Tom
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Cimprich and Mainfort are wrong.
"Of the 300 Union dead, close to 200 were African American."
Why did they find only 109?
Massacre at Fort Pillow
- Thread starter O' Be Joyful
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"Of the 300 Union dead, close to 200 were African American."
Why did they find only 109?
5fish
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If you read what I posted there was a mass grave and it states the bodies got mix up so bones got mixed up in those graves. It possible more than one body per gave...
Does it matter if a 109 or 300 were murdered? I have been to a national two national cemeteries form the civil war era. Every quite...
I am spit balling but those bodies were not transfered with little care about mixing color soldiers bodies... Not the way it is done today with mass graves...
diane
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It's necessary to know who was killed, which is still not thoroughly known. The exact number is a forever question but continuing research of this event yields more new information all the time that may one day settle this and many other questions. The search for the truth is very important, and the unnamed need to be named. There also needs to be more study of the activities of civilians in the area, some of whom were quite rabid, and what exactly was going on with Chalmers and his subordinates.
The consequences of Ft Pillow were much more significant, especially to the USCT. Far from being scared or, as Forrest hoped, shown they could not handle white Southerners, it lent fire to their will to fight and more meaning than ever. The very next battle, they were not frightened by Forrest but instead wanted a piece of him! "Remember Ft Pillow!" was their battle cry, and many wore pins on their sleeves with that motto. In fact, when Forrest heard of this battle cry he was angered enough to send a protest to Sturgis about controlling the USCT as he had credible information that they intended to kill his men out of hand. The next battle was Brice's Crossroads, Forrest's most brilliant battle win. It may not have been that if Sturgis had trusted his colored troops. He held them back. Grierson and A J Smith did trust them, and those were the areas where Forrest had to fight the hardest. When Sturgis went flying off the field with his wagons and the Confederates in hot pursuit, he owed many lives to the courage of the USCT who protected his retreat.