Fort Pillow

[larry_cockerham]

Cash, my friend, if you are saying that Forrest's troops needed additional motivation, I really doubt that was the case. TN was full of Union troops shooting their guns and burning stuff. That was motivation enough. Not even Forrest would antagonize the enemy unnecessarily. The 'enemy', my ancestors among them, were enough of a problem for Forrest without adding fuel to the flames. Having studied this man for some time now, I have no reservation in concluding that his character was not of the type that would have harmed a defenseless enemy (or even guys with guns who were not trying to harm him). Forrest himself said war was about killing. He confined himself to that concept for the most part. Killing in battle or self defense, not massacre. Murder just wasn't in his character.

[cash]

Originally Posted by ole

Blue: 5fish likes to stir the pot.

Back on the subject, if Shernan's "commission"

Sherman had no such "commission." He assigned a single officer to investigate.

Originally Posted by ole

couldn't find Forrest at fault, that pretty much ends it for me. Sherman had every reason to command his people to find Forrest a criminal sunavaseacook.But he didn't. That means something.

To me, it means that Sherman knew that Forrest's actions, however having been beyond his control, were well within the slide given a commander. It happens. And Sherman knew and believed that. He simply left it with the USCT. That they would exact justice and retribution.

ole

Actually, Sherman didn't exonerate Forrest at all. The "investigation" was never finished by the military.

"Four days after the massacre, Stanton ordered Sherman to 'direct a competent officer to investigate and report minutely, and as early as possible, the facts in relation to the alleged butchery of our troops at Fort Pillow.' Sherman promptly passed the task on to Brayman, who began collecting affidavits from the patients at Mound City. But no doubt to Grant and Sherman's enormous relief, the investigation was soon turned over to the Joint Subcommittee on the Conduct of the War, whose recommendations they would not be obliged to follow.

"One of the arguments Forrest's defenders would make to prove that even the Union command did not believe the reports of a massacre at Fort Pillow was the fact that even such harsh and remorseless generals as Grant and Sherman never ordered reprisals. But by April 23, Sherman had concluded that Northern threats and condemnations would prove entirely useless and so proposed that the question of reprisals be quietly left up to 'the negroes themselves.' The Confederate army 'cares no more for our clamor than the idle wind,' he wrote Stanton, 'but they will heed the slaughter that will follow as the natural consequence of their own inhuman acts.' The truth, he said, was that the rebels' savage hatred of black troops 'cannot be restrained.' Thus far black troops had been 'comparatively well behaved, and have not committeed the horrid excesses and barbarities which the Southern papers so much dreaded.' But eventually 'the effect will be of course to make the negroes desperate, and when in turn they commit horrid acts of retaliation,' he wrote with characteristically brutal pragmatism, 'we will be relieved of the responsibility.' He doubted the wisdom 'of any fixed rule by our Government, but let soldiers affected make their rules as we progress. We will use their own logic against them, as we have from the beginning of the war.'" [Andrew Ward, _River Run Red: The Fort Pillow Massacre in the American Civil War,_ pp. 311-312]

"On May 3 Lincoln informed his cabinet that the fact of a massacre 'is now quite certain' and asked for their recommendations as to an appropriate response; the one ultimately adopted recommended that no 'extreme' action be taken until the result of Grant's Wilderness offensive in Virginia became evident. Some observers have assumed that the fact that no Union reprisal was ever ordered by Lincoln or taken by Sherman is proof that neither was convinced a massacre really had taken place; the reality, however, probably was that Sherman was one of the least sensitive toward blacks of all the supreme Federal commanders, and Lincoln was facing a tough November election in which many voters seemed to feel as much as Sherman did." [Jack Hurst, _Nathan Bedford Forrest: A Biography,_ p. 180]

This was all pointed out in the other Fort Pillow thread, but the misconceptions remain. Sherman formed no commission. He didn't conduct the investigation, he assigned a single officer to the task. The investigation was never completed by the military, it was taken over by the Congress. They found Forrest to be culpable. Sherman never proposed not punishing Forrest. He proposed letting black troops take vengeance on rebels for it. Sherman never showed any vindictiveness toward anyone after the war. He said several times during the war that once the war was over he'd extend his hand toward every southerner in friendship. Sherman's role in the affair has been mischaracterized time after time by the SCV types and people have been swallowing that line without actually bothering to look into it to see that it's nothing but a pack of lies.

Regards,
Cash

[cash]

Originally Posted by larry_cockerham

Cash, my friend, if you are saying that Forrest's troops needed additional motivation

Think a minute, Larry. Why would Sherman want to give Forrest's troops additional motivation? Obviously you have misread my post.

Sherman believed black troops needed additional motivation.

Regards,
Cash

[larry_cockerham]

Yes, Cash, I was having comprehension problems with your post, hence my question. Comprehension is still sometimes a challenge for me.

Somewhere I got the notion that these black soldiers at Ft. Pillow either didn't hear or perhaps ignored the 'order' to surrender. That could be comprehended one of two ways. They made a horrible mistake either way. Was it massacre on the part of the soldiers on the attack? You'd have to ask them. Forrest said no.

Cash, you wrote: "Sherman never proposed not punishing Forrest. He proposed letting black troops take vengeance on rebels for it. Sherman never showed any vindictiveness toward anyone after the war. He said several times during the war that once the war was over he'd extend his hand toward every southerner in friendship."

Did the black troops 'take vengeance'? I don't recall many instances where black troops were the primary force in a battle. I know the Confederates weren't wandering looking for black troops or Germans to engage. They were focused more on the blue uniforms and the sound of those Sharps repeaters.

W.T. Sherman was a professional soldier. Few could effectively argue that point. Forrest was a novice soldier, though a well conditioned one. Few could effectively argue that point.

As usual, thanks for your explanation of the details under which Sherman was acting.

[cash]

Originally Posted by larry_cockerham

Somewhere I got the notion that these black soldiers at Ft. Pillow either didn't hear or perhaps ignored the 'order' to surrender. That could be comprehended one of two ways. They made a horrible mistake either way.

As the testimony we have shows conclusively, blacks, and some white soldiers, were murdered after they had surrendered.

Originally Posted by larry_cockerham

Was it massacre on the part of the soldiers on the attack? You'd have to ask them. Forrest said no.

It was a massacre. The evidence doesn't prove Forrest's culpability, in my opinion. We have some testimony that he ordered it, some testimony that he tried to stop it. Unless we find some long-lost letter from Forrest saying words to the effect of, "Oh, yeah, I ordered it all right" or unless we find some corroborating eyewitness accounts that show he ordered it, we'll never know for sure.

Originally Posted by larry_cockerham

Cash, you wrote: "Sherman never proposed not punishing Forrest. He proposed letting black troops take vengeance on rebels for it. Sherman never showed any vindictiveness toward anyone after the war. He said several times during the war that once the war was over he'd extend his hand toward every southerner in friendship."

Did the black troops 'take vengeance'? I don't recall many instances where black troops were the primary force in a battle. I know the Confederates weren't wandering looking for black troops or Germans to engage. They were focused more on the blue uniforms and the sound of those Sharps repeaters.

"Remember Fort Pillow"

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/lincoln...regiments.html

http://www.pamplinpark.org/press_rel...FortPillow.pdf

http://www.tnstate.edu/library/digital/BlacKs.htm

Regards,
Cash

[larry_cockerham]

Let's make a deal, Cash. You remember Ft. Pillow; I'll remember Sugar Creek.

[ole]

It's a useless argument, gentlemen. Can't pin Fort Pillow on Forrest. If Sherman's minion couldn't find a reason to pin it on NBF (and I'll bet a steak dinner that Sherman would have very much liked to have named NBF a war criminal), then Sherman couldn't either. So he weaseled and said that whatever retribution was required would be handled by the USCT. In my feeble recollection, some of that was handed out.

ole

[unionblue]

ole,

I seem to remeber reading somewhere in my Ft. Pillow related sources that USCT troops often stated that when their white Union officers weren't looking or about, they took no prisoners in revenge for Ft. Pillow.

Anyone recall something similiar?

Sincerely,
Unionblue

[5fish]

[quote=ole;82337]

Blue: 5fish likes to stir the pot.

Yes, I do like to Stir cauldron!

Back on the subject, if Sherman's "commission" couldn't find Forrest at fault, that pretty much ends it for me. Sherman had every reason to command his people to find Forrest a criminal sunavaseacook.But he didn't. That means something.

I must bring an observation to this topic. Form what I have read Sherman never finished his inquiry into the "Fort Pillow Affair" for the Congress chose to investigate the "Affair". He dropped his inquiry into it and gladly it seems.

I did not know what was found out by Congress's investigation was but seems old Forrest is not off the hook.

Ole wanted to update you on the Sherman inquiry into the "Fort Pillow Affair" of "Massacre"....

[5fish]

Originally Posted by Bobbie

Think how the whole "Fort Pillow affair" ruined Forrest's life Firstly- his troops were particularly hated by USCT and were promised to be given no quarter. Secondly- it change Forrest's life forever, because since then he had to answer countless charges of various newspapers and "witnesses". As the New York Times noted in his obituary: " his principal occupation seems to have been to try and explain away the F.P. affair".
Many people didn't want to know the truth- they just wanted the scape-goat. And there are still such people today.

Bobbie you sound like Larry,

USCT would not give any quarter to Forrest men. Well! All I found was a story where it was Forrest men yelling "NO QUARTER, NO Quarter," at the union troops as they moved through the fort shooting.

The problem with the "FT. Pillow Affair" is there was no scape-goat, no truth, no closure only questions and lack of justice for the fallen.... It not the first time in war and it will not be last time in war that the fallen find no peace....

Lets be true if there was justice for the fallen at FT. Pillow then Forrest would have had peace in life... no justifying, no explaining only peace...

Am I looking for a scape-goat, no only a cauldron to stir!