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Report (Rough Draft) of Lt.Col. Tom J. Jackson, 6th U.S. Heavy Artillery (USCT)
"....March 25th 1864 the first battallion of my regiment received orders to proceed to Fort Pillow and garrison said post[;] the battallion was under the command of Major L. F. Booth. After arriving at his destination the Major immediately proceeded to place the fort in a defensible position, by throwing up rifle pits working his command day and night to do so[;] the force stationed at the fort consisted of (204) enlisted men 6 U.S. about the same of the 13th Ten Cavalry and one section of Lamberg Battery...."
Civil War History, vol. 28:4 (December 1982), pp. 293-306.
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Report...............Officers........Enlisted
Jackson, 6th US.......8..............204 (Rept. of Harris-213 enl.)
Lamberg, 2nd US......1................34 (Rept. of Harris-40 enl.)
The number could be as low as 247 or a high of 262.
So you are looking at a rough draft of a report written by Lt.Col. Tom J. Jackson 18 days before the battle, and he is ... where, exactly? Not in Ft. Pillow, anyway, so someplace else. Memphis, maybe? How long does it take him to get returns from the detachment in the fort, and how often do they send them? What was the last strength report he got?
Tim
__________________ "Let us, then, consider all attempts to weaken this Union, by maintaining that each state is separately and individually independent, as a species of political heresy, which can never benefit us, but may bring on us the most serious distresses."
Charles Cotesworth Pinckney of South Carolina, 1740-1824, Revolutionary War soldier, one of the authors of the US Constitution in 1787, speaking at the South Carolina Ratifying Convention in 1788.
I highly recommend Dr. Michael R. Bradley's NATHAN BEDFORD FORREST ESCORT AND STAFF recently published which contains the account of Capt. Charles Anderson of Forrest's staff who was perhaps the central figure in this episode.
Capt Anderson is quoted: "The charges against Gen. Forrest and his men of massacre and butchery at Ft. Pillow are outrageously unjust and unfounded. He did everything in his power to induce a surrender and avoid an assault. Thrice was a surrender demanded, and as often refused. There never was no surrender, therefore no massacre after surrender, as has been so erroneously and widely charged. I take occasion here to say that in my long service with Gen. Forrest, his kindness to the vanquished, the unarmed and unresisting foe, was a marked characteristic of the man. He believed and always said and dealt, that "war meant fight, and fight meant to kill" but never in all his career did a Federal soldier throw down his arms and surrender, that did not receive at once his consideration and protecton. He captured many thousand Federals, and there is not one living today who can truthfully say that he was ever insulted by Nathan Bedford Forrest (CN 3:322-26)
Gentlemen, that's from an officer who was there.
__________________ Ancestors in US Army: 13th TN Cav; 10th TN Cav; 3rd NC Inf
Ancestors in CSA Army: 48th VA; 63rd VA, 5th NC Cav; 37th NC
Wife and Grandson's CSA: 15th AL, 51st GA, 41st TN; 36th TN; GA Mil 1197 Dist
So you are looking at a rough draft of a report written by Lt.Col. Tom J. Jackson 18 days before the battle, and he is ... where, exactly? Not in Ft. Pillow, anyway, so someplace else. Memphis, maybe?
That's where Adjutant Harris was also.
Quote:
Originally Posted by trice
How long does it take him to get returns from the detachment in the fort, and how often do they send them? What was the last strength report he got?
Tim
I left out the date of his report- April 19. So it's the latest info he had.
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But whether Harris or Jackson is correct is not the point.
247 and 262 are both less than 276.
Where do the extra men come from?
Cash has the Cimprich article (I don't...found it cited on the internet)
but Cash has become very silent on the issue.
__________________ POWER & MONEY
"Your New-York bankers and merchants are shrewd people, but I never gave them credit for so much sagacity as when they took the Government Loan. It was not merely patriotism, it was a high stroke of policy. It has saved the Government, and what they will regard as equally important, saved them from a great financial disaster."
I highly recommend Dr. Michael R. Bradley's NATHAN BEDFORD FORREST ESCORT AND STAFF recently published which contains the account of Capt. Charles Anderson of Forrest's staff who was perhaps the central figure in this episode.
Capt Anderson is quoted: "The charges against Gen. Forrest and his men of massacre and butchery at Ft. Pillow are outrageously unjust and unfounded. He did everything in his power to induce a surrender and avoid an assault. Thrice was a surrender demanded, and as often refused. There never was no surrender, therefore no massacre after surrender, as has been so erroneously and widely charged. I take occasion here to say that in my long service with Gen. Forrest, his kindness to the vanquished, the unarmed and unresisting foe, was a marked characteristic of the man. He believed and always said and dealt, that "war meant fight, and fight meant to kill" but never in all his career did a Federal soldier throw down his arms and surrender, that did not receive at once his consideration and protecton. He captured many thousand Federals, and there is not one living today who can truthfully say that he was ever insulted by Nathan Bedford Forrest (CN 3:322-26)
Gentlemen, that's from an officer who was there.
Larry,
Personally, I have never seen any evidence that would lead me to believe that Forrest ordered or encouraged the evil deeds that occurred at Ft. Pillow.
At the same time, when he ordered the assault, he surely knew that incredible violence was about to break out. No experienced soldier could avoid it. Soldiers had known this for generations beyond count, and it is one of the reasons traditions had evolved in the military where the attacker formally demanded a surrender before the final assault. The term "to avoid the useless effusion of blood" was not new to the Civil War, and was intended to indicate that the defender had fought to the point of hopelessness, so now he should surrender to avoid what inevitably followed in a close assault, raw slaughter.
At Fort Pillow, the natural fury of a close assault was fed by other things as well. There was the revenge factor for outrages on the local civilian population by Bradford's (white) Union cavalry -- and there were men from Dyer County on both sides of this battle, known to one another by name. There was the black-men-in-arms issue which even Southerners said inflamed their men into a rage. There was strong liquor available to men of both sides in the midst of a struggle that had already gone on for hours. There was the natural fear of the white and black defenders of the retribution the Rebels would visit on them, and that they would not be allowed to surrender.
As Forrest sat his horse between the lines during the truce, he understood all that. Only a fool would have thought that a white-hot spasm of violence would not wash over the fort in an assault, as he sat there listening to the troops of both sides hurling insults and epithets back and forth. Only a man inexperienced in war would not have known how horrible the fight would be. Nathan Bedford Forrest was neither a fool nor inexperienced.
That is, of course, precisely why Forrest was demanding the surrender of the fort. The defenders had resisted bravely. Forrest was now in a position to carry the works. In his opinion, the Union position was now hopeless. On this, the traditions and honors of war are completely satisfied, Forrest was doing exactly what he should have done. When he does so, in military terms, he transfers the onus of blame for a large part of what happens to the Union commander.
If the defender believes he can no longer continue the battle successfully, it is his responsibility to surrender to stop the slaughter and the useless loss of life. This had been European/American tradition for a long, long time. If there is no possibility of successfully continuing the action, and no compelling reason to fight to the last man, the commander must take what terms he can get because his responsibility to the lives of his men out-weighs his duty to continue to fight.
Here is where the first blame lies. Major Booth (until recently a sergeant in the Regular Army, now in his first combat post as an officer) wrote morning orders to the troops entitled "Soldiers Never Surrender!" While they may have been intended to strengthen morale and overblown, they were virtually his last communication to the troops. Major Booth was shot and killed at about 9 AM; his adjutant was shot when he came to see his condition. Whether Booth would have reversed himself and yielded the post to Forrest at 4 PM is unknown and unknowable.
That left Major Bradford in command. Bradford was a local Dyer County lawyer and Unionist (in perhaps the most staunchly Rebel county in the state). He and his brother had begun raising this force of cavalry not long before. It was undisciplined and rowdy. They had been riding about the county, flying a "Black Flag", committing depredations and outrages (which were probably in some cases the return of previous acts by secessionists) for several weeks. Some of Forrest's men had relatives among their victims, and Forrest had received civilian pleas to free them from this menace; that was, in fact, the origin of his operation, before the USCT arrived.
Bradford was completely inexperienced in military matters. Perhaps Booth, had he lived, would have considered the situation and decided to surrender; he had experience in the Regular Army to go on -- but Booth was dead. Bradford was in waters too deep for his understanding.
Bradford was, OTOH, completely aware of the heat of the feeling against him and his men, and probably feared surrendering more than another officer would have. He, his brother, and the commander of the Union gunboat New Era concocted a defense plan that can only be described as unrealistic and optimistic. He stalled, and he refused to surrender.
At that point, the fate of the post was sealed. If Forrest had been bluffing (and there were times when he bluffed), Fort Hudson might have defied him. But Forrest was not bluffing, and any experienced Union combat officer in the last redoubt of Ft. Pillow should have seen the hopelessness of his situation in an assault.
At this point, Forrest rode back, ordered the "Charge!" sounded, and the assault began. He had little choice in the matter. He could retreat and leave Ft. Pillow, of course, but that would be a defeat, damaging to the Confederacy's reputation and interest. Victory lay before him, as clear and unmistakable as such things ever are. The only possible military reason for not assaulting was a weighing of the cost in Rebel casualties against the benefits of the victory, and here it seemed well worth it.
Beyond a doubt, when Forrest ordered the charge, everything that has happened is well within the normal boundaries of conduct in war. We might find some individual transgressions by soldiers of low rank if we searched hard enough, but probably not. Most of the fighting so far had been at a distance.
The assault went in. As always happens in such actions, the fighting was fierce and chaotic, violent and savage. Undoubtedly it was more so than usual due to the passion of the black-white and Tennessee Unionist-Confederate issues, but no one on the scene could have been unaware of that beforehand. Acceptance of that was implicit in Bradford's refusal to surrender.
Very heavy casualties are anticipated in such assaults. If the defenders can keep the attackers outside their walls, the heaviest losses will fall on the attacker. If the attacker can get over the wall in strength, outnumbering the defender, then the losses of the defense will be heaviest, grievous in fact.
In the chaos of such an assault, officers lose control of the situation almost immediately. Only extremely well-disciplined troops with experienced officers will be able to maintain command and control, to restore themselves to order and respond to direction. Much more likely is a wild and swirling brawl, a riot of men with weapons at close quarters. None of the units at Fort Pillow, on either side, had the sort of history and discipline that would prevent what happened.
Normally, no general officer would be in the lead wave of such an assault. Sherman, far off in Nashville, assumed Forrest had not been with the assault but followed later, and this is what in fact happened. Forrest came into the fort some 20-30 minutes later. He rode up when he saw the Union flag fall (the Confederates cut it down) and the firing died down about 20 minutes after that according to both Union and Confederate accounts. Chalmers entered the fort about the same time.
In between, we have a period of about 40 minutes. In that 40 minutes, the Rebels assaulted and carried the fort with a brief and wild melee inside the walls, the garrison retreated/fled down the bluff to the riverbank, the Union gunboat New Era treacherously closed her ports and steamed out into the river, and the survivors found themselves in a three-sided box of fire on the exposed bank.
Now this is a disaster for the Union, no matter how you look at it, caused by inexperience, incompetence, malfeasance and foolish planning. If there was not a single attrocity at Ft. Pillow, I would estimate Union deaths at somewhere over 100 in this fiasco, along with 200 or more wounded.
But there were attrocities at Ft. Pillow. While there are many stories that seem unbelievable and unreliable, there are also many that have the ring of truth, and some with corroboration. Wounded men who might have lived were killed. Men who surrendered were shot. Some were deliberately mistreated and tortured. Some of it was savage and deliberate; some of it was the heat of battle madness and whiskey; some of it was simply the chaos and furor and fear. Some of it continued into the night, after the main firing had stopped.
I have seen enough evidence of such things, seemingly trustworthy or suspicious, to think that some of it is undoubtedly true. All of the incidents I can say seem likely to be true involved enlisted men or junior officers. Nothing I have ever seen inclines me to believe that Forrest or Chalmers ordered any of it, encouraged it, or deliberately allowed it to happen. I have seen evidence that they tried to stop the shooting and get the troops back under control. I have seen evidence they were doing that shortly after they entered the fort.
I do not think any objective court martial would have convicted Forrest or Chalmers of anything here. I think it even more unlikely if the court were made up of officers with personal experience in such assaults from other wars, men who probably would have told you just how much of a powderkeg such a situation was.
But again, I think there were attrocities at Fort Pillow. If anyone were to tell me there were 100 deaths caused by such, or 50, or 150, I would think that might be true. I know of no way to accurately determine what the number was. My only points would be that many of the losses were only what would be expected in such a fight, and that I have never seen any evidence that Forrest and/or Chalmers ordered such things, caused them to happen, or deliberately refrained from acting to restore order and bring them to an end in a reasonable amount of time.
Regards,
Tim
__________________ "Let us, then, consider all attempts to weaken this Union, by maintaining that each state is separately and individually independent, as a species of political heresy, which can never benefit us, but may bring on us the most serious distresses."
Charles Cotesworth Pinckney of South Carolina, 1740-1824, Revolutionary War soldier, one of the authors of the US Constitution in 1787, speaking at the South Carolina Ratifying Convention in 1788.
"Your New-York bankers and merchants are shrewd people, but I never gave them credit for so much sagacity as when they took the Government Loan. It was not merely patriotism, it was a high stroke of policy. It has saved the Government, and what they will regard as equally important, saved them from a great financial disaster."
Who were they? Do you have names, or counts, or what. On what basis do you come up with your figure?
Tim
__________________ "Let us, then, consider all attempts to weaken this Union, by maintaining that each state is separately and individually independent, as a species of political heresy, which can never benefit us, but may bring on us the most serious distresses."
Charles Cotesworth Pinckney of South Carolina, 1740-1824, Revolutionary War soldier, one of the authors of the US Constitution in 1787, speaking at the South Carolina Ratifying Convention in 1788.
"Of the 221 officers and men [6th U.S. Hvy.Art.] who went from here, there are thirty here who escaped, and some twenty or more [22] above at Mound City and Cairo [hospitals]."
Testimony of Lt.Col. Thomas H. Harris, Assistant Adjutant General,16th Army Corps, Memphis, 26 April 1864
Congressional Report Harris p.97, Dr. Stewart Gordon p.54, Dr. M. Black p.58
__________________ POWER & MONEY
"Your New-York bankers and merchants are shrewd people, but I never gave them credit for so much sagacity as when they took the Government Loan. It was not merely patriotism, it was a high stroke of policy. It has saved the Government, and what they will regard as equally important, saved them from a great financial disaster."
"Of the 221 officers and men [6th U.S. Hvy.Art.] who went from here, there are thirty here who escaped, and some twenty or more [22] above at Mound City and Cairo [hospitals]."
Testimony of Lt.Col. Thomas H. Harris, Assistant Adjutant General,16th Army Corps, Memphis, 26 April 1864
Congressional Report Harris p.97, Dr. Stewart Gordon p.54, Dr. M. Black p.58
Since we know that at least 1 of the 7 survivors you are counting for the 2nd Lt Art in the above is probably also included in the POW count, do you think that any of the 6th Hvy Art men are also double counted?
Tim
__________________ "Let us, then, consider all attempts to weaken this Union, by maintaining that each state is separately and individually independent, as a species of political heresy, which can never benefit us, but may bring on us the most serious distresses."
Charles Cotesworth Pinckney of South Carolina, 1740-1824, Revolutionary War soldier, one of the authors of the US Constitution in 1787, speaking at the South Carolina Ratifying Convention in 1788.
Since we know that at least 1 of the 7 survivors you are counting for the 2nd Lt Art in the above is probably also included in the POW count, do you think that any of the 6th Hvy Art men are also double counted?
Tim
Maybe...maybe not....
...depends on when the 58 were counted.
__________________ POWER & MONEY
"Your New-York bankers and merchants are shrewd people, but I never gave them credit for so much sagacity as when they took the Government Loan. It was not merely patriotism, it was a high stroke of policy. It has saved the Government, and what they will regard as equally important, saved them from a great financial disaster."
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