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 .\'tt/tt(n />/for</. Forrest. 337

to employ his immense force. His very numbers working to its dis- advantage, hemmed in on every side, with Jackson's victorious corps in his rear and Lee in his front, strange as it may seem, Hooker's immense army of 100,000 men would have been forced to surrender, and the war would have ended with a clap of thunder. The whole North would have been laid open, and Lee's victorious army, aug- mented by thousands of enthusiastic volunteers. Washington and Baltimore would have been occupied and all of Maryland aroused.

This young and virile Confederacy, sprung all at once armed and equipped a very Cyclops from the brain of Minerva, would have taken its place high up among the family of nations.

That blast in the wilderness put an end to the almost assured re- sult, and the hope of a great southern empire became only a dream.

Was it Providence, or fate ? Who can tell ?

GENERAL NATHAN BEDFORD FORREST.

A Summary of Some of His Remarkable Achievements.

Bishop Gailor, of Tennessee, contributes to the Sewanee Review for January, 1901, a very readable sketch of the military career of General Nathan Bedford Forrest, the Confederate cavalry leader, of whom General Sherman once wrote: "After all, I think Forrest was the most remarkable man our civil war produced on either side."

Forrest's first engagement, at Sacramento, Ky., illustrated the tactics that he followed with such marked success throughout the war dismounting about one-third of his men in front as skirmishers, and then attacking with the others in two divisions on flank and rear.

Passing over the surrender of Fort Donelson, to which Forrest re- fused to be a party, and which Bishop Gailor characterizes as " dis- graceful," the next important action in which Forrest had a part was Shiloh, where he captured a battery, and on the retreat to Corinth he ' ' saved the Confederate army from destruction by checking Sher- man' s advance."

Forrest's subsequent exploits are thus related by Bishop Gailor:

" Within three weeks, however, he was again ready for action, and made a raid into Middle Tennessee that astounded his enemies, and