Fort Pillow Massacre

The Fort Pillow Massacre (April 12, 1864), in which more than 300 African-American soldiers were killed, was one of the most controversial events of the American Civil War (1861-65). A month earlier, Confederate Major General Nathan Bedford Forrest had a launched a cavalry raid aimed at destroying Union supply lines and capturing Federal prisoners. In early April, he determined to move on Ft. Pillow, a military installation 40 miles from Memphis, which was being held by a garrison of approximately 600 men, approximately half of which were black Union soldiers. On April 12, Forrest's force of more than 1,500 soldiers quickly overran the fort. Though most of the Union garrison surrendered--and thus should have been taken as prisoners-of-war--more than 300 soldiers were killed, the vast majority of them black. The Confederate refusal to treat these soldiers as traditional prisoners-of-war infuriated the North, and led to the Union's refusal to participate in prisoner exchanges.

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Did You Know?

Despite the ferocity of the attack, Fort Pillow was of little significance to the Confederate Army, and Nathan Bedford Forrest's troops abandoned it within hours of the massacre.

The Fort Pillow Massacre (April 12, 1864), in the American Civil War, Confederate slaughter of black Federal troops stationed at Fort Pillow, Tenn. The action stemmed from Southern outrage at the North's use of black soldiers. From the beginning of hostilities, the Confederate leadership was faced with the question of whether to treat black soldiers captured in battle as slaves in insurrection or, as the Union insisted, as prisoners of war.

In what proved the ugliest racial incident of the war, Confederate forces under General Nathan B. Forrest captured Fort Pillow on April 12, 1864, and proceeded to kill all the black troops within; some were burned or buried alive. A Federal congressional investigating committee subsequently verified that more than 300 blacks, including women and children, had been slain after the fort surrendered. After the incident, black soldiers going into battle used the cry “Remember Fort Pillow!”

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