Battle of Fort Pillow
Template:About Template:Short description Template:Use American English Template:Use mdy dates Template:Infobox military conflict The Battle of Fort Pillow, also known as the Fort Pillow Massacre, was fought on April 12, 1864, at Fort Pillow on the Mississippi River in Henning, Tennessee, during the American Civil War. The battle ended with Confederate soldiers commanded by Major General Nathan Bedford Forrest massacring Union soldiers (many of them U.S. Colored Troops) attempting to surrender. Military historian David J. Eicher concluded: "Fort Pillow marked one of the bleakest, saddest events of American military history."<ref name=Eicher657/>
Background
The United States's deployment of the United States Colored Troops combined with Abraham Lincoln's issuing of the Emancipation Proclamation profoundly angered the Confederacy, who called it "uncivilized".<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> In response, the Confederacy in May 1863 passed a law stating that black U.S. soldiers captured while fighting against the Confederacy would be turned over to the state, where the captured would be tried, according to state laws.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Fort Pillow was built in early 1862 by Gideon Johnson Pillow, a Confederate Brigadier General, on the Mississippi River Template:Convert north of Memphis and was used by both sides during the war. With the fall of New Madrid and Island No. 10 to U.S. Army forces, Confederate troops evacuated Fort Pillow on June 4 to avoid being cut off from the rest of the Confederate army. U.S. Army forces occupied Fort Pillow on June 6 and used it to protect the river approach to Memphis.
The fort stood on a high bluff and was protected by three lines of entrenchments arranged in a semicircle, with a protective parapet Template:Convert thick and Template:Convert high surrounded by a ditch. (During the battle, this design was a disadvantage to the defenders because they could not fire upon approaching troops without mounting the top of the parapet, which subjected them to enemy fire. Because of the width of the parapet, operators of the six artillery pieces of the fort found it difficult to depress their barrels enough to fire on the attackers once they got close.) A U.S. Navy gunboat, the USS New Era, commanded by Captain James Marshall, was also available for the defense.<ref>U.S. Congress JCCW, p. 3.</ref>
On March 16, 1864, Confederate Major General Nathan Bedford Forrest launched a month-long cavalry raid with 7,000 troopers into West Tennessee and Kentucky. Their objectives were to capture U.S. prisoners and supplies and to demolish posts and fortifications from Paducah, Kentucky, south to Memphis. Forrest's Cavalry Corps, which he called "the Cavalry Department of West Tennessee and North Mississippi", consisted of the divisions led by Brig. Gens. James R. Chalmers (brigades of Brig. Gen. Robert V. Richardson and Colonel Robert M. McCulloch) and General Abe Buford (brigades of Cols. Tyree H. Bell and A. P. Thompson).
The first of the two significant engagements in the expedition was the Battle of Paducah on March 25, where Forrest's men did considerable damage to the town and its military supplies. Forrest had tried to bluff U.S. Col. Stephen G. Hicks into surrender, warning, "If I have to storm your works, you may expect no quarter".<ref name=laz>Template:Cite book</ref> Hicks rejected the demand, as he knew that the fort could not be easily taken.<ref name=laz/>
Numerous skirmishes occurred throughout the region in late March and early April. Needing supplies, Forrest planned to move on Fort Pillow with about 1,500<ref>Foote, p. 108.</ref> to 2,500<ref>NPS website</ref> men. (He had detached part of his command under Buford to strike Paducah again.) He wrote on April 4, "There is a Federal force of 500 or 600 at Fort Pillow, which I shall attend to in a day or two, as they have horses and supplies which we need."<ref>Eicher, p. 655.</ref>
The U.S. Army garrison at Fort Pillow consisted of about 600 men, divided almost evenly between black and white troops. The black soldiers belonged to the 6th U.S. Regiment Colored Heavy Artillery and a section of the 2nd Colored Light Artillery (previously known as the Memphis Battery Light Artillery (African Descent)), under the overall command of Major Lionel F. Booth, who had been in the fort for only two weeks. Booth had been ordered to move his regiment from Memphis to Fort Pillow on March 28 to augment the cavalry, who had occupied the fort several weeks earlier. Many of the regiment were formerly enslaved people who understood the personal cost of a loss to the Confederates—at best, an immediate return to slavery rather than being treated as a prisoner of war. They had heard that some Confederates threatened to kill any black U.S. Army troops they encountered. The white soldiers were predominantly recruits from Bradford's Battalion, a U.S. Army unit from west Tennessee commanded by Maj. William F. Bradford.<ref>Bradford's unit was organized as the 13th West Tennessee Cavalry. Due to a mix-up in the U.S. Army records,Template:Citation needed it was later designated as Company A, 14th Tennessee Cavalry Regiment, and later as Company E, 6th Tennessee Cavalry.</ref>
Battle
Forrest arrived at Fort Pillow at 10:00 on April 12. By this time, Chalmers had already surrounded the fort. A stray bullet struck Forrest's horse, felling the general and bruising him. This was the first of three horses he lost that day.<ref>Foote, p. 109.</ref> He deployed sharpshooters around the higher ground that overlooked the fort, bringing many occupants into their direct line of fire. A sharpshooter's bullet to the chest killed Major Booth, and Bradford assumed command. By 11:00, the Confederates had captured two rows of barracks about Template:Convert from the southern end of the fort. The U.S. Army soldiers had failed to destroy these buildings before the Confederates occupied them, and they subjected the garrison to a murderous fire.Template:Cn
Rifle and artillery fire continued until 3:30 when Forrest sent a note demanding surrender: "The conduct of the officers and men garrisoning Fort Pillow has been such as to entitle them to being treated as prisoners of war. I demand the unconditional surrender of the entire garrison, promising that you shall be treated as prisoners of war. My men have just received a fresh supply of ammunition, and from their present position can easily assault and capture the fort. Should my demand be refused, I cannot be responsible for the fate of your command." Bradford replied, concealing his identity as he did not wish the Confederates to realize that Booth had been killed, requesting an hour for consideration.<ref>Template:Usurped |On this date in Civil War history – Fort Pillow Massacre – April 12, 1864</ref><ref>Template:Cite encyclopedia</ref> Forrest, who believed that reinforcing troops would soon arrive by a river, replied that he would only allow 20 minutes, and that "If at the expiration of that time the fort is not surrendered, I shall assault it."<ref>Template:Cite encyclopedia</ref> Bradford refused this opportunity with a final reply: "I will not surrender."<ref>Template:Cite encyclopedia</ref> Forrest then ordered his bugler to sound the charge.<ref>Template:Cite encyclopedia</ref>
The Confederate assault was furious. While the sharpshooters maintained their fire into the fort, the first wave entered the ditch and stood while the second wave used their backs as stepping stones. These men then reached down and helped the first wave scramble up a ledge on the embankment. This proceeded flawlessly and with very little firing, except for the sharpshooters and around the flanks. Their fire against the New Era caused the sailors to button up their gun ports and hold their fire. As the sharpshooters were signaled to hold their fire, the men on the ledge went up and over the embankment, firing now for the first time into the massed defenders. The garrison fought briefly but then broke and ran to the landing at the foot of the bluff, where they had been told that the U.S. Navy gunboat would cover their withdrawal by firing grapeshot and canister rounds. Because its gun ports remained sealed, the gunboat did not fire a single shot. The fleeing soldiers were subjected to fire from the rear and flank. Many were shot down. Others reached the river only to drown or be picked off in the water by sharpshooters on the bluff.Template:Cn
Massacre
Although Confederate sources say that Forrest's forces kept firing in self-defense,<ref>Cottrell, Steve, Civil War in Tennessee, p. 112</ref> official U.S. reports emphasize that a deliberate massacre occurred. U.S. Army survivors said that even though all their troops surrendered, Forrest's men massacred some in cold blood. Surviving members of the garrison said that most of their men surrendered and threw down their arms, only to be shot or bayoneted by the attackers, who repeatedly shouted, "No quarter! No quarter!"<ref name="bailey25">Bailey, p. 25.</ref>
It was reported that women and children were killed, but this was disputed by Dr. C. Fitch, who was a surgeon of the Fort Pillow garrison: "Early in the morning all of the women and all of the noncombatants were ordered on to some barges, and were towed by a gunboat up the river to an island before any one was hurt."<ref>Southern Historical Society Papers, Vol. VII, p. 439</ref>Template:Full citation needed The testimony of Captain Marshall supports this. He stated that all the women, children, and sick soldiers were removed to an island before the battle started.<ref name="Williams, Harry p. 40"/> The strongest evidence that the Confederates did not kill the women and children is that no one reported seeing the bodies of women and children among the slain.<ref>Castel, Albert, Winning and Losing in the Civil War: Essays and Stories, p. 47</ref>
The Joint Committee On the Conduct of the War immediately investigated the incident, which was widely publicized in the U.S. press. Stories appeared April 16 in The New York Times, New York Herald, New-York Tribune, Chicago Tribune, Cincinnati Gazette, and St. Louis Missouri Democrat, based on telegraph reports from Cairo, Illinois, where the steamer Platte Valley, carrying survivors, had called so that they could be taken to a hospital at nearby Mound City, Illinois, and those that had expired on the ship could be buried.<ref name=Civil>Template:Cite book</ref>Template:Rp In their report, from which the previous quotes were taken, they concluded that the Confederates shot most of the garrison after it had surrendered.
A letter from one of Forrest's sergeants, Achilles V. Clark, writing to his sisters on April 14, reads in part:
A 2002 study by Albert Castel concluded that Forrest's troops had killed a large number of the garrison "after they had either ceased resisting or were incapable of resistance".<ref>Castel, p. 48</ref> Historian Andrew Ward in 2005 concluded that an atrocity in the modern sense occurred at Fort Pillow, but that the event was not premeditated nor officially sanctioned by Confederate commanders.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
Recent histories concur that a massacre occurred. Historian Richard Fuchs, the author of An Unerring Fire, concludes, "The affair at Fort Pillow was simply an orgy of death, a mass lynching to satisfy the basest of conduct—intentional murder—for the vilest of reasons—racism and personal enmity."<ref>Richard Fuchs, An Unerring Fire: The Massacre At Fort Pillow (Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania: Stackpole, 2002), p. 14.</ref> Ward states, "Whether the massacre was premeditated or spontaneous does not address the more fundamental question of whether a massacre took place ... it certainly did, in every dictionary sense of the word."<ref>Ward (2005), p. 227.</ref> John Cimprich states, "The new paradigm in social attitudes and the fuller use of available evidence has favored a massacre interpretation. ... Debate over the memory of this incident formed a part of sectional and racial conflicts for many years after the war, but the reinterpretation of the event during the last thirty years offers some hope that society can move beyond past intolerance."<ref>John Cimprich, Fort Pillow: A Civil War Massacre and Public Memory(Louisiana State University Press, 2005), pp. 123–124.</ref>
Lieutenant Daniel Van Horn of the 6th U.S. Heavy Artillery (Colored) stated in his official report, "There never was a surrender of the fort, both officers and men declaring they never would surrender or ask for quarter."<ref name="WarDept1891">Template:Cite book</ref> Another unit officer, however, and the only surviving officers of Bradford's Battalion, attested to the characterization that unarmed soldiers were killed in the act of surrendering.
Forrest's men insisted that the U.S. soldiers, although fleeing, kept their weapons and frequently turned to shoot, forcing the Confederates to keep firing in self-defense.<ref name="bailey25"/> Their claim is consistent with the discovery of numerous U.S. Army rifles on the bluffs near the river.<ref name=Jordan1947>Jordan</ref> The U.S. flag was still flying over the fort, which indicated that the force had not formally surrendered. A contemporary newspaper account from Jackson, Tennessee, states that "General Forrest begged them to surrender", but "not the first sign of surrender was ever given". Similar accounts were reported in both Southern and Northern newspapers at the time.<ref>Cimprich and Mainfort, pp. 293–306.</ref>
Historian Allan Nevins wrote that although the interpretation of the facts had "provoked some disputation":
The New York Times reported on April 24:
Forrest's dispatch stated:<ref>Template:Cite encyclopedia</ref>
General Ulysses S. Grant quoted Forrest's dispatch in his Personal Memoirs and commented: "Subsequently, Forrest made a report in which he left out the part which shocks humanity to read."<ref name=Grant>U.S. Grant, Personal Memoirs (Library of America, 1990), p. 483.</ref><ref>Chernow, 2017, p. 373</ref>
John Fisher, in his book They Rode with Forrest and Wheeler, wrote, "Grant refers here to two reports from Forrest to his superior officer, Leonidas Polk: (1) a hasty, exuberant report dated April 15, 1864, dashed off three days after the attack on Fort Pillow, describing the success of Forrest's recent operations in West Tennessee, and (2) a well-defined, detailed, and comprehensive report of the action at Fort Pillow only dated April 26."<ref>Fisher, pp. 145–146.</ref>
At the time of the massacre, General Grant was no longer in Tennessee, having transferred to the east to command all U.S. Army troops.<ref>William T. Sherman, Memoirs of General W.T. Sherman (Library of America, 1990), p. 463.</ref> Major General William Tecumseh Sherman, Commander of the Military Division of the Mississippi, which included Tennessee, wrote:
Military aftermath
Casualty figures vary according to the source. In 1908, Dyer gave the following statistics of U.S. Army casualties: 350 killed and mortally wounded, 60 wounded, 164 captured and missing—574 in the aggregate.<ref>Dyer, Frederick H., A Compendium of the War of Rebellion (Des Moines: The Dyer Publishing Company 1908), p. 590.</ref>
Confederate casualties were comparatively low (14 killed and 86 wounded), and U.S. casualties were high. Of the 585 to 605 U.S. men present, 277 to 297 were reported as dead. Jordan, in the mid-20th century, suggested that U.S. deaths were exaggerated.<ref name="Jordan1947" /> Historians agree that defenders' casualties varied considerably according to race. Only 58 (around 20%) black soldiers were taken prisoner, whereas 168 (about 60%) white soldiers were taken prisoner. Not all of the prisoners who were shot were black; Major Bradford was apparently among those shot after surrendering.<ref>Eicher, p. 657; U.S. Congress JCCW, p. 103.</ref>
The Confederates evacuated Fort Pillow that evening and gained little from the battle except causing a temporary disruption to U.S. Army operations. U.S. forces used the "Fort Pillow massacre" as a rallying cry in the following months.<ref name=Crater>Template:Cite news</ref> For many, it strengthened their resolve to see the war to its conclusion.Template:Citation needed
On April 17, 1864, in the aftermath of Fort Pillow, General Grant ordered General Benjamin F. Butler, who was negotiating prisoner exchanges with the Confederacy, to demand that black soldiers be treated identically to whites in the exchange and treatment of prisoners. He directed that a failure to do so would "be regarded as a refusal on their part to agree to the further exchange of prisoners, and [would] be so treated by us."<ref>Fuchs, pp. 143–44.</ref>
This demand was refused; Confederate Secretary of War James Seddon in June 1864 wrote:
The United States already had established a policy to discourage killing and enslaving prisoners of war. On July 30, 1863, before the massacre, President Abraham Lincoln wrote his Order of Retaliation:
This policy did not lead to any action, but the threat of action led the Confederate army tacitly to treat black U.S. Army soldiers as legitimate soldiers, rather than formerly enslaved people, for the remainder of the war.<ref name=Cimprich>Template:Cite news</ref> Nevertheless, the same merciless behavior was exhibited by Southern troops after the Battle of the Crater in July 1864, where surrendering black U.S. soldiers were shot rather than taken prisoner.<ref name=Crater />
Political aftermath
On May 3, 1864, Lincoln asked his cabinet for opinions on how the United States should respond to the massacre.<ref>Lincoln, Abraham. "Abraham Lincoln to Cabinet, Tuesday, May 03, 1864 (Fort Pillow massacre)". Abraham Lincoln Papers at the Library of Congress. May 3, 1864 (accessed December 1, 2012).</ref> Secretary of the Treasury Salmon P. Chase recommended for Lincoln to enforce his Order of Retaliation of July 30, 1863.<ref>Chase, Salmon P. "Salmon P. Chase to Abraham Lincoln, Friday, May 06, 1864 (Opinion on Fort Pillow massacre)". The Abraham Lincoln Papers at the Library of Congress. May 6, 1864 (accessed December 2, 2012).</ref> Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles wanted to wait for the congressional committee to obtain more information. Welles expressed concerns in his diary: "There must be something in these terrible reports, but I distrust Congressional committees. They exaggerate."<ref>Welles, Gideon. Diary of Gideon Welles. Vol II (Boston and New York: Houghton and Mifflin Company, 1911), p. 23.</ref> Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton and Attorney General Edward Bates wanted to retaliate.<ref>Stanton, Edwin M. "Edwin M. Stanton to Abraham Lincoln, Thursday May 05, 1864 (Opinion on Fort Pillow massacre)". The Abraham Lincoln Papers at the Library of Congress. May 5, 1864 (accessed December 2, 2012).</ref><ref>Bates, Edward. "Edward Bates to Abraham Lincoln, Wednesday, May 4, 1864 (Opinion on Fort Pillow massacre)". The Abraham Lincoln Papers at the Library of Congress. May 4, 1863 (accessed December 1, 2012).</ref> Secretary of the Interior John P. Usher wrote that it was "inexpedient to take any extreme action" and wanted the officers of Forrest's command to be held responsible.<ref>Usher, John P. "John P. Usher to Abraham Lincoln, Friday, May 6, 1864 (Opinion on Fort Pillow massacre)". The Abraham Lincoln Papers at the Library of Congress. May 6, 1864 (accessed December 2, 2012).</ref> Postmaster General Montgomery Blair wanted the "actual offenders" given the "most summary punishment when captured". Blair cited page 445 of the book International Law; or, Rules Regulating the Intercourse of States in Peace and War, written by Henry W. Halleck (the U.S. Chief of Staff), as justification for retaliation.<ref name="Blair Opinion">Blair, Montgomery. "Montgomery Blair to Abraham Lincoln, Friday, May 06, 1864 (Opinion on Fort Pillow massacre)". The Abraham Lincoln Papers at the Library of Congress. May 6, 1864 (accessed December 2, 2012).</ref> Secretary of State William H. Seward wanted the commanding general of the U.S. Army to confront the commanding general of the Confederate army about the allegations.<ref>Seward, William H. "William H. Seward to Abraham Lincoln, Wednesday, May 4, 1864 (Opinion on Fort Pillow)". The Abraham Lincoln Papers at the Library of Congress. May 4, 1864 (accessed December 2, 2012).</ref>
Welles wrote of the cabinet meeting on May 6:
Lincoln began to respond to Stanton but took no subsequent action because he was "distracted" by other issues.<ref>see Note 1, Lincoln, Abraham. "Abraham Lincoln to William H. Seward, Tuesday, May 03, 1864 (Fort Pillow massacre)". Abraham Lincoln Papers at the Library of Congress. May 3, 1864 (accessed December 1, 2012). For Lincoln's unfinished instructions to Stanton, see Collected Works, VII, pp. 345–46.</ref> Ultimately, Lincoln chose no action on the issue, as he sadly noted to Frederick Douglass: "if once begun, there was no telling where [retaliation] would end." Lincoln further stated that only victory would genuinely bring justice, as the perpetrators "can only be effectually reached by a successful prosecution of the war".<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
Legacy
Fort Pillow, preserved as the Fort Pillow State Historic Park, was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1974.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
The remains of the killed were moved to Memphis National Cemetery in 1867. One hundred nine of the graves have been identified. As the signage at the Fort Pillow site makes little reference to the black soldiers killed, a wreath-laying ceremony, with color guard and a 21-gun salute, was held on April 12, 2017, at the cemetery to commemorate them.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
James Lockett compared the Confederacy's policy toward colored U.S. Army troops—"no quarter"—with the lynching and other violence against blacks after the war. In Southern minds, according to this writer, just as formerly enslaved people could not be voters or office-holders, they could not be soldiers either, and thus were not treated, at Fort Pillow and elsewhere, as surrendering soldiers.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
In popular culture
Numerous novelists have included the Fort Pillow story, including Frank Yerby's The Foxes of Harrow, James Sherburne's The Way to Fort Pillow; Allen Ballard, Where I'm Bound; Jesse Hill Ford, The Raider; and Charles Gordon Yeager, Fightin' with Forest.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
- At the start of chapter 29 of his Life on the Mississippi (1883), Mark Twain mentions passing by "... what was once the formidable Fort Pillow, memorable because of the massacre perpetrated there during the war ... we must bunch Anglo-Saxon history together to find the fellow to the Fort Pillow tragedy."
- African-American novelist Frank Yerby provided a brief narration of the massacre in his 1946 novel, The Foxes of Harrow (chapter XXXVI).<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
- Perry Lentz's novel The Falling Hills (1967, paperback 1994) centers on the Fort Pillow Massacre as its main plot element, with the book's two protagonists as members of the opposing sides in the battle.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
- The film Last Stand at Saber River (1997), based on the Elmore Leonard novel of the same name, featured a character (played by Tom Selleck) who was a Confederate soldier at the Fort Pillow massacre. The character returns to his home in the U.S. Southwest, where he describes the events as murder.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
- In 1999, Stan Armstrong produced the documentary The Forgotten Battle of Fort Pillow. It explores the details of the battle and Confederate General Bedford G. Forrest, who planned and led the attack.<ref>See Amazon report</ref>
- In the 2004 mockumentary film C.S.A.: The Confederate States of America, an analogous alternate history massacre takes place somewhere in the North, following the Confederacy winning the Civil War.
- Harry Turtledove published Fort Pillow (2006), a historical novel about the battle and the massacre. His earlier novel, the alternate history The Guns of the South (1992), also makes a brief reference to the Fort Pillow massacre, while his fantasy trilogy War Between the Provinces (1999–2001) references "Fort Cushion" as the analog.<ref>Stephen Davis, "John Bell Hood's Historiographical Journey; or How Did a Confederate General Become a Laudanum Addict?." Confederate Generals in the Western Theater 2 (2010): 217–232.</ref>
- In part 4 of the 2016 television miniseries Roots, the character Chicken George fights at the Battle of Fort Pillow but manages to escape.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
- In Template:Ill by Colombian doctor, anthropologist, and writer Manuel Zapata Olivella, the battle of Fort Pillow is described in the first person by one of its combatants.
See also
- List of massacres in the United States
- Centralia Massacre (Missouri), a similar event five months later
References
Notes Template:Reflist
Bibliography
- Bailey, Ronald H., and the Editors of Time-Life Books. Battles for Atlanta: Sherman Moves East. Alexandria, VA: Time-Life Books, 1985. Template:ISBN.
- Castel, Albert. "The Fort Pillow Massacre: A Fresh Examination of the Evidence", Civil War History 4 (March 1958).
- Cimprich, John, and Robert C. Mainfort, Jr., eds. "Fort Pillow Revisited: New Evidence About An Old Controversy", Civil War History 4 (Winter, 1982). [Note 2005 book by Cimprich, below.]
- Clark, Achilles V. "A Letter of Account." Edited by Dan E. Pomeroy. Civil War Times Illustrated 24(4) (June 1985).
- Eicher, David J. The Longest Night: A Military History of the Civil War. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2001. Template:ISBN.
- Fisher, John E. They Rode With Forrest and Wheeler: A Chronicle of Five Tennessee Brothers' Service in the Confederate Western Cavalry. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co., 1995. Template:ISBN.
- Foote, Shelby. The Civil War: A Narrative. Vol. 3, Red River to Appomattox. New York: Random House, 1974. Template:ISBN.
- Fuchs, Richard L. An Unerring Fire: The Massacre at Fort Pillow. Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 2002. Template:ISBN.
- Grant, Ulysses S. Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant. 2 vols. Charles L. Webster & Company, 1885–86. Template:ISBN.
- Grant, Ulysses S., Ulysses S. Grant: Memoirs & Selected Letters. Library of America, 1990. Template:ISBN.
- Template:Cite news
- Jordan, John L. "Was There a Massacre at Ft. Pillow?" Tennessee History Quarterly VI (June 1947): pp. 99–133.
- Nevins, Allan. The War for the Union. Vol. 4, The Organized War to Victory 1864–1865. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1971. Template:ISBN.
- Sherman, William T., Memoirs of General W.T. Sherman. Library of America, 1990. Template:ISBN.
- Template:Cite book
- U.S. Congress Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War, "Fort Pillow Massacre." House Report No. 65, 38th Congress, 1st Session.
- Ward, Andrew. River Run Red: The Fort Pillow Massacre in the American Civil War. New York: Viking Adult, 2005. Template:ISBN.
- National Park Service battle description
- CWSAC report update
Further reading
- Burkhardt, George S. "No Quarter." North & South – The Official Magazine of the Civil War Society, vol. 10, no. 1.
- Template:Cite book
- Frist, William Harrison, Jr. A Telling Battle: The Fort Pillow Massacre During the American Civil War, Senior Thesis No. 20318, Princeton University, 2006.
- Jordan, Thomas General, * Pryor J.P. Capt. The Campaigns Of General Nathan Bedford Forrest And Of Forrest's Cavalry, 1868, reprint 1996 Da Capo Press, Template:ISBN
- Lufkin, Charles L. “‘Not Heard From Since April 12, 1864:’ The Thirteenth Tennessee Cavalry, U.S.A.” Tennessee Historical Quarterly, vol. 45, no. 2, 1986, pp. 133–51. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/42626589.
- Template:Citation
- Silkenat, David. Raising the White Flag: How Surrender Defined the American Civil War. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2019. Template:ISBN.
- Wills, Brian Steel. The Confederacy's Greatest Cavalryman: Nathan Bedford Forrest. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1992. Template:ISBN.
- Template:Cite book
External links
- US and CSA official reports concerning Fort Pillow, Civil War Home website
- Illustration of the Massacre at Fort Pillow, Civil War Literature website
- Roster: 100 names of Confederate Casualties of Fort Pillow, Custermen website
- Roster: 590 names of Union Prisoners & Casualties of Fort Pillow, Custermen website
- Presentation by Andrew Ward (author of The River Ran Red. The Fort Pillow Massacre in the American Civil War
- Presentation by Fort Pillow Descendant Yulanda Burgess
- The Forgotten Battle of Fort Pillow, IMDb
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- Battles of the Western Theater of the American Civil War
- Confederate victories of the American Civil War
- Crimes against prisoners of war
- Forrest's Expedition into West Tennessee and Kentucky
- Lauderdale County, Tennessee
- Military history of African Americans in the American Civil War
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