The Fort Pillow Massacre, 1864
Introduction―Among the stories of the stormy days of the Republic, few will longer be remembered than theheroic defense and almost utter annihilation of the garrison of Fort Pillow.‖—Mack J. Leaming, April 1893
On April 12, 1864, fifteen hundred Confederate soldiers led by General Nathan Bedford Forrest
attacked the 567 Union troops stationed at Fort Pillow, Tennessee. Fighting raged until a truce
was called at 3 p.m., but despite being greatly outnumbered, the Union troops refused tosurrender. The Confederates renewed their attack at 4 p.m. and quickly overwhelmed thegarrison. Nearly 300 Union soldiers were killed. The Confederates suffered only fourteen deaths.

“The Fort Pillow Massacre,” Kurz & Allison, 1892. (The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, GLC07727)

The attack on Fort Pillow fell on the third anniversary of the firing on Fort Sumter in South
Carolina, the start of the Civil War. Many believe that Forrest and his men wanted to punish, notjust defeat, both the African American soldiers and the white men from Tennessee fighting on
the side of the Union who were based at Fort Pillow. According to eyewitnesses, Confederates
murdered Union prisoners, including some who were wounded, after the fort had been taken.
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2The Fort Pillow Massacre, 1864
Despite the carnage, Fort Pillow was of little tactical significance. General Forrest abandoned thefort the next day.
The events were soon called a ―massacre,‖ and the US Congress
investigated the reports. At the congressional inquiry, witnesses
stated that most of the wounds suffered by Union soldiers targetedthe torso and head, while battle wounds usually occurred to thelimbs. Of the 300 Union dead, close to 200 were African
American. While 70 percent of white soldiers survived, only 35
percent of African American soldiers survived. But the massacre
did not deter black troops from serving in the Union Army.
―Remember Fort Pillow‖ became a rallying cry for African
American soldiers.
First Lieutenant Mack Leaming served in the 13th Tennessee
Regiment in the Union Army. As the highest-ranking officer in
his regiment to survive, Leaming wrote his regiment’s official
report of the battle. Nearly thirty years later, he wrote a vivid
seventeen-page account of the battle and its aftermath. It stands as
testimony to the brutality and ruthlessness of the battle.

Mack Leaming, March 8, 1864, at
Fort Pillow. (The Gilder Lehrman
Institute of American History,GLC05080.02)

Excerpt
Mack Leaming’s memoir of the Fort Pillow Massacre (1864), April 15, 1893

From where I fell wounded, I could plainly see this firing and note the bullets striking thewater around the black heads of the soldiers, until suddenly the muddy current became redand I saw another life sacrificed in the cause of the Union. Here I noticed one soldier in theriver, but in some way clinging to the bank. Two confederate soldiers pulled him out. He
seemed to be wounded and crawled on his hands and knees. Finely one of the confederate
soldiers placed his revolver to the head of the colored soldier and killed him.

Questions for Discussion
1. Define the term ―massacre.‖
2. To what extent do the events in the memoir by Mack J. Leaming fit the description of amassacre? Provide two or three examples to support your response.
3. How were African American soldiers serving in the Union Army treated differently from thewhite Union soldiers during this battle?
4. Although the capture of Fort Pillow was of little tactical significance, why is it remembered
today?
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3The Fort Pillow Massacre, 1864
Transcript
Mack Leaming’s memoir of the Fort Pillow Massacre (1864), April 15, 1893, pp. 8–17. (The Gilder Lehrman
Institute of American History, GLC05080.01) Note: Handwritten text appears in bold and italics.

[Excerpt beginning on page 8]
A vote was taken and the officers unanimously voted not to surrender. Major Bradford directedthat our answer refusing to surrender be made accordingly. I prepared it, placed it in a sealed
envelope, and took it out to Forrest. He tore open the envelope, read t [sic] the communication,
we saluted, and he with his staff rode over the bluff, while I returned to the fort. Scarcely had I
regained my position when the rebel bugle sounded the charge, and with the characterteristic[sic] rebel yell, we beheld the lines of the enemy rushing upon us. WWhile [sic] the flag of truce
was flying, and the attention of our officers was drawn to the south side of the fort, the enemy
had quietly gained a position in front of the northern and eastern portion of our works, fromwhich during the battle, we had successfully repulsed him. Hence when the final order to storm
our works was given, we were astounded to see the enemy rise from this position for thedesperate charge. We had barely time to fire one volley before they swarmed over our works.
Our line broke and many of the troops threw down their muskets and rushed down the bluff
towards the river, the rebels meanwhile keeping up a murderous fire. Many of the coloredsoldiers, seeing that no quarters were to be given, madly leaped into the river, while the rebels
stood on the banks or part way up the bluff, and shot at the heads of their victims. From where I
fell wounded, I could plainly see this firing and note the bullets striking the water around theblack heads of the soldiers, until suddenly the muddy current became red and I saw another life
sacrificed in the cause of the Union. Here I noticed one soldier in the river, but in some way
clinging to the bank. Two confederate soldiers pulled him out. He seemed to be wounded andcrawled on his hands and knees. Finely one of the confederate soldiers placed his revolver to thehead of the colored soldier and killed him. I could hear a good deal of firing all around me, butcould only see the effect of what occurred between where I was lying on the side of the bluff andthe river bank. While this firing was going on the Confederates had full posession of our works,and firing on the Federal side had wholly ceased. The Confederates themselves pulled down thestars and stripes and hoisted the stars and bars. It is true that there was no formal surrender in thesense that we lowered our flag. But when a garrison is overpowered and captured; when its
artillery and munitions of war are in the hands of the enemy and further resistance has ceased, all© 2017 The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, New York NY
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4The Fort Pillow Massacre, 1864
the substantial elements of a surrender exist, and mere formalities are merged in the actual
condition of things. But in all that bloody picture there are a few incidents that shine like a star in
my memory to-day-incidents that tell of our better nature, and, being enacted under the smoke ofbattle, and in presence of so many evidences of total depravity, are all the more striking andworthy to be remembered. True it is that ―one touch of nature makes the whole world kin.‖ I trustthat my companions will pardon the free use of the personal pronoun ―I‖ in reference to thesefeatures. It would be extremely difficult for me to give you a correct description thereof except
by reference to such of them as concerned me personally and fell under my personal observation.
I am furthermore tempted to adopt this method of statement concerning them in gratefulacknowledgement of the valuable aid extended to me by the enemy at a time when those acts,
comparitively trifling as they would have been under ordinary circumstances, yet, nevertheless,seemed to snatch me from the threshhold of eternity.
It was nearly four o’clock p.m.; and the confederate lines had just swept over our works,
when a minnie ball, burried itself in my right side, where by the way, it gas [sic] ever since borneme faithful company. While I lay upon the field perfectly helpless one Captain Roberts, a mason,
who commanded a company of Texans, seeing my desperate condition and ascertaining that I
was likewise a mason, promptly did what he could in my behalf. He, with the assistance of twomen carried me a little distance and laid me in a small building which had been occupied as asutler’s store. Here he summoned the confederate surgeon who examined my wound, bandaged
my body and arrested the further flow of blood. Here also the confederate General Chalmers,
who was second in command to General Forrest, sent me some brandy. The attention which I
received from these three confederate officers at that critical moment, doubtless contributed, inno small degree, to my ultimate recovery. While Captain Roberts and his two men were carrying
me into this building I heard a group of confederate soldiers commenting upon the attention Iwas receiving. One of them said, ―I wonder who the hell that d----d Yankee officer is that ourofficers are paying so much attention to‖. It was while lying in this building, and after further
resistance on the Federal side had wholly ceased, that suddenly I heard several shots fired justoutside the building, and at the same time some one – presumably a confederate officer – gallop
up and order the firing to cease and the arrest of someone ingaged in it. It was understood that anumber of colored soldiers were shot in that firing. During the night many of the wounded,myself among the number, were collected and placed in one of the rows of cabins just outside the© 2017 The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, New York NY
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5The Fort Pillow Massacre, 1864
fort. At irregular intervals throughout the night stray firing could be heard in the vicinity, telling
but too plainly that the hot exasperation of the charge had not even yet worn away, but was stillcalling for fresh victims. After what seemed to be an age of darkness the gray dawn of April 13thbegan breaking. In the meantime the white prisoners and such of the wounded as could walk, hadleft during the night for Andersonville. About sunrise a gun-boat from Memphis arrived andbegan shelling the rebels along the river bank. Instantly General Forrest ordered the burning of
all buildings and commissary and quartermaster’s stores. In a few minutes the crackling sound ofburning buildings came to my ears and with it the horrible apprehension that the row of cabins
where our helpless wounded were lying would soon be in flames. These fears were but too wellfounded, for in almost less time than requires to tell about it, these buildings were on fire. No
words of mine can depict the awful horror of that moment. The air soon became hot and stifling.
With my right lung pierced with a minnie ball, the process of breathing was momentarily
becoming more difficult and painful. It verily seemed that those of us who, although desperately
wounded, had nevertheless escaped death in the storm of battle, had been reserved for a worse
fate. Why was it, I thought, that the demon fire had been summoned to complete the horrors ofthat awful hour? Was it not enough that many of our brave comrads had been mercilessly shot
down after capture? Was not the fact that our forces had defended the flag against overwhelming
numbers a thing to be rightly considered even by the enemy? The open door of the cabin wherein
I was lying was but a few feet away, and although the strongest impulse was upon me to walkout and enjoy the fresh morning air, still I was powerless to move.
The little cabin with its wounded and helpless inmates was actually on fire. Soon throughcracks and crevices I caught glimpses of the mad flames that seemed all too eager to consume
the slender thread that still held us to life. The last ray of hope seemed to be bidding us a long
farewell, and I knew that in five or at most ten minutes more, without help, the frail tenure bywhich we held to life would be consumed in fire and smoke.
Then like a flash a soldier rushed in and seizing my shoulders drew me forth from theburning building more dead than alive. Others were rescued in the same manner. How many I
know not. In a few minutes more the cabins were entirely consumed. As to whether or not any ofthe wounded were burned I can not speak from personal knowledge. The testimony taken by theCommittee on the Conduct of the war, seemed, however, to indicate, unmistakably, that such
was the fate of some of our wounded. From the report of this committee I quote on this subject as© 2017 The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, New York NY
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6The Fort Pillow Massacre, 1864
follows: ―The charred remains of five or six bodies were afterwards found, all but one so muchdisfigured and consumed by the flames that they could not be identified, and the identification ofthat one is not absolutely certain, although there can hardly be a doubt, that it was the body of
Lieutenant Akerstrom, quartermaster of the 13th Tennessee Cavalry, and a native ofTennesseean; several witnesses who saw the remains, and who were personally acquainted withhim while living, have testified that it is their firm belief that it was his body that was thus
treated.‖I was dragged a distance of forty or fifty yards from the burning building and left on thefield, with a number of other wounded, white and black, within a few feet of me. I heard
considerable firing near me on different parts of the field, and presently a rebel soldier walked
past me, halted, and with a curse aimed his gun at a wounded colored soldier who lay with hishead and shoulders resting against a stump, some ten or twelve yards away. The soldier begged
for his life, but the next instant a bullet crashed through his brain. Another colored soldier wasstanding a few feet away. He had an ugly wound through his wrist, and on him the same rebel
turned, reloaded his piece and aimed at his head; the wounded man, meanwhile, pleading for hislife, and exclaiming, ―de Yankees made me fight, massa.‖ The murderer’s gun snapped, and, as
coolly as an executioner at a hog killing, the rebel brought down his weapon, jarred the powder
into the tube, placed on a fresh precussion [sic] cap, again took aim, and the wounded soldierjoined his comrade in death. These two murders of wounded colored soldiers I saw committed
the day following the battle.
What was the effect of the other firing on different parts of the field that I heard about thesame time I can not say. It is fair to presume, however, that the same motives that prompted themurder of these two men, likewise directed the other firing, and probably with like effect.
While these buildings were burning Forrest sent a flag of truce to the officer of the gunboat, with a message to the effect that if the naval authorities would recognize his right to parole
such of the wounded as were unable to march he would permit a party to land and remove them.
Under this arrangement a detail of men was sent ashore to bury the dead and remove thewounded.
For the writer of this narrative there are no regimental reunions. His comrades of thatstormy day gallantly met the crimson tide of battle and rode into immortality.
When the guns of Fort Pillow ceased to reverberate, but little more than a fragment of the© 2017 The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, New York NY
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The Fort Pillow Massacre, 1864
battalion to which he then belonged, remained; and this was destined to grow still smaller byweary months at Andersonville. Of these survivors only thirteen were known ever again to reach
Tennessee, and these with constitutions so brokened and impaired as to bear little resemblance tofighting men.
The fate of Major Bradford was peculiarly sad. During the night following the battle hewas marched away with a few other prisoners. Before starting he obtained permition to bid me
good by. He knelt down by my side and, taking my hand, told me that he knew he would soon bekilled. He had been among the foremost of the few loyal men in his neighborhood in West
Tennessee, and in Forrest’s command there were some of his bitterest enemies. On the second
day after the battle, about five miles from Brownsville, Tennessee, according to the sworn
testimony of an eye witness, furnished to the committee on the Conduct of the War, a a detail offive rebel soldiers led him about fifty yards from the line of march and shot him to death. His
body was left where it fell and the line moved on.
Forrest’s first dispatch to the Confederate authorities reporting his engagement at Fort
Pillow, admitted to a great extent, the atrocities committed. Subsequently, however, when theabhorrence of mankind over his work began to be made manifest, he endeavored to suppress hisfirst reports concerning the affair and in some of the details to deny, and in others to palliate theexcesses of his troops.
From Forrest’s first dispatch to the Confederate authorities reporting his engagement atFort Pillow, I quote the following:―The river was dyed with the blood of the slaughtered for two hundred yards. The
approxmiate [sic] loss was upward of 500 killed, but few of the officers escaping. My loss was
about 20 killed and 60 wounded. It is hoped that these facts will demonstrate to the northernpeople that negro soldiers can not cope with Southerners. General Grant in his Memoirs,
speaking of this report says: ―Subsequently Forrest made a report in which he left out the partwhich shocks humanity to read.‖I estimate that fully 300 of our men were killed by the enemy after our works had beenstormed and carried, and further resistance on our part had wholly ceased.
Thus ended, in fire and blood, in murder and cruelty beyond the pale of civilized warfare,the battle of Fort Pillow. More than two and a half centuries of wrongs were, in a certain sense
resented by the men who operated our artillery there against the oppressors of their race. The© 2017 The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, New York NY
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8The Fort Pillow Massacre, 1864
steady roar of these guns while the conflict lasted, seemed to be echoing back through the ages
the story of the slave master’s rule and tyrany, while at the same time, this ringing speech ofartillery was proclaiming in language not to be misunderstood, that the ―Kingdom was coming.‖
On the other hand, the men in Gray were there, aroused by passions born of the ―peculiar
institution‖ and determined to maintain it at all hazzards. It seemed to be the last great act in a
drama which had been culminating for two hundred and fifty years. It was, in one sense, on theirpart, a farewell shot against victims of the institution they loved so well. Without slavery Fort
Pillow would have been impossible.
Under no other system could the fiendish elements which entered into the horribleaspects of that affair, have ever been evolved in the hearts of civilized men.
Along the pathway of the war for the Union are thickly strown deeds of heroism andpatriotism, and the contemplation of which, stirs a nation’s pulse till they beat as one man’s.
These constitute the bloody but priceless heritage of ―grim visaged war.‖
But now in the beautiful language of our gifted war poet – the laet Benjamin F. Taylor –―The drifting years like thistle down, have glittered out of sight,
The boys are mustered out of life, let no man say ―good night‖!
The Boys in Blue, and Boys in Gray sleep peacefully together,
And God’s own stars shine through the flag, and make it pleasant weather.‖Among the stories of the stormy days of the Republic, few will longer be rememberedthan the heroic defense and almost utter annihilation of the garrison of Fort Pillow.
MACK J. LEAMING.
Mack J. Leaming.

Great Falls, Montana.

}

15th April 1893.

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9The Fort Pillow Massacre, 1864
Image

Mack J. Leaming’s memoir of the Fort Pillow Massacre, April 15, 1893.
(The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, GLC05080.01 p.1)

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