The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1856-1888, 1864-05-14
FOREIGN NEWS!
Dates to April 26th
Serious ReyerSes to the Union Arms !
Terrible at Fort Pillow
by the
SIGNS OF ACTIVE WAR

The Hamburg clipper ship .7rracan, en- route for
Hongkong. arrived at this port on the 18th, % days
from San Francisco, and anchored in the Roads. In
the afternoon of the same day e P. NJ the bark A.
Il. EZdridge, Capt. Bennett, also arrived. 1s days
from the same port. Neither of these vessels brought
o mail, but only a few San Francisco papers.
On the 18th the bark Comet also arrived, having
left on the 25th, in advance of the fl. Il. E. The
Comet brings a small mail. Capt. Bennett has
thus regained the laurels which he lost on the passage
TO San Francisco, having on that trip been beaten by
the Comet.
The news received by these vessels chronicles sew
eral reverses to the Union arms in various quarters.
including the capture of Fort Pillow near Memphis
by the Rebels and the terrible massacre there the
reverse in Texas under Banks and loss of between
1000 and {. 900 men: and the attack on and capture
of Plymouth, n. c., with its garrison and general,
including a loss of $500 men. The opening of the
spring campaign has so far been unpropitious to the
Union armies, though the reverses are in out-of-the-
way localities, and can have no important effect on
the main result. The great ~onficts are to be near
Washington and near Chattanooga, and from what
the papers report, both rebels and national troops
were on the move, and daily expecting battle.
The following are the details of the principal events
occurring during the fortnight and covered by the
news:
ne MdSSdCTe at Il OTt lIlo"s
Letters received detailing the capture of Fort Pill
low give even u more appalling description of the
fendishness Of the rebels than the telegraph. Many
of the wounded were shot in the hospital, and the
remainder driven out and the hospital burned. The
morning after the battle rebels went about the field
to shoot the negroes who had not died from previous
wounds. Many of those who had escaped from the
works and hospitals, who desired to be treated as
prisoners of war as the rebels had promised, were
ordered into line and i~nhumanly shot down. OF
three hundred and fifty colored troops not more than
fifty or sixty escaped, and not one of the officers in
command of the colored troops survives. General
Chalmers told the correspondent that although it was
against the policy of his Government to spare negro
soldiers and their officers, yet he had done all in his
power to stop the carnage; at the same time he be-
lieved it was right. Another otlcer SAID our white
troops would have been protected had they not been
found on duty with negroes. The rebels suffered
heavily, and their wounded filled three hospitals,
a short distance in the country.
CHICAGO, April 16.-A tow boat, which passed
Fort Pillow since the Platte VaNey, reports that
while the flag was still flying, the rebels had not left.
Four ~gunboats were there. Some wounded officers
came up, and say they begged the enemy not to shoot
them after surrender, but in vain. Five wounded
negroes. who were in the hospital, had been buried
alive, two of whom had dug their way out with their
hands. Gen. Chalmers is reported to have been in
command at the attack on Fort Pillow, at first; but
Gen. Lee arriving before the battle, he assumed the
command. Forrest, with his main force. proceeded,
after the fight, to Brownsville, taking with him the
captured guns.
luSIG K " SiNuf IA bSA 40 a SShOAhi III
ting Of the teeth among officers throughout the West,
when the massacre at Fort Pillow is mentioned.
Several officers have been heard to say that unless
the Government takes retaliatory steps they should
consider it their duty to shoot every man of Forests
and Chalmers commands they meet, taking no pri-
soners. The soldiers have threatened to shoot every
one of Forests men, now in prison, if they get a
chance.
Commenting on the above, the Alta says:
The horrors of the Fort Pillow massacre we're not
exaggerated in the dispatches first received. The
negro soldiers, after the surrender, were shot down
wherever found. Out of $50 only 80 or 60 escaped.
The white officers who commanded were all killed.
The white soldiers, too, were treated In the same way,
because they were serving with negroes The wound
ed we're shot at and driven from the hospitals, and to
crown all, Eve of the black Unionists were buried
alive.
These were the doings of men who have been ask
ing the sympathy of Christendom in their efforts to
the Sioux, in Northern Minnesota, have been thrown
completely in the shade by the massacrings Of the
rebels. To the latter belong all the glory of Laurence
and Fort Pillow. None will envy them in these par
ticulars, unless it be the feuds in the very depths of
the Internal regions.
The Government will have TO take some steps to
check their barbarities. but in what direction shall
they be? Raise the black fag and take no more
prisoners: No if we are fighting with a barbarous
foe we cannot, for that reason. become barblrIans
ourselves. There is but one thing TO be done-to
proclaim the officers by whose troops these atrocities
were perpetrated outlaws, and authorize their execu'
ton by the first troops into whose hands they may
fall. In this way these semi-barbarians may be
brought to their senses.