Muscatine weekly journal. [volume] (Muscatine, Iowa) 185?-1890, 1864-05-13
The Fort Pillow Nlassacre-Chrts.
T tian forbearamce Of Democrats.

The Fort Pillow Massacre-Chrfs.
tian fOrbearanceO Of Democrats.
As our Democratic friends in this latitude
profess such a spirit Of Christian forbearance,
and up to the present time, not one of them
has publicly condemned unqualifiedly the
massacre of Union troops at Fort. Pillow, we
commend to their Christian minds the follow
ing extract from the report Of the Congress
ional Committee on the Conduct ofthe War:
The Committee then proceeded to say:
"Then followed a scene Of cruelty and
murder without parallel in civilized warfare,
which needed but the tomahawk and scalplng
knife to exceed the worst atrocities ever COM
mitted by savages. The rebels commenced
an indiscriminate slaughter, sparing neither
age nor sex, white or black soldiers, or civil
ians. The officers and men seemed to vie
with each other in the devillsh work.. Men,
women and children, wherever found, were
deliberately shot down, beaten and hacked
with sabres. Some of the children, not more
than ten years old, were forced to stand up
and face their mHrderers while being shot.
The sick and wounded were butchered with
out mercy, the rebels even entering the hos
pital buildings and dragging them out to the
spot, or killing them as they lay there, unable
to offer the least resistance. All over the hill
side the work of murder was going on
Numbers of our men were collected together
in lines or groups, and deliberately shot,
Some were shot while in the river, while 9TH
ers on the bank were shot and their bodies
kicked into the water, many of them still liv-
So 10 10 - Covo
themselves from drowning. Some Of the
rebels stood upon the top of the hill, or
short distance from its side, and called to our
soldiers to come up to them, and, as they ap-
preached, shot them down in cold blood;
and, if their guns or pistols missed, forced
them to stand until they were again prepared
to fire. All around were heard cries of No
quarter mo quarter Kill the damned
niggers,' Shoot them down. All who ask
ed for mercy were answered by the most cruel
taunts and sneers. Some were spared for
time, only to be murdered under circumstan-
ces of greater barbarity.
"No cruelty which the most fiendish ma
lignity could devise was omitted by these
murderers. One white soldier, who was
wounded in the leg so as to be unable to walk,
was made to stand up while his tormentors
shot him. Others, who were wounded and
unable to stand up, were held up and again
shot. One negro, who had been ordered by
rebel officer to hold his horse, was killed by
him when he demonstrated. Another,
mere child, whom an officer had taken up be-
hind him on his horse, was. seen by Chalmers,
who at once ordered him to put him down
and shoot him, which was done. The huts
and tents, IN which many of the wounded
had sought shelter, were set on fire, both
that night and next morning, while the
wounded were still in them, those only escap-
ing who were able to get themselves out, or
who could prevail on others less injured to
help them out; and even some of those thus
seeking to escape the flames were met by
these ruffians and shot down, or had their
brains beaten out. One man was deliberate
ly fastened down to the floor of tent, face
upwards, by means Of nails driven through
his clothing and into the boards under him,
so that he could not possibly escape, and then
the tent was set on fire. Another was nailed
to the side Of building outside of the fort,
and then the building set on fire and burned.
The charred remains of five or six bodies
were afterwards found, all but one so much
disfgured and consumed by the flames that
they could not be identified, and the identif-
cation of that one is not absolutely certain,
although there can hardly be doubt that it
was the body of Lieutenant Albertson, Quar-
termaster of the 18th Virginia cavalry, and a
native of Tennessee.
These deeds of murder and cruelty closed
when night came on, only to be renewed the
next morning, when the demons carefully
sought among the dead lying about in all di-
rections for any other wounded yet alive, and
those they found were deliberately shot
Scores of the dead and wounded were found
there, the day of the massacre, by the men
from some of our gunboats, who were permit
ted to go on shore and collect the wounded
and bury the dead The rebels themselves
had made pretense of burying great many
of their victims, but they had merely thrown
them into the trenches aod bitches about the
fort, or the little holows and ravines on the
hillside, covering them partially with earth.
Portions of heads and faces, hands and feet,
were found protruding in every direction,
and even when your Committee visited the
spot, two weeks afterwards, although parties
of men had been sent on shore from time to
time to bury the bodies unburied, and re-bury
the others, and were even then engaged in
the same work, we found the evidences Of
this murder and cruelty still most painfully
evident. We saw the bodies, still unburied,
at some distance from the fort, of some sick
men who had been met fleeing from the hos
pital, and beaten down and brutally murder
ed, and their bodies left where they had fallen.
"Many other instances of equally atrocious
cruelty might be enumerated, but your Com
mittee feel compelled to refrain from giving
here more of the heart-sickening details, and
refer to the statements contained in the volum-
inous testimony herewith submitted. These
statements were obtained by them from eye
witnesses and sufferers. Many of them, as
they were examined by your Committee,
were lying upon beds Of pain and suffering,
some so feeble that their lips could with DIFF
6culty tell their story" -
TIE DUBUQUE SHiP CANAL CoNvENT1oN.-
This Convention met at Dubuque last week,
and was rather slimly attended. The interest
in this project had abated considerably after
r. Al r Il L.