;>)
With this type of activity, it is understandable how a superior force could claim so many casualties. However, the issue is not so clear to Civil War historians. The first and biggest problem has to do with the information that different historians base their opinions on. For example, in a historical account written by Carl Sandburg it is reported that Forrest¹s troops stood 6,000 strong. This is slightly inflated from the actual 1,500 that were present. In this same account Sandburg claims that the ³battle ended as a mob scene with wholesale lynching²(Sandburg 247). It was distorted information such as this that was used by the Union as propaganda against the South. After the incident General FIRST NAME Kilpatrick was quoted saying Forrest had ³nailed Negroes to the fences, set fire to the fences, and burned the Negroes to death²(Hurst 321). With reports like this, it is understandable why abolitionist were outraged. The Congressional Committee released a summary after the event. It stated ³that the rebels took advantage of a flag of truce to place themselves in ³position from which the more readily to charge the upon the fort²; that after the fall of the fort ³the rebels commenced in an indiscriminate slaughter sparing neither age nor sex, white or black, soldier or civilian²; that this was ³not the results passions excited by the heat of conflict, but of a policy deliberation decided upon and unhesitatingly announced²; that several of the wounded were intentionally burned to death in huts and tents about the fort; and the ³the rebels buried some of the living the dead.² (Henry 260) In the intensive studies performed by Dr. John Wyeth there were more than fifty soldiers that were present at this battle who gave sworn testimonies contradicting these findings.(260) This suggests that the Union fabricated the truth to aid in its own cause. The fact is that most of what was said about Forrest¹s unethical actions were false accusations. Testimonies from several different sources (both Union and Confederate) claim that there were no movements under the flag of truce, but that they had their positions hours before.here
Let's all remember Fort Pillow. And while we're remembering let's remember Hellmira too?
Almost 25 percent of the 12,123 Confederate soldiers who entered the 40-acre prisoner of war camp at Elmira, NY, died. This death rate was more than double the average death rate in other Northern prison camps, and only 2 percent less than the death rate at the infamous Southern prison at Andersonville, GA. The deaths at Elmira were caused by diseases brought on by terrible living conditions and starvation, conditions deliberately caused by the vindictive U.S. commissary-general of prisoners, Col. William Hoffman. The conditions were inexcusable; the North had more than enough food and materials for its armies, population, and prisoners.Here-------
Fascinating Fact: Before resigning to avoid court-martial for his criminal treatment of sick prisoners, the chief surgeon at Elmira was overheard boasting that he had killed more Rebels than any Union soldier.
;>)
Indeed. Had he not prevented his troops from killing every last one of the enemy soldiers, the South might have been victorious, and you would instead be saying such things about the butchers Grant and Sherman.
But then Forrest was a real soldier, and did such killing as he found to be necessary himself, personally. Including that of his own officers.
-archy-/-
Forrest murdered at least one person in cold blood. Hard to make a hero out of that, but some will still try.
The neo-rebs deny that a massacre occured at Fort Pillow, but there is no doubt one took place.
"He [Gen. Forrest] then swung down toward Memphis, assaulted and carried Fort Pillow, massacring part of its garrison, composed wholly of negro troops. At first I discredited the story of the massacre, because in preparing for the Meridian campaign, I had ordered Fort Pillow to be evacuated, but it transpired afterword that General Hurlbut had retained a small garrison at Fort Pillow to encourage the enlistment of the blacks as soldiers, which was a favorite political policy at that day. The massacre at Fort Pillow occurred April 12, 1864, and has been the subject of congressional inquiry. No doubt Forrest's men acted like a set of barbarians, shooting down the helpless negro garrison after the fort was in their possession; but I am told that Forrest personally disclaims any active participation in the assault in person, and consequently that he was to the rear, out of sight if not hearing at the time, and I was told by hundreds of our men, who were at various times prisoners in Forrest's possession, that he was usually very kind to them. He had a desperate set of fellows under him, and at that very time there is no doubt the feeling of the Southern people was fearfully savage on this very point of our making soldiers out of their late slaves, and Forrest may have shared the feeling."
_Memoirs of W.T. Sherman, 1990 LOA edition, page 470.
From a letter to his family by Sgt. Achilles V. Clark of Forrest's command, written a few days after the massacre. The original is in the Tennessee State Library and Archives, Nashville:
"The slaughter was awful--words cannot describe the scene. The poor deluded negros would run up to our men, fall upon their knees and with uplifted hands scream for mercy but then were ordered to their feet and shot down. The white men fared but little better." Incidentally, Clark wrote that he and others tried to stop the butchery, only to find that "Gen. Forrest ordered them shot down like dogs and the carnage continued."
However, another Confederate soldier, Samuel H. Caldwell, wrote to his wife a few days after the massacre "If General Forrest had not run between our men & the Yanks with his pistol and sabre drawn not a man would have been spared." To support this, Brigadier General James R. Chalmers, CSA, who was Forrest's second-in-command "similarly claimed to a Federal officer on April 13 that he and Forrest had `stopped the massacre as soon as [we] were able to do so'. He further explained that their men `had such a hatred toward the armed negro that they could not be restrained from killing the negroes after they had captured them.'"
Walt