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3-400 Union soldiers were murdered in cold blood at Fort Pillow.

You forget that soldiers die in battle -- Fort Pillow was a battle that the Federals lost big time. Claiming that that many Union soldiers were murdered in cold blood does not match what happened though I have no doubt that some, perhaps many, were killed as they tried to surrender.

Shortly before this battle, Negro troops reportedly fired on surrendering Confederate troops in Virginia. This incident was published (in the South anyway) in The Daily Picayune newspaper of New Orleans on February 9, 1864. They published a January 1864 letter of complaint about it to US Gen. Wilde, Commanding Colored Brigade, Headquarters Forces on Blackwater, Franklin, VA from CSA Colonel Joel R. Griffin. Perhaps this was one of the reasons Negro troops suffered so heavily at Fort Pillow. Negro troops were also reported to have been firing during the truce at Fort Pillow.

The Picayune reported the words of a Union captain captured at Fort Pillow: "Capt. Young, Provost Marshall, was taken prisoner, slightly wounded, and paroled the liberty of their camps, and allowed to see his wife. He says that our troops [the Federals] behaved gallantly throughout the whole action, that our loss [Federals again] in killed will exceed 200; he also stated that Gen. Forrest shot one of his own men for refusing quarters to our men."

New Orleans was run by the Federal Army at this point in time and so the Picayune would have been subject to their control. The Picayune is a good source of information compiled from other newpapers and sources from both North and South. The Picayune clearly labeled the sources of their information. In this case, Capt. Young's words were reported in the Memphis Argus. Memphis was also in Federal hands.

3-400 Union soldiers were murdered in cold blood at Fort Pillow.

You forget that soldiers die in battle -- Fort Pillow was a battle that the Federals lost big time.

You and I had a refreshingly civil exchange on this Fort Pillow thing on another thread. The reason I cite "3-400" is because of the evidence you introduced. The one website that I found cited contemporary sources as saying 400 Union men were murdered after they had surrendered.

If it were 200, 300 or 400, there is no parallel to that sort of treatment of CSA POW's by the Union.

Walt

Had Fort Pillow been an isolated incident then it would be easy to explain it as an exaggeration or just one of the tragedies which occasionally happen in war. But it wasn't an isolated incident. From Fort Pillow in Tennessee to Olustee in Florida, from Poison Spring in Arkansas to the Crater outside of Petersburg the record is full of incident after incident of confederate troops shooting black Union troops while they were trying to surrender or after they had surrendered. And their record against white Union Troops from states like Tennessee and North Carolina isn't much better. Forrest's troop also executed white POWs from the Thirteenth West Tennessee Cavalry at Fort Pillow. At Laurel Springs, North Carolina, Confederate soldiers murdered fifteen Unionists ranging in age from thirteen to sixty and in Kinston, North Carolina, George Pickett ordered twenty-two North Carolinians captured in Union uniforms hanged for desertion. I'm not aware of similar activities from the Union side.