Nathan Bedford Forrest: A Biography.(Brief Article)

Jack Hurst. Knopf, $30 (464p) ISBN 0-394-55189-3

Forrest was the Confederacy's preeminent cavalry leader and one of the most colorful figures of the Civil War. An antebellum slave dealer in Tennessee, he raised his own troop and led it to spectacular victories at Shiloh, Fort Pillow, Brice's Cross Roads and elsewhere in the state. But Forrest has never been cleared of the charge that he perpetrated a massacre during the capture of Fort Pillow in April 1864, when large numbers of black Union soldiers were killed as they attempted to surrender. In his close …