Ysarex Loc: St. Louis

A letter from one of Forrest's own sergeants, Achilles V. Clark, writing to his sisters on April 14, reads in part:

"Our men were so exasperated by the Yankee's threats of no quarter that they gave but little. The slaughter was awful. Words cannot describe the scene. The poor deluded negros would run up to our men fall on their knees and with uplifted hands scream for mercy but they were ordered to their feet and then shot down. The whitte men fared but little better. The fort turned out to be a great slaughter pen. Blood, human blood stood about in pools and brains could have been gathered up in any quantity. I with several others tried to stop the butchery and at one time had partially succeeded but Gen. Forrest ordered them shot down like dogs and the carnage continued. Finally our men became sick of blood and the firing ceased."

A first hand account from Harper's Weekly, (30th April, 1864)

"The fight was then continued up until 3 p.m., when Major Booth was killed, and the rebels, in large numbers, swarmed over the intrenchments. Up to that time comparatively few of our men had been killed; but immediately upon occupying the place the rebels commenced an indiscriminate butchery of the whites and blacks, including the wounded. Both white and black were bayoneted, shot, or sabred; even dead bodies were horribly mutilated, and children of seven and eight years, and several negro women killed in cold blood. Soldiers unable to speak from wounds were shot dead, and their bodies rolled down the banks into the river. The dead and wounded negroes were piled in heaps and burned, and several citizens, who had joined our forces for protection, were killed or wounded. Out of the garrison of six hundred only two hundred remained a
alive. Three hundred of those massacred were negroes; five were buried alive."

From William Ferguson's letter to General Stephen A. Hurlbut

"U.S. STEAMER SILVER CLOUD,
Off Memphis, Tenn., April 14, 1864.

SIR: In compliance with your request that I would forward to you a written statement of what I witnessed and learned concerning the treatment of our troops by the rebels at the capture of Fort Pillow by their forces under General Forrest, I have the honor to submit the following report:

Our garrison at Fort Pillow, consisting of some 350 colored troops and 200 of the Thirteenth Tennessee Cavalry, refusing to surrender, the place was carried by assault about 3 p.m. of 12th instant.

I arrived off the fort at 6 a.m. on the morning of the 13th instant. Parties of rebel cavalry were picketing on the hills around the fort, and shelling those away I made a landing and took on-board some 20 of our troops (some of them badly wounded), who had concealed themselves along the bank and came out when they saw my vessel. While doing so I was fired upon by rebel sharpshooters posted on the hills, and 1 wounded man limping down to the vessel was shot.

About 8 a.m. the enemy sent in a flag of truce with a proposal from General Forrest that he would put me in possession of the fort and the country around until 5 p.m. for the purpose of burying our dead and removing our wounded, whom he had no means of attending to. I agreed to the terms proposed, and hailing the steamer Platte Valley, which vessel I had convoyed up from Memphis, I brought her alongside and had the wounded brought down from the fort and battle-field and placed on board of her. Details of rebel soldiers assisted us in this duty, and some soldiers and citizens on board the Platte Valley volunteered for the same purpose.

We found about 70 wounded men in the fort and around it, and buried, I should think, 150 bodies. All the buildings around the fort and the tents and huts in the fort had been burned by the rebels, and among the embers the charred remains of numbers of our soldiers who had suffered a terrible death in the flames could be seen.

All the wounded who had strength enough to speak agreed that after the fort was taken an indiscriminate slaughter of our troops was carried on by the enemy with a furious and vindictive savageness which was never equaled by the most merciless of the Indian tribes. Around on every side horrible testimony to the truth of this statement could be seen. Bodies with gaping wounds, some bayoneted through the eyes, some with skulls beaten through, others with hideous wounds as if their bowels had been ripped open with bowie-knives, plainly told that but little quarter was shown to our troops. Strewn from the fort to the river bank, in the ravines and hollows, behind logs and under the brush where they had crept for protection from the assassins who pursued them, we found bodies bayoneted, beaten, and shot to death, showing how cold-blooded and persistent was the slaughter of our unfortunate troops.

Of course, when a work is carried by assault there will always be more or less bloodshed, even when all resistance has ceased; but here there were unmistakable evidences of a massacre carried on long after any resistance could have been offered, with a cold-blooded barbarity and perseverance which nothing can palliate."

From a letter by Charles Robinson a civilian who was there:

“As soon as the rebels got to the top of the bank there commenced the most horrible slaughter that could possibly be conceived. Our boys when they saw that they were overpowered threw down their arms and held up, some their handkerchiefs & some their hands in token of surrender, but no sooner were they seen than they were shot down, & if one shot failed to kill them the bayonet or revolver did not. I lay behind a high log & could see our poor fellows bleeding and hear them cry ‘surrender’ ‘I surrender,’ but they surrendered in vain for the rebels now ran down the bank and putting their revolvers right to their heads would blow out their brains or lift them up on bayonets and throw them headlong into the river below.”

A first hand account from The Rebellion Record a list of primary sources:

“Then followed a scene of cruelty and murder without parallel in civilized warfare, which needed but the tomahawk and scalping- knife to exceed the worst atrocities over committed by savages. The rebels commenced an indiscriminate slaughter, neither sparing age nor sex, white nor black, civilian or soldier. The officers and men seemed to vie with each other in the devilish work; men, women, and even children, wherever found, were deliberately shot down, beaten, and hacked with sabres; some of the children not more than ten years old were forced to stand up and face their murderers while being shot; the sick and the wounded were butchered without mercy, the rebels even entering the hospital building and dragging them out to be shot or killing them as they lay there unable to offer the least resistance.”

willaim Loc: Sunny Southern California

Very good captures. The black and white give it a dramatic feel.

SonyBug

Well, the victor gets to write history. Ysarex does not post where he is from. I think that is important. Is it Boston, Washington, Calif, or Russia. I think that your location does have something to do with your views. I am originally a Yankee, and down in the South, I have run across old timers who still call the Civil War "the war of agression". There are a lot of views, and many of them are hand me downs that are very slanted and wrong. I was not alive then, and do not know what really happened, but I doubt the "lockem in a building and burn them all". Again, victors write history, and the new generation is writing it right now. Wonder what my great grandchild will hear when she is my age?

craigart14

The problem is that within a couple of decades after the end of the war, southerners re-wrote history with statues. A couple of years ago I checked all the statues on West Confederate Avenue on the Gettysburg battlefield. The inscriptions were pretty much the same from one to another, saying things like "They fought and died for their convictions, performing their duty as they understood it" (Tennessee). "On this ground our brave sires fought for their righteous cause; In glory they sleep who give to it their lives. To valor, they gave new dimensions of courage; To duty its noblest fulfillment; To posterity, the sacred heritage of honor"(Mississippi).

"That men of honor might forever know the responsibilities of freedom. Dedicated South Carolinians stood
and were counted for their heritage and convictions. Abiding faith in the sacredness of States Rights provided
their creed. Here many earned eternal glory" (South Carolina).

The rest of the inscriptions are basically more of the same: paeans to courage, honor, duty, and a couple of mentions of a "righteous cause" or a "sacred cause," and occasionally a mention of "states' rights," but there are no mentions of slavery or white superiority, both of which were foundational beliefs of the Confederacy, as stated in the four state declarations of secession issued by Mississippi, South Carolina, Georgia, Texas, and Virginia. Slavery, they argued, was an economic necessity, the "natural condition of the Negro," due to the superiority of the white man, the tropical heat in the South, etc. Even though Lincoln had promised not to tamper with the institution of slavery where it already existed, Jeff Davis and others were incensed by the possibility that they might not be allowed to take that institution into new states. It was all about slavery and white superiority. Of course, most Southerners didn't own slaves, but I doubt that means they weren't racists.
Secession brought war, and as usual the war was conducted by the rich, but the poor did the vast majority of the fighting and dying. As most of us know, the monuments started going up decades later, some funded by states, but others funded by Confederate organizations, many of which had Klan connections. Insofar as the South cared about states' rights, the only one they fought for was the "right" to own human beings.

ski Loc: West Coast, USA

I agree with your thought.... Great shots.... If our schools would teach American history again maybe we wouldn't have such behavior......

jaymatt Loc: Alexandria, Indiana

Those who truly know the history of the war know that slavery was a side issue; the real reason for the war was economics.

John7199 Loc: Eastern Mass.

What everyone seems to forget is that the confederates took up arms against the US. I don't think we have statues to Hilter or Tojo. It's the same thing.

DeanS Loc: Capital City area of North Carolina

👍👍👍

Properframe Loc: US Virginia

"folks are learning that so many of those Confederate monuments were installed..... 50 to 60 years after the war"

I have read elsewhere strong statements that a time interim taints the motive. One only need look at more current examples of monuments to see normalcy in the delay. The WWII monument on the National Mall was completed in 2004.

"The Klan couldn't get away with installing a statue of a couple guys in sheets and pointy hoods torching a cross so they put up a monument to the next best thing -- eg. Lt. general Forrest."

The Klan was so shockingly in plain view - including being involved in community parades and events - it would not have been any stretch to erect a statue to a Klansman at the time. The argument about Forrest I cannot espouse upon, but if numerically high, it seems out of the ordinary and biased. His butchery would not be a disqualification on its own much as Sherman is not disqualified from statuary for his atrocities.

Bluefish Loc: Berks County, PA

That 1st photo is great.

kensuhh

Is this still an area to post photos?
If they offend ? Do you need to look ?

Bill 45

All wars are about economics. South was a agriculture society and for that society to work it had slaveries to work in the fields. To destroy that agriculture society slavery had to gone. As the Civil War was coming to an end Union's military learers had a real fear that South's armies would cut and run in the woods and the war would become a gorilla war which their did not want. Because of that Union's generals like Grant and Sherman let the South off easy. Southern could not hand the fact that their slavery were now their equal. Everyone northern and southern want to put the war behind them. To do that was to put African- American out sight and out of mind. South after the war did not move forward but backward. One can still see the backward in the South. So the Civil War was about destroy slavery. That "state rights" was a code words to keep Africa-American down and out of sight. To African-American the Confederate's flag is a reminder of slavery and dead, just as the Nazi flag is to Jews.

craigart14

Actually, I think in this case the losers managed to write the history. Before the war, secession was about slavery. After the war, it was about states' rights.

imagerybox Loc: Elgin, IL

You are right. I just finished watching "Grant" on the History channel, there where so many things I never knew about the Civil War and politics from the that time!

rightofattila

Sherman let the South off easy? I'm pretty sure the citizens of Atlanta at the time would disagree. Lincoln was wrong . . the Southern states had every right to quit the union.