ing story of Forrest according to therncanons of political correctness and psychobabble.rnHurst, by contrast, has developedrnnew material pertaining to thernobscurities of Forrest’s antebellum andrnpostbellum life, and the more familiarrnhistory of the incredible campaigns hernhas retold clearly and well. Moreover, hernis able to put Forrest in the perspective ofrnhis times, which is what a historianrnshould do, rather than merely invokingrnlabels. As Hurst points out, the Americanrnfigure Forrest most resembles is hisrnfellow Tennessean of a generation earlier,rnAndrew Jackson. The difference betweenrnthem was that courageous, quick-witted,rnself-made Southerners could notrnplay the same national role in Forrest’srntime as in Jackson’s. Among the mostrninteresting parts of the book are its presentationsrnof Forrest’s relation with blackrnpeople after the war—another exceedinglyrncomplex historical situation thatrnhas been misrepresented by sloganeers.rnHundreds of black people attended Forrest’srnfuneral, and during Reconstructionrnhe was berated by a Union officerrnfrom Connecticut for not working hisrnplantation laborers hard enough.rnIn a private conversation with an Englishmanrnafter the war, R.E. Lee is supposedrnto have been asked who was therngreatest soldier produced by the Americanrnwar and to have unhesitatinglyrnreplied: Forrest. Richard Taylor won fewerrnvictories than Forrest, but those herndid win exhibited a similar ability to triumphrnby skill and will against long odds.rnIn the Red River Campaign in Louisianarnin the spring of 1864, Taylor, with vastlyrnoutnumbered and under-equippedrnforces, defeated a huge federal militarynavalrnexpedition. (Of course, the federalsrnhad the misfortune to be commandedrnby one of many Republican politicalrngenerals, “Commissary” Banks of Massachusetts.)rnAfter Forrest, Taylor mayrnhave been the best nonprofessionalrngeneral produced by the war, thoughrnthe South Carolinian Wade Hamptonrnis also a contender.rnTogether, Taylor and Forrest representedrnextremes of Southern society:rnTaylor the well-educated, wealthy, cosmopolitanrnson of a President; Forrest thernunpolished, self-made son of a frontierrnblacksmith. The two men, at such timesrnas they collaborated, got along famously.rnTaylor had the respect for Forrest that allrngood soldiers had, and Forrest is reportedrnto have said of Taylor: “He’s thernbiggest man in the lot. If we’d had morernlike him, we would have licked thernYankees long ago.” Both gave their allrn(which was a great deal) to their cause,rnand both ended the war shattered inrnhealth and fortune.rnTaylor’s biographer is clearly not sympatheticrnwith the conservative, aristocraticrnvalues and way of life that his subjectrnfollowed, but he is able to examinernthem with judicial impartiality. For thernterrible simplifiers of American racialrnhistory, such impartiality complicatesrnthe evidence: Union forces devastatedrnTaylor’s plantation, thereby incidentallyrnturning his slaves out to starve. (They alsornnailed the family pets to a barn.) Andrnconsider the remarks of Sherman, then arnLouisiana college president acquaintedrnwith Taylor, just before the war: “If theyrn[Southerners] design to protect themselvesrnagainst negroes and abolitionists, Irnwill help; if they propose to leave thernUnion on account of a supposed factrnthat the northern people are all abolitionistsrn. . . I will stand by Ohio and thernNorthwest.”rnStanton Garner’s The Civil War Worldrnof Herman Melville shifts our attentionrnfrom the soldiers of the South to therncivilian North: a dense and detailed (perhapsrntoo dense and detailed) account ofrnMelville’s life, art, and mind in relationrnto the war. The book is an original contribution,rnwith many virtues. It is notrnonly literary history, but social and intellectualrnhistory as well.rnIn 1861 Melville was a literary hasbeen,rnliving in genteel poverty andrnchiefly remembered as the author ofrnTypee. Moby Dick, published ten yearsrnearlier, had been a complete critical andrncommercial failure, its author barely toleratedrnby the controlling Boston mafia ofrnAmerican literature. Melville had, seemingly,rnalready consigned himself to oblivionrnwhen the war revived his literary aspirationsrnand he undertook to record andrninterpret it in poetry, the result beingrnBattle-Pieces, a collection published inrn1866. This work has generally been regardedrnas unimportant, the work of anrnauthor emotionally disengaged from hisrnsubject, lost in his own fantasies. To therncontrary, Garner contends that it is thernmost important body of poetry producedrnby an American about the war and by arnwriter deeply engaged—an argument forrnwhich he makes a strong case.rnOne problem, of course, was thatrnMelville’s book was too profound for itsrntime, when popular Northern war poetryrnconsisted largely of sentimental jinglesrnand blasphemous pseudo-hymns.rnThough Garner does not put it exactlyrnthis way, another problem was that thernwork was politically incorrect: Melvillernrefused to believe that God took sides inrnwar and regarded the conflict betweenrnthe American states as an immenserntragedy bearable only when understoodrnas part of the partially unknowable planrnof divine providence. The outcome, forrnMelville, was foreordained and providential,rna fact that did not however abrogaternthe ambiguity and pain of humanrnaction, decision, and suffering. (“O,rnmuch of doubt in after days / Shall cling,rnas now, to the war. / Of the right andrnwrong they’ll still debate.” “Powerrnunanointed may come— / Dominionrn(unsought by the free) / . . . But thernFounders’ dream shall flee.”) Considerrnthese lines, reflecting on the employmentrnof powerful artillery against therncivilians of Charleston:rnWho weeps for the woeful CityrnLet him weep for our guilty kind;rnWho joys at her wild despairingrnChrist, the Forgiver, convert hisrnmind.rnGarner’s book has many incidentalrnvirtues. Its author treats Melville, as indeedrna 19th-century American shouldrnbe treated, as a member of an extendedrnfamily, not as an alienated artist of thernmodern type. Garner understands thatrnMelville needs to be seen in relation to arnhuge circle of siblings, aunts and uncles,rncousins, and in-laws whose viewpointsrnand experiences must be recognized asrnpart of his creative material.rnOne advantage of this approach is thatrnit forces the author to recognize andrncome to terms with the existence of thernforgotten millions of Northerners whornpreferred McClellan’s civilized and limitedrnwar to Sherman’s terrorism againstrncivilians; who resisted and resented Lincoln’srnincipient dictatorship and destructionrnof the Constitution (Melvillernwas probably kept under surveillance byrnmilitary spies in New York); and who regardedrndefeated Southerners as erringrnfellow countrymen, better treated withrnmagnanimity than malice. This makesrnfor some very interesting neglectedrnhistory. Garner also keeps tabs on otherrnNorthern writers in the course of hisrnstudy of Melville: Whitman, who sawrnmuch of the war firsthand but was largelyrnunable to rise above subjective experi-rnMAY 1994/33rnrnrn