The southern sentinel. (Winnfield, La.) 1883-1910, 1884-11-07

they sloped to the ditch. Five hundred
men ON the inside, perfectly sheltered
from shot and shell should have kept the
parapet clear with the bayonet alone.
Every Confederate spoken to who par
ticipated in the assault says that the
garrison was panic-stricken. Those who
fought at all fought on their own hook
thus keeping up a scattering fire. The
great majority threw down their arms ard
rushed for the bluffs 1T the rear Of the
fort. Here they received the cross-fire,
and such rs leaped down were killed on
the bank. For ten minutes after the Con-
federates had secured a foothold the gar
rison flag was still flying, and was hauled
down by the vietors. As long rs the ilag
was UP the firing continued ou both sidcs
and the Confederate troops so posted that
they could not see the flag maintained
their fire until word was sent them that
the fort was taken.
The fight. up to tie time the flag came
down, differed from no other. Then be-
gan the barbarities which no pen can
excuse. 1t is fact admitted by Confed-
crates who were there, that the intention
was to kill every neg:o who survived the
battle, and but few of them escaped.
Women and children and sick ano help
less white soldiers were shot or bayoneIed
aud members of the garrison who surren-
dcred in manly way had their brains
blown out afterwards. 1t was an affair
which disgraces the records of civilized
warfare, bat there are some facts that
should not be lost sight of:
/. The best tigting men in those two
Confederate brigades had no hand in the
barbarities.
2. Neither Forrest nor Chalmers is
saei orders or uttered any words calcula-
ted to incite their men to snch deeds.
3. During the confusion, when Il desul-
tory fire of musketry Ivas being main
tained all over the grounds, and three or
four Federal craft were seeking 4 landing
to assist the garrison, Forest could not
did know he stopped it.
4. All the testimony taken by the Con-
gressional committee, was one-siLed.
While witnesses were sworn they were
urged to tel the whole story, and there
was no one to cross-examine. Any and
every statement made was jotted down as
fact.
That barbaI'ities were committed even
the Confedeartes do not deny, and IL is a
matter worthy of notice that when Gen.
Chalmers made his run for Congress in
Mississippi last fall QSS2) the Fort Pill
low cry was raised against him by his
own people, and it assisted materially in
his own defeat. He had no more to do
with the brutalities than Forrest, and
Forrest had no more hand in them than
if he had been a hundred miles away.
Out of the $50 Federals in the garrison
about 500 were afterwards accounted for,
leaving the loss in the fight, which lasted
seven hours, only 225 men.
The troops which abused the sick in the
hospital and s-ilIed the non- -combatants
at the lower end of the ravine were three
companies of detached men who did not
participate in the assault on the fort at all
and many of them got drunk on the whis-
Ky taken from the Federal commissary.
Forrest carried away with him about 17O
white and seventy colored prisoners un-
wounded, and nearly 100 colored women
and children. If general butchery was
ordered, as has been charged, why were
these people saved?
One spring day of this year l worked
my way around to the foot of the water
battery to the bluffs in the rear fort. In
the tangled thickets my foot crushed a
skull. and further along | picked up a
jaw-5one with It's row of double teeth. A
hundred panic stricken men dashed
themselves down the steep banks in hopes
to be protected by a gunboat at the wa
ter's edge. They met, instead, cross
fire which left none alive.
Fort Pillow stands against the Confed-
crates as butchery. If either Forrest ol
Chalmers has written of it / have not
read their defense. simply know from
Confederate sources that neither COM
mander encouraged the brutalities, and
that both used every means to stop them
| know further that only about 150 men
ont of the two brigades had any hand in
it, and their atrocities disgraced them in
the eyes Of the better soldiery.-M. Quad
in Detroit Free Press.
A Historic Gun, used in battle by threl
Republics.
Mr.. Jos. r. Hatch contributes the fol
fl.1.