fort pillow question

I have a question about for pillow? I was just up there for there reenactment and I walk up to the fort and the park ranger was talking about the fort and he said that the black soldiers was buried in a cemetery at the fort but was reburied in the Memphis national cemetery and that some of them was buried between the fort and Memphis. I was wondering where the officer was buied at namely lionel f booth and william f bradford?

jr baker said:

I have a question about for pillow? I was just up there for there reenactment and I walk up to the fort and the park ranger was talking about the fort and he said that the black soldiers was buried in a cemetery at the fort but was reburied in the Memphis national cemetery and that some of them was buried between the fort and Memphis. I was wondering where the officer was buied at namely lionel f booth and william f bradford?

Click to expand...

Could you restate the last sentence? I got lost...

Joshua Horn said:

Could you restate the last sentence? I got lost...

Click to expand...

Josh, I could be wrong but I think he's wondering where the graves are located of two officers - Lionel F. Booth, William F. Bradford. I'm guessing they were officers in a USCT regiment maybe?

I don't know about Bradford, who was killed somewhere around Brownsville on his way to Duckworth's headquarters. Not sure if his body was retrieved or buried there.

Lionel Booth is no longer buried at Ft Pillow but I don't know where he is buried. His widow retrieved him from a mass grave at the fort, though. Mary Booth was kind of interesting. She found difficulty with the federal arrangements of burial and retrieving her husband's remains then she found extra hardship in dealing with getting a pension. There was a requirement to document a legal marriage - this she worked to get dropped because it unfairly penalized women who had married in slavery. These widows couldn't get a pension, which Mrs. Booth thought was unjust. (And it was.) She also worked for a short time as a female inspector for Confederate women passing through Memphis, since it was improper for a male to check their skirts and such. (They hid all sorts of things in those huge hoops!) She was fired for letting a woman pass who had thousands of dollars in gold tucked in her petticoats. Nobody knows why she did that, and the only reason she wasn't arrested for some sort of collusion was because of her husband's death at Ft Pillow.

Thanks Diane, for the info. So, Mrs. Booth was black? (I think I'm confused now too)

No, she wasn't black but, interestingly, her husband's remains were thought to be black because of the state of decomposition. Eventually she was able to identify him positively - don't know exactly how. But she was there with black widows retrieving their husbands and saw the difficulty they were having. She figured it just wasn't right - their men had fought for the Union and died doing it, after all. She got to be quite an activist about it - many women had a hard time getting their loved ones.

Major William F. Bradford, commander of 13 Tenn Cavalry(US), was captured even though they took shots at him while trying to escape by swimming the Mississippi River and then later when he tried to flee. He was given special treatment to allow him to spend that night in the tent of one of the officers---I think Col. McCulloch--but not sure. He broke his oath and escaped that night and a patrol was sent to capture him. He was shot and killed. Eye witnesses said his body was still lying on the side of the road several days later.

I don't know where he was buried.

He had a brother, Captain Theodore F. Booth who was there, also. Captain Booth was desperately trying to signal the gunboat New Era to come to their rescue as the fort was being over-run by the Confederates. He refused to surrender and a group fired a volley, killing him.

Forrest was the one who allowed the special treatment. Bradford told him about his brother and, since Forrest had just lost one of his brothers, he was sympathetic and let Bradford attend to the burial of Theodore. Bradford took a wee bit of advantage thereupon! He would have done better just to have stayed with McCulloch - both McCulloch and Forrest knew there were those among the troops (and out in the bushes) who would have cheerfully blown Bradford to little bits and they were trying to keep that from happening. Bradford, quite frankly, did it himself by leaving that protection. Which, of course, from his viewpoint didn't appear that way...

diane said:

Forrest was the one who allowed the special treatment. Bradford told him about his brother and, since Forrest had just lost one of his brothers, he was sympathetic and let Bradford attend to the burial of Theodore. Bradford took a wee bit of advantage thereupon! He would have done better just to have stayed with McCulloch - both McCulloch and Forrest knew there were those among the troops (and out in the bushes) who would have cheerfully blown Bradford to little bits and they were trying to keep that from happening. Bradford, quite frankly, did it himself by leaving that protection. Which, of course, from his viewpoint didn't appear that way...

Click to expand...

Ironic, isn't it. I'd have been firmly attached to either or both of them.

jr baker said:

I have a question about for pillow? I was just up there for there reenactment and I walk up to the fort and the park ranger was talking about the fort and he said that the black soldiers was buried in a cemetery at the fort but was reburied in the Memphis national cemetery and that some of them was buried between the fort and Memphis. I was wondering where the officer was buied at namely lionel f booth and william f bradford?

Click to expand...

I hadn't thought to mention it...sorry, end of school idiocy....but we have some EXCELLENT threads on Ft. Pillow and the casualties (those who were really killed as well as those who were reported dead but weren't). I highly suggest using the search function and reading them. They're excellent and packed with real research-based information as opposed to our opinions.

Dang. How many times can you use excellent in one paragraph. One more week.

jr baker

When you finish reading all those threads on Fort Pillow, I'm ready to continue with your question. You didn't get an answer in this thread and I don't know if it is found in any of the other ones.
I am one who would like to know.

dixie rifle there a book call these falling hills i heard its a really good book on fort pillow i aint been able to find it anywhere. Another question is what happen if there was any to the magazines i know the ones at fort wright was blown but the one left there now i heard there was one at fort pillow but its location was lost.

"he TFalling Hills" by Perry Lenz. I read it last month. I had to almost force myself to read a novel---and I was not pleased with it. It made me think of some ideas and possibilities that I had not considered. One question that arose was what small arms were the Union troops armed with?
The author said he was telling the story from one officer of both sides. But he only introduced the Southerner with little follow-up and then started a new character in one chapter and killed him off in the same chapter. The battle was only viewed from one side--the Union. I think he gives a biased account as he seems to try to demonize most of the Union characters. I did like the account of the over-night ride to the fort but the book ends abruptly after the last shot is fired. And have you ever read a novel where you know the thoughts of the character up to the second they died?

A magazine at Fort Pillow? Hmm. Another good question. Every fort had a magazine even if it was a hole in the ground. The OR's even mention a magazine inside the earthern fort at Collierville, TN. I don't know what it had---I can check my references. I don't know if it would be as large as the one at Fort Randolph (the historians believe there are two more there).
Much of the original fort's guns were located down on the river level, aka the water battery. I wonder where they would have put a magazine so close to the river?

i didnt know that about the book i was just told it was a good thanks for the info on tho. i know a guy in my local scv camp that remember going in a another magazine that had a metal plate entrance with metal rings on it and he went down stairs to get in it he thinks it right down the road from one everbody ones of.a guy that lives at the bottom of the hill he blow up one remains of one magazine. i think they could be one on the high bluff close to the end of 59 hwy where the main battery was.

a another magazine that had a metal plate entrance with metal rings on it a. . . at the bottom of the hill . . . they could be one on the high bluff close to the end of 59 hwy​

Read more:​

http://civilwartalk.com/threads/fort-pillow-question.71902/#ixzz1z1Q90n8k​

Click to expand...

That would be the Magazine at Fort Randolph, located on the 3rd Chickasaw Bluff, that is just below where the Hatchie Rivers enters the Mississippi River.
I went on a tour of the magazine last fall. It is said to be the only Confederate magazine in existence. You do have to skirt across private property to ease down the bluff to view it.

Here are some links to photos. You walked in and turned left and there were two chambers that had 6 layers of brick. The entrance walkway was once fully bricked over the entire length of the walkway, but people took bricks to build their chimneys. I can get you the GPS grid coordinates for it. (I hope this works)



View of interior.

And, yes, you take Hiway 59 from Covington, TN, to get to Fort Randloph.

Construction of Fort Randolph was begun in the Spring of 1861---yes I said 1861. So they had time and energy to build as many as possbily 3 magazines for this area. I don't recall the number of troops garrisoned there. Fort Pillow was built for 10,000 soldiers but no more than 6,000 Confederates ever occupied it.
Would it have a magazine? How permanent would it be?

Oh, BTW, the entrance of the magazine faces away from the River---of course. It did have vent holes on top. The back wall the chamber had a vent shaft built into the brick that had several bends so that no embers could fall into the magazine.