251
--------------------

#FORREST & MAPLES,#
#SLAVE DEALERS,#

#87 Adams Street#,
Between Second and Third,
#