Camp Forrest

The Army named this camp for a Confederate general on the recommendation of Tennessee's adjutant general, and the name drew protest. Nathan Bedford Forrest was a prewar slave trader and later a founder of the Ku Klux Klan; the Chicago Defender objected, and Illinois lawmakers tried to have the name changed when their National Guard division trained here. The base took land from families who had worked it for generations, often with little pay. In 1942 it became a prisoner-of-war camp that also held more than seven hundred internees, about two hundred of Japanese ancestry, many without legal process.

What the plaque says

Camp Forrest Originally established in 1926 for training the Tennessee National Guard, this became a Federal training area, Jan. 10, 1941. It was named for Lt. Gen. N.B. Forrest, CSA. Units training here included the 8th, 33rd, 79th & 80th Inf. Divs., 17th Airborne Div., 75th FA Brig., & 107th Ca. Regt. It was deactivated June 30, 1946.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Tims Ford State Park — 10.0 mi
  A lake park on the Elk River below the Cumberland Plateau, made by a 1970 TVA dam on land the Cherokee and Chickasaw ceded by treaty in the early 1800s.
• Jack Daniel Distillery — 10 mi
  The oldest registered distillery in the United States, in a limestone hollow outside Lynchburg, where the tour now names Nathan Nearest Green, an enslaved man, as the first master distiller.
• Old Stone Fort State Archaeological Park — 10 mi
  A 2,000-year-old enclosure of piled stone and earth on the bluffs above the forks of the Duck River, built by Native people between about 80 and 550 A.D., with a museum and waterfall trails.
• Tennessee Walking Horse National Celebration — 17 mi
  The Shelbyville show grounds where the Tennessee Walking Horse has been crowned world grand champion each late summer since 1939, and where the practice of soring is part of the story.

More markers nearby

• Isham G. Harris — steps away
• Experiment in Armor — 11 mi
• General Henry H. "Hap" Arnold — 12 mi
• Secession — 13 mi