FORREST, NATHAN BEDFORD Con federate cavalry general in the American Civil War, was born near Chapel Hill (Tenn.), on July 13, 1821. He never received any formal education, but he managed to teach himself with very fair success, and is said to have been an able mathematician. He was in turn a horse and cattle trader in Mississippi, and a slave dealer and horse trader in Memphis, until 1859, when he took to cotton planting in north-western Mississippi and acquired considerable wealth. At the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861 he volunteered as a private, raised a cavalry unit of which he was lieut.-col., and in Feb. 1862 took part in the defence of Fort Donelson. Refusing, like Generals Floyd and Pillow, to capitulate with the rest of the Confederate forces, he made his way out, before the surrender, with all the mounted troops there. He was made a colonel and regimental commander, and fought at Shiloh with distinction. He was promoted brig.-general in July 1862. At the head of a mounted brigade he took a brilliant part in General Bragg's autumn campaign, and in the winter of 1862 63 he was continually active in raiding the hostile lines of com munication. One of the most remarkable of his actions was his capture, near Rome (Ga.), after five days of marching and fight ing, of an entire cavalry brigade under Col. A. D. Streight (April 1863). He was present at the battle of Chickamauga in Septem ber, after which he was transferred to the Mississippi. He was made a major-general in Dec. 1863.
On April 12, 1864, he assaulted and captured Fort Pillow, in Tennessee on the Mississippi ; U.S. negro troops formed a large part of the garrison and according to survivors many were mas sacred after the fort had surrendered. The "Massacre of Fort Pillow" has been the subject of much controversy and there is conflicting testimony regarding it, but it seems probable that Forrest himself had no part in it. On June 10 he decisively defeated a superior Federal force at Brice's Cross Roads (Miss.), and throughout the year, in spite of the efforts of the Federals to crush him, he raided successfully in Mississippi, Tennessee and Alabama. He was once more with the main Confederate army of the West in the last disastrous campaign of Nashville, and fought stubborn rearguard actions to cover the retreat of the broken Confederates. In Feb. 1865 he was made a lieut.-general, but the struggle was almost at an end and General James H. Wilson rapidly forced back the few Confederates, now under Forrest's command, and stormed Selma (Ala.), on April 2. The surrender of General Forrest and his whole command followed on May 9. After the war he lived in Memphis, and for some years was president of the Selma, Marion and Memphis railroad. He died at Memphis (Tenn.), on Oct. 29, 1877. The military character of General Forrest was admittedly that of a great leader.
See the biographies by J. A. Wyeth (1899) and J. H. Mathes (1902).