123° E. In 1870 he again made an expedition from Perth to Adelaide, along the southern shores. In 1874, with his brother Alexander Forrest (born 1849), he explored eastwards from Champion Bay, following as far as possible the 26th parallel, and striking the telegraph line between Adelaide and Port Darwin; a distance of about 2000 m. was covered in about five months with horses and without carriers, a particularly fine achievement (see Australia: Exploration). John Forrest also surveyed in 1878 the north-western district between the rivers Ashburton and Lady Grey, and in 1882 the Fitzroy district. In 1876 he was made deputy surveyor-general, receiving the thanks of the colony for his services and a grant of 5000 acres of land; for a few months at the end of 1878 he acted as commissioner of crown lands and surveyor-general, being given the full appointment in 1883 and retaining it till 1890. When the colony obtained in 1890 its constitution of self-government, Sir John Forrest (who was made K.C.M.G. in 1891, and G.C.M.G. in 1901) became its first premier, and he held that position till in 1901 he joined the Commonwealth government, first as minister for defence, later as minister for home affairs and postmaster-general, resigning the office of federal treasurer in July 1907. His influence in West Australia was one of an almost autocratic character, owing to the robust vigour of his personality and his success in enforcing his views (see Western Australia: History). In 1897 he was made a member of the Privy Council. Sir John Forrest married in 1876 Margaret Hamersley. He published Explorations in Australia (1876) and Notes on Western Australia (1884–1887).
FORREST, NATHAN BEDFORD (1821–1877), Confederate
cavalry general in the American Civil War, was born near Chapel
Hill, Tennessee, on the 13th of July 1821. Before his father’s
death in 1837 the family had removed to Mississippi, and for
some years thereafter it was supported principally by Nathan,
who was the eldest son. Thus he never received any formal
education (as witnessed by the uncouth phraseology and spelling
of his war despatches), but he managed to teach himself with very
fair success, and is said to have possessed considerable ability
as a 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,
where he acquired considerable wealth. At the outbreak
of the Civil War in 1861 he volunteered as a private, raised a
cavalry battalion, of which he was lieut.-colonel, and in February
1862 took part in the defence of Fort Donelson, and refusing, like
Generals Floyd and Pillow, to capitulate with the rest of the
Confederate forces, made his way out, before the surrender, with
all the mounted troops there. He was promptly made a colonel
and regimental commander, and fought at Shiloh with distinction,
receiving a severe wound. Shortly after this he was promoted
brigadier-general (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 1862–1863 he was continually active in
raiding the hostile lines of communication. These raids have
been the theme of innumerable discussions, and on the whole
their value seems to have been overrated. At the same time,
and apart from the question of their utility, Forrest’s raids were
uniformly bold and skilful, and are his chief title to fame in the
history of the cavalry arm. Indeed, next to Stuart and Sheridan,
he was the finest cavalry leader of the whole war. One of the
most remarkable of his actions was his capture, near Rome,
Georgia, after five days of marching and fighting, of an entire
cavalry brigade under Colonel A. D. Streight (April 1863). He
was present at the battle of Chickamauga in September, after
which (largely on account of his criticism of General Bragg, the
army commander) he was transferred to the Mississippi. Forrest
was made a major-general in December 1863. In the winter of
1863–1864 he was as active as ever, and in the spring of 1864 he
raided as far north as Paducah, Ky. On the 12th of April 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 massacred after the fort
had surrendered. The “Massacre of Fort Pillow” has been the
subject of much controversy and there is much conflicting
testimony regarding it, but it seems probable that Forrest himself
had no part in it. On the 10th of June Forrest decisively defeated
a superior Federal force at Brice’s Cross Roads, Miss., and
throughout the year, though the greatest efforts were made by the
Federals to crush him, he raided in Mississippi, Tennessee and
Alabama with almost unvarying success. 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 February 1865
he was made a lieut.-general, but the struggle was almost at
an end and General James H. Wilson, one of the ablest of the
Union cavalry generals, rapidly forced back the few Confederates,
now under Forrest’s command, and stormed Selma, Alabama,
on the 2nd of April. The surrender of General Forrest and his
whole command, under the agreement between General Richard
Taylor and General E. S. Canby, followed on the 9th of May.
After the war he lived in Memphis. He sold his cotton plantation
in 1867, and for some years was president of the Selma, Marion
and Memphis Railroad. He died at Memphis, Tennessee, on the
29th of October 1877.
The military character of General Forrest, apart from questions of his technical skill, horsemastership and detail special to his arm of the service, was admittedly that of a great leader. He never commanded a large force of all arms. He was uneducated, and had neither experience of nor training for the strategical handling of great armies. Yet his personality and his natural soldierly gifts were such that General Sherman considered him “the most remarkable man the Civil War produced on either side.” Joseph Johnston, the Confederate general whose greatness lay above all in calm and critical judgment, said that Forrest, had he had the advantage of a thorough military training, “would have been the great central figure of the war.”
See the biographies by J. A. Wyeth (1899) and J. H. Mathes (1902).
FORSKÅL, PETER (1736–1763), Swedish traveller and
naturalist, was born in Kalmar in 1736. He studied at Göttingen,
where he published a dissertation entitled Dubia de principiis
philosophiae recentioris (1756). Thence he returned to his
native country, which, however, he had to leave after the publication
of a pamphlet entitled Pensées sur la liberté civile (1759).
By Linnaeus he was recommended to Frederick V. of Denmark,
who appointed him to accompany Carsten Niebuhr in an expedition
to Arabia and Egypt in 1761. He died of the plague at
Jerim in Arabia on the 11th of July 1763.
His friend and companion, Niebuhr, was entrusted with the care of editing his MSS., and published in 1775 Descriptiones animalium, avium, amphibiorum, piscium, insectorum, vermium, quae in itin. Orient. observavit Petrus Forskål. In the same year appeared also his account of the plants of Arabia Felix and of lower Egypt, under the title of Flora Aegyptiaco-Arabica.
FORSSELL, HANS LUDVIG (1843–1901), Swedish historian
and political writer, the son of Adolf Forssell, a distinguished
mathematician, was born at Gefle, where his father was professor,
on 14th January 1843. At the age of sixteen he became
a student in Upsala University, where he distinguished himself,
and where, in 1866, having taken the degree of doctor, he was
appointed reader in history. At the age of thirty, however,
Forssell, who had already shown remarkable business capacity,
was called to Stockholm, where he filled one important post
after another in the Swedish civil service. In 1875 he was
appointed head of the treasury, and in 1880 was transferred to
the department of inland revenue, of which he continued to be
president until the time of his death. In addition to the responsibilities
which these offices devolved upon him, Forssell
was constantly called to serve on royal commissions, and his
political influence was immense. In spite of all these public
duties, which he carried through with the utmost diligence,
Forssell also found leisure for an abundant literary activity. Of
his historical writings the most important were: The Administrative
and Economical History of Sweden after Gustavus I.
(1869–1875) and Sweden in 1571 (1872). He was also for several
years, in company with the poet Wirsén, editor of the Swedish
Literary Review. He published two volumes of Studies and
