Talk:Battle of Fort Pillow

message: "Not all of the prisoners who were shot were black —Major Bradford was apparently among those shot after he surrendered[11]— but Confederate anger at the thought of blacks fighting them and their initial reluctance to surrender (because many of the black troops believed they would only be killed if they surrendered in Federal uniform) resulted in a tragedy."
Since this refers to the actual events of the battle, rather than the aftermath, it should be moved to the previous section.  It also seems too certain in its description of events that are disputed.  I propose it should be re-written as follows:
The Union defenders were initially reluctant to surrender.  It is unclear if they held out to the end, or if they did surrender and were then massacred.  The black troops may have believed they would be killed if they surrendered in Federal uniform.  Major Bradford was alleged to be among those shot to death after surrender[11].
I also notice that there are different numbers in this section than in the Bedford Forrest entry.  If the proportion of blacks who died is the same as the proportion of whites who died (as per the Forrest entry) that suggests no massacre took place targeting blacks.  On the other hand, the numbers in this article suggest that a much smaller proportion of black soldiers survived than white soldiers, which suggests that they held out much longer and/or were massacred.  Perhaps some of the content from the Forrest article should be brought here. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Dherb (talk • contribs) 23:40, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Re-organize for Neutrality? 

message: Cleraly the details of the battle should be moved to this article.  The only question is whether to leave what is left of the Fort Pillow article as a short article that covers Fort Pillow beyond this battle, or to merge that portion into this article as well and leave only a redirect. Caerwine 02:24, 20 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Mergefrom [[Fort Pillow]]

message: Why is this within the categories of "Naval Battles during the American Civil War?" No Naval forces on other sides were involved in any kind of military action. The Union side had ships, yes, but they did not participate in the battle at all. The Confederates had only the Cavalry under Forrest, The Unions had Atillery and various others, but even the page itself admits no naval forces were involved. So why is it in this category? PRhyu (talk) 10:31, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Why is This Even Here?

message: I reverted an IP edit that pointed out that Grant was not an eyewitness.  In fact, the first paragraph of the quote is simply common knowledge that would not have required an eyewitness.  The second paragraph is Grant quoting an ACTUAL eyewitness -- Forrest himself.  I clarified that the quote in the second paragraph was quoting Forrest if that is what created the confusion. There is no need to explain that Grant was in Virginia when the massacre occurred. Tom (North Shoreman) (talk) 15:43, 29 September 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: In an effort to end the IP edit warring I have clarified in the text that Grant was not an eyewitness, but eliminated the POV language that was presented with it.  I have also included in a footnote info. from another source that describes the specific documents Grant was referring to.  I also made it clear that the exaggerated numbers on Union deaths was Forrest's claim, not Grant's. Tom (North Shoreman) (talk) 18:26, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

text: "In fact, the first paragraph of the quote is simply common knowledge that would not have required an eyewitness."  That's circular reasoning.97.73.64.155 (talk) 23:26, 4 April 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: Grant's comments add absolutely nothing to this article, since he was hundreds of miles away during the battle.71.48.145.252 (talk) 19:32, 11 February 2015 (UTC)
thread_title: Grant's Memoirs -- Part 2

message: The drawing shows quite a few black women fighting, so has there ever been any mention of females in this fight? Catlover98 (talk) 17:52, 27 September 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Women too?

message: This article seems too one-sided in the sources it chooses to use, and the way it depicts events.  I found a source that seems pretty neutral to me, and I hope it helps in fixing this problem.
"In the swirling confusion inside the fort the situation rapidly degenerated. Before Forrest could mount up and ride into the fort to restore order, an unknown number of Union troops reportedly were shot down while attempting to surrender. Meanwhile, the fort's American flag still flew above the ramparts, and Confederates below the bluff had no way of knowing what was going on inside the fort. As DeWitt Clinton Fort noted in his diary after the battle: 'The wildest confusion prevailed among those who had run down the bluff. Many of them had thrown down their arms while running and seemed desirous to surrender while many others had carried their guns with them and were loading and firing back up the bluff at us with a desperation which seemed worse than senseless. We could only stand there and fire until the last man of them was ready to surrender.'
Forrest himself, in a little-known postwar interview with fellow Confederate general Dabney H. Maury, supported Fort's contention. 'When we got into the fort the white flag was shown at once,' Forrest said in an article published in the Philadelphia Weekly Times. 'The negroes ran out down to the river; and although the [white] flag was flying, they kept on turning back and shooting at my men, who consequently continued to fire into them crowded on the brink of the river, and they killed a good many of them in spite of my efforts and those of their officers to stop them. But there was no deliberate intention nor effort to massacre the garrison as has been so generally reported by the Northern papers.'
Within half an hour the battle was over. Of the fort's total garrison of 580 men, some 354 apparently were killed or wounded (final figures are still hotly disputed). Of these, a large number drowned while attempting to swim to the Union vessels that were steaming away without them. Another 226 were taken prisoner, including Bradford, who was shot and killed a few days later while attempting to escape.
After the battle, a congressional committee chaired by radical Republican Senator Benjamin F. Wade of Ohio issued a highly charged report accusing Forrest and his men of 'an indiscriminate slaughter, sparing neither age nor sex, white or black, soldier or civilian.' The fact that no women or children were killed at the fort, and only one civilian (who had taken up arms at the time of the attack), did not deter Wade's committee, whose chief aim was not to determine the truth but to deliver a piece of wartime propaganda intended to incite the restive Northern public on the eve of Ulysses S. Grant's long-awaited spring offensive. The report, virtually useless as an evidentiary document, did succeed in tarring Forrest and his men with the label of murderers, and the capture of Fort Pillow quickly became known as a 'massacre.' It remains so identified today, an explosive and imprecise term that sheds much heat–but little light–on one of the murkiest and most controversial episodes of the Civil War."
http://www.historynet.com/battle-of-fort-pillow.htm — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.80.44.146 (talk) 16:03, 11 February 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: The above quote was from an article by Roy Morris, Jr., which was first published in America's Civil War magazine, apparently without footnotes. The article was posted on the History Net website on 12 June 2006, crediting the magazine, but not providing a date for its first publication. For such a controversial topic, it would be better to have a source that cites documentation for the facts and conclusions. This would included citing the interview published in the Philadelphia Weekly Times (likely based in Philadelphia, MS.)Parkwells (talk) 14:09, 17 March 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Too one-sided 

message: Grant was hundreds of miles away from Fort Pillow when this incident took place.  What does the quote from his memoirs add to the controversy other than more hearsay?71.48.148.40 (talk) 20:54, 16 February 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Why is the quote from Grant's memoirs still in this article? 

message: Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just added archive links to  on Battle of Fort Pillow. Please take a moment to review my edit. You may add  after the link to keep me from modifying it, if I keep adding bad data, but formatting bugs should be reported instead. Alternatively, you can add  to keep me off the page altogether, but should be used as a last resort. I made the following changes:
*Attempted to fix sourcing for http://www.civil-war-tribute.com/us-grant-letter-to-lincoln-08231863.htm
*Attempted to fix sourcing for http://deadconfederates.com/2014/04/15/understanding-fort-pillow-full-and-ample-retaliation/
*Attempted to fix sourcing for http://books.google.com/books?id=AMg4AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA168&dq=confederate+laws+%22full+and+ample+retaliation%E2%80%9D&hl=en&sa=X&ei=Hxi1Uru2Kqby2QXDm4C4CQ&ved=0CDoQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=confederate%20laws%20%22full%20and%20ample%20retaliation%E2%80%9D&f=false
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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: I think this would better be named Fort Pillow Massacre. That's what the article is about, the battle itself is unimportant. Then someone finding it in a list or category would know better what it is. Any objection? deisenbe (talk) 12:23, 7 March 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes.  It's not called "massacre" because of the conflicting reports, exaggerations and deception from the Union side.  Key example-  the (US) Congressional Report claimed there was a surrender of the fort and after that surrender 300 to 400 Union soldiers were killed (murdered).  Reports by Union officers who were present at the battle don't support that story.  -Topcat777 12:06, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Proposed renaming 

message: It appears the Clark quote was inserted by User:Deisenbe on April 4th of 2018. That user might tell us to whom it refers. I suspect it's a mistype, meaning Forrest. No Smiths in the Confederate chain of command that I can find, but it would be nice if there were an "opposing forces" section or "order of battle" page for this event. Clark's regiment commander appears to be Russell. BusterD (talk) 14:19, 14 July 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: Given the inserter’s standards of accuracy, perhaps just removing it is best. Qwirkle (talk) 14:22, 14 July 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: I have taken the liberty of asking that user to look at this. For now, I've replaced Smith with Forrest, which makes the statement true. Sorry to everyone if I was flippant in my reversion last night. BusterD (talk) 14:27, 14 July 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: Dunno that Clarke should be described as “Forrest’s” particularly, though. Qwirkle (talk) 14:31, 14 July 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: The Smith in question is Capt. C. T. Smith, "who led the charge as we moved from the first to the second fort".  From https://civilwarhome.com/chalmersftpillowor.html deisenbe (talk) 16:31, 14 July 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: Who has what to do with the sergeant in question? Qwirkle (talk) 16:46, 14 July 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  The elusive "Smith" 

message: Qwirkle (talk)
:What is your point? Ckruschke (talk) 18:36, 16 July 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: See the recent edit history. Qwirkle (talk) 19:51, 16 July 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Katyn or My Lai was a “deliberate” massacre. This may have been a failure of command and control. 

message: The lead seems to represent only the one side and not mention that there was no overall surrender. Much evidence in the article suggests that the Union resistance continued for some time, and that the commander played games to delay while help might arrive.  The article seems balanced, but the lead is sensational POV --Kevin Murray (talk) 17:36, 16 February 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: Not sure I see your point. Official Union sources, historians, and even Bedford's men claim - in the page text - that this was a massacre. I think the lede does a pretty decent summation and closes by saying its anyone's guess what Bedford's role in the action was. Ckruschke (talk) 19:17, 5 March 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Lead section is not consistent with the discussion in the article

message: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Battle_of_Fort_Pillow&diff=986829792&oldid=986829675
I suspect this escaped Cluebot because it was twice deleted within 60 seconds, or something like that. I spotted it just from my memory of what the article was, and then I went through the history looking for unrestored blankings, found it, and restored it. deisenbe (talk) 09:01, 8 June 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Massacre section deleted for six months 

message: In view of the above, I have requested indefinite protection from IP editing. deisenbe (talk) 09:02, 8 June 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: Articles are only protected to stop persistent, ongoing vandalism or other disruption.  This article has barely been edited since you requested protection in June; I don't know of any admin who would protect this article at this time; I wouldn't. 331dot (talk) 13:02, 5 September 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Page protection requested