Confederate "Heritage" Month, April 4: Again on the Fort Pillow massacre

In yesterday's post I discussed the Fort Pillow Massacre report of the Joint Select Committee on the Conduct of the War. Here I'm providing an excerpt from the report summary describing their findings. It was 1864 and three years into a civil war, and the report engages in a bit of purple prose. But by investigated the massacre immediately after it occurred, they were able to provide a critical record of the ugly event itself, which occurred in April 1864. I've added paragraph breaks here:

Then followed a scene of cruelty and murder without a parallel in civilized warfare, which needed but the tomahawk and scalping-knife to exceed the worst atrocities ever committed by savages. The rebels commenced an indiscriminate slaughter, sparing neither age nor sex, white or black, soldier or civilian. 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.

All over the hillside the work of murder was going on; numbers of our men were collected together in lines or groups and deliberately shot; some were shot while in the river, while others on the bank were shot and their bodies kicked into the water, many of them still living but unable to make any exertions to save themselves from drowning. Some of the rebels stood on the top of the hill or a short distance down its side, and called to our soldiers to come up to them, and as they approached, shot them down in cold blood; if their guns or pistols missed fire, forcing them to stand there until they were again prepared to fire. All around were heard cries of "No quarter!" "No quarter!" "Kill the damned niggers; shoot them down!" All who asked for mercy were answered by the most cruel taunts and sneers. Some were spared for a time, only to be murdered under circumstances of greater cruelty.

No cruelty which the most fiendish malignity could devise was omitted by these murderers. One white soldier who was wounded in one leg so as to be unable to walk, was made to stand up while his tormentors shot him; others who were wounded and unable to stand were held up and again shot. One negro who had been ordered by a rebel officer to hold his horse, was killed by him when he remounted; another, a mere child, whom an officer had taken up behind him on his horse, was seen by Chalmers, who at once ordered the officer to put him down and shoot him, which was done. The huts and tents in which many of the wounded had sought shelter were set on fire, both that night and the next morning, while the wounded were still in them — those only escaping who were able to get themselves out, or who could prevail on others less injured than themselves to help them out; and even some of those thus seeking to escape the flames were met by those ruffians and brutally shot down, or had their brains beaten out.

One man was deliberately fastened down to the floor of a tent, face upwards, by means of nails driven through his clothing and into the boards under him, so that he could not possibly escape, and then the tent set on fire; another was nailed to the side of a building outside of the fort, and then the building set on fire and burned. The charred remains of five or six bodies were afterwards found, all but one so much disfigured and consumed by the flames that they could not be identified, and the identification of that one is not absolutely certain, although there can hardly be a doubt that it was the body of Lieutenant Akerstrom, quartermaster of the 13th Tennessee cavalry, and a native Tennesseean; several witnesses who saw the remains, and who were personally acquainted with him while living, have testified that it is their firm belief that it was his body that was thus treated.

Here is the transcript of one of the witnesses quoted in the report:

Arthur Edwards, (colored,) private, company C, 6th United States heavy artillery, sworn and examined.

By the chairman :

Question. Where were yon raised?
Answer. In Mississippi.
Question. Were yon in Fort Pillow when it was taken?
Answer. Yes, sir.
Question. Tell what you saw there.
Answer. I was shot after I surrendered.
Question. When?
Answer. About half past four o'clock.
Question. Where were you when yon were shot?
Answer. I was lying down behind a log.
Question. Were were you shot?
Answer. In the head first, then in the shoulder, then in my right wrist; and
then in the head again, about half an hour after that.
Question. How many men shot at you?
Answer. One shot at me three times, and then a lieutenant shot at me.
Question. Did they say anything when they shot you?
Answer. No, sir, only I asked them not to shoot me, and they said, "God damn you, you are fighting against your master."
Question. How near was the man to yon when he shot yon?
Answer. He squatted down, and held his pistol close to my head.
Question. How near was the officer to you when he shot you?
Answer. About five or ten feet off; he was sitting on his horse.
Question. Who said yon were fighting against your master?
Answer. The man that shot me.
Question. What did the officer my?
Answer. Nothing, but "you God damned nigger." A captain told him not to do it, but he did not mind him; he shot me, and run off on his horse.
Question. Did yon see the captain?
Answer. Yes, sir; he and the captain were side by side.
Question. Did yon know the captain?
Answer. No, sir.
Question. How long did yon stay there?
Answer. Until next morning about 9 o'clock.
Question. How did you get away?
Answer. When the gunboat commenced shelling I went down the hill, and staid there until they carried down a flag of truce. Then the gunboat came to the bank, and a secesh [Rebel] lieutenant made us go down to such a place, and told us to go no further, or we would get shot again. Then the gunboat men came along to bury the dead, and told us to go on the boat.
Question. Did you sec anybody shot after they had surrendered, besides yourself?
Answer. Yes, sir; they shot one right by me, and lots of the 13th Tennessee cavalry.
Quest ion. After they had surrendered?
Answer. Yes, sir.
Question. Do you know whether any were buried alive?
Answer. Not that I saw.
Question. Did you see anybody buried?
Answer. No, sir.
Question. Did you sec anybody shot the day after the fight?
Answer. No, sir. (pp. 22-3)

Tags: confederate heritage month 2013, fort pillow massacre, nathan bedford forrest

Confederate "Heritage" Month 2013: Nathan Bedford Forrest and the politics of the Ft. Pillow massacre

The persistence of neo-Confederate themes into the present day is illustrated by this report on a Ku Klux Klan rally this past weekend in Memphis from Don Terry for the SPLC's Hatewatch site, Under Huge Police Presence, Memphis Uneasily Faces the Klan 03/31/2013:

Officials said 61 white supremacists showed up for the rally to protest the city’s decision in early February to rename three Confederate-themed parks, including one honoring Nathan Bedford Forrest (now Health Sciences Park), the wealthy slave trader and ruthless Rebel cavalry officer who later became the first national leader of the KKK. (The others were Confederate Park, now Memphis Park, and Jefferson Davis Park, now Mississippi River Park.) When North Carolina-based Klan leaders first announced the rally a few days after the parks were renamed, they said they would be bringing “thousands of Klansmen’’ to Memphis for “one of the biggest KKK rallies of all time.”

The threat was like a bad flashback for city officials. In 1998, the last time the Klan rallied here, the streets were filled with tear gas and the sound of broken windows as hundreds of anti-Klan demonstrators clashed with police. There were about 25 arrests.

History did not repeat itself Saturday. The Klan was brought in and out of the rally site on city buses, escorted by police. According to media reports, there was one arrest and police "removed" a few people from the protest area, including a teenage boy with a Confederate flag draped over his shoulder. In 1998, there were more than 1,200 anti-Klan demonstrators and onlookers on hand. This time, it appears many potential protesters were drawn away from downtown to a counter-event hastily organized by business leaders and city officials called Heart of Memphis, an all-day gathering held at the fairground with food, music and panels on improving race relations in the city of more than 600,000. [my emphasis]

Nathan Bedford Forrest became nationally infamous for the massacre of African-American Union soldiers at Fort Pillow in April 1984 1864 by Rebel troops under his command after the Federals had thrown down their weapons in surrender.

Contemporary depiction of the Fort Pillow Massacre (Harper's Weekly 04/30/1864 issue)

The Congressional Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War took testimony and published a Fort Pillow Massacre report in 1964 just after the event; the massacre itself occurred on April 12, 1864. Although the report was carefully prepared and has held up well under historical examination, it and the Fort Pillow Massacre itself became objects of political controversy immediately and remained so for many years.

The book I've been citing in earlier posts, Black Flag Over Dixie: Racial Atrocities and Reprisals in the Civil War (2004) edited by Gregory Urwin, includes two chapters on the Fort Pillow Massacre, one of them being Albert Castel's "The Fort Pillow Massacre: A Fresh Examination of the Evidence" which first appeared in Civil War History 4 (Mar 1958). In his introduction, Urwin calls it a "now-classic article that proved the victorious Rebels had slaughtered surrendering and wounded African American. Caste's work has stood the test of time and continues to be the starting point for all serious studies of this event." But, as he also notes, despite it being the "most infamous massacre of U>S> Colored Troops" during the Civil War - thought the massacre at the Crater was larger - it remains a subject of polemics for neo-Confederates. "A strong Forrest cult exists among fans of the Lost Cause, and Confederate apologists have composed elaborate arguments to deny that the general and his cavalrymen were guilty of any war crimes at Fort Pillow."

The safely staid Encyclopædia Britannica's article on the "Fort Pillow Massacre" says, "Confederate forces under General Nathan B. Forrest captured Fort Pillow on April 12, 1864, and proceeded to kill all the black troops within; some were burned or buried alive. A Federal congressional investigating committee subsequently verified that more than 300 blacks, including women and children, had been slain after the fort surrendered. After the incident, black soldiers going into battle used the cry 'Remember Fort Pillow!'" (Encyclopædia Britannica Ultimate Reference Suite, 2012) Although given the greater severity of the Crater incident, it's odd to see Britannica calling Fort Pillow "the ugliest racial incident of the war."

For his part, Castel wrote, "An analysis of both the Northern and Southern evidence leads to the conclusion that Forrest's troops, having captured Fort Pillow as a result of superior strength and tactics, out of a combination of race hatred, personal animosity, and battle fury then proceeded to kill a large number of the garrison after they had either ceased resisting or were incapable of resisting." Castel's someone clinical wording presumably reflects the weight that the neo-Confederate view had in 1958 among professional historians who should have known better. But the facts in this case were on the Yankees' side, as he explains:

... it is the considered opinion of the writer that the testimony gathered by the committee is of historical and scholarly value, if used, as all ex parte evidence of its type must be, with critical discrimination. While it does contain certain contradictions and weaknesses, most of these are attributable more to the physical and psychological condition of the witnesses - many of whom were wounded, and all of whom, most likely, were bitter toward the Confederates - than to the political and personal motivations of the investigators. In other words, the writer is totally unable to accept the Southern charge that the committee's report was a conspiracy of falsification and fabrication. On the contrary, he finds the testimony it contains strong, consistent, and convincing on the main point of issue: massacre of the garrison after it had quit fighting. Moreover, much of the testimony is repeated in affidavits independently obtained by the Federal military authorities, Finally, the Confederate testimony not only contains a sizable number of contradictions and errors but was obviously motivated throughout by a desire to soften the facts of the massacre and to exonerate the great Southern military hero, Forrest. [my emphasis]

Urwin's book also includes an essay by Derek Frisby, "'Remember Fort Pillow!' Politics, Atrocity Propaganda, and the Evolution of Hard War."

The Committee's report, which Frisby attributes to Chairman Benjamin Wade, Senator from Ohio, "an ardent abolitionist and a leading Radical." Frisby claims, "Through the sheer force of Wade's domineering personality, the committee's policies and those of its chairman became practically indistinguishable." Frisby doesn't seem to like Wade in particular very much, and plays up the ways in which the Committee report was used for propaganda purposes. But he recognizes that not only was the report substantively accurate, but that its publication and usage by the Radical Republicans "to charge Southerners with additional fiendish behavior and thereby demonstrate the need for Radical military and Reconstruction policies" were effective in strengthening support for the war, serving "as a rallying point to invigorate soldiers to fight," and increasing support among Northern whites for the continued use of "colored" soldiers and giving them equal pay. And he writes:

Overwhelmingly, the available historical evidence from both Union and Confederate sources independent of Wade's investigation proves that atrocities were indeed committed. Thus, to paraphrase Lincoln, it mattered little whether thirty or three hundred were murdered, the Fort Pillow fight still qualifies as a massacre. But Fort Pillow was not the first or last time Rebel troops committed such outrages, nor was it even the largest racial massacre of the war. Nevertheless, this incident received a congressional investigation and held much of the public's attention during the crucial spring of 1864. The historical significance of Fort Pillow lies not in determining the number of black soldiers killed there or the manner in which they died but in how and why Union officials shaped the perception of the "Fort Pillow Massacre" and the effect this perception had on the Union war effort and Reconstruction. The Fort Pillow Report not only revealed what the Civil War had become but what the Radicals wanted the war to be: a hard war to overthrow the Southern slaveocracy and reconstruct the society that supported it. As George Julian said shortly after the report's publication, "A grand opportunity now presents itself for recognizing the principles of radical democracy in the establishment of new and regenerated states."

Frisby seems to find the Radical goals distasteful if now downright reprehensible. But he does recognize the accuracy of the charges and the reasons for their effectiveness.

But the passage he quotes is a little too "postmodern" for my taste. The victims very much did matter, their sacrifice was real and important, even if it hadn't played such a key role in public opinion. The "perception of the 'Fort Pillow Massacre'" is a part of the political story. But his dismissing the actual massacre of not being the real "historical significance" of the massacre rubs me the wrong way. And, honestly, did the Fort Pillow massacre reveal "what the Radicals wanted the war to be." A number of them, including Benjamin Wade he so evidently dislikes, were very vocal about what war policies they wanted, often much to President Lincoln's annoyance.

Which brings me back to a comment of Castel's, just before the passage quoted above on the accuracy of the Congressional investigative report: "Much of their criticism" from pro-Confederate partisans, "is more or less justified, particularly in regard to the propaganda intent of the committee's report."

Say what? The Confederates objected to the Yankees using the truth of the Fort Pillow racial massacre! Duh! What does that have to do with the report's accuracy? It was a civil war. Of course one side would try to discredit any claims of the other, dishonest though it was on the Confederacy's part.

Postwar advocates of the Confederate viewpoint didn't have reasons of state to justify their position in defense of the massacre.

The truth generally makes the best war propaganda.

Tags: confederate heritage month 2013, fort pillow massacre, nathan bedford forrest