Lentz, Perry. The Falling Hills (1994) is a novel.
On April 12, 1864, two Confederate cavalry brigades commanded by General Nathan Bedford Forrest overwhelmed a Union garrison of white Tennessee Unionists and former slaves at an outpost in western Tennessee. The Confederates then slaughtered the Federal troops in the Civil War's most notorious act of racial hatred. In his epic novel The Falling Hills, Perry Lentz uses the largely forgotten Fort Pillow Massacre to explore the erosion - or confirmation - of human character under the strain of war. The Falling Hills centers on two young officers from opposite sides of the conflict. A Tennessee planter and a Confederate veteran, Captain Leroy Acox reluctantly returns to service in Forrest's newly recruited cavalry corps and, though he hates war, eventually succumbs to its hysteria. Lieutenant Jonathan Seabury, an idealist from Boston who requested "a Negro branch of the service," sees the war as his opportunity to educate and enlighten former slaves. Seabury, however, quickly becomes disheartened by the dishonesty and disorder of his men, the corruption of garrison life, and the prospect of defending the ill-equipped outpost. Opening with a mindless act of violence, the novel places Acox and Seabury at odds in one unforgettable battle.
James Ford
Rhodes
History of the United States of America
Vol 5:
1864-1866 CHAPTER XXIX
New York: 1904, 1920 edition
copyright has expired; this is a public domain
document
[page 510]
UNEXECUTED THREATS
Much might be written on the unexecuted threats on both sides ; these are especially numerous in the South in regard to negro soldiers and their white officers. There is no evidence that an officer of coloured troops taken captive was executed by authority. Four negroes who were captured in November,1862 armed with muskets and wearing the Federal uniform may have been put to death with the concurrence of Davis and Seddon 'on the ground of their being slaves in insurrection.(l) This is the only case of that kind which the Official Records disclose but there is considerable evidence of unauthorized summary executions of negro soldiers and of their officers. It was also reported that two free negro prisoners from Massachusetts had been sold into slavery in Texas,(2) others were compelled to work on the fortifications and a number of slaves were returned to their masters (3)
(1) O. R., ser. ii. vol. iv. pp. 945, 954.
(2) Ibid., vol. v. p. 455.
(3) See ibid., pp. 844, 867 ; vol. vi. pp. 21, 73, 115, 125,139, 145, 177, 182, 189,190,193, 202, 226, 224, 246, 258, 913, 924,1022 ; vol. vii. pp. 93,155, 204, 459, 468, 539, 673, 703, 967, 987, 990,1011,1020,1206 ; vol. viii. pp.19, 171, 197, 393, 425, 659, 703 ; ser. i. vol. xxiii. p. 866 ; vol. xxviii. pp. 25, 37, 45 ; see also Nicolay and Hay, vol. vi. p. 473 et seq. On this subject I have derived help from D. M. Matteson.
[p 511] The most signal case of maltreatment of coloured troops was at the taking of Fort Pillow, the massacre there causing a thrill of horror at the North. In his address at the Baltimore Sanitary Fair in April, 1864 Lincoln spoke of the "painful rumor true I fear " of the massacre by the Confederates of "some three hundred colored soldiers and white officers" he said that he was having the affair "thoroughly investigated" and if it should turn out that there had been "the massacre of three hundred there or even the tenth part of three hundred" retribution should surely follow.(1) Of the massacre, there can be no doubt. The simple facts admitted by everybody prove it conclusively. On April 12, 1864 General N. B. Forrest at the head of 1500 men, having won a preliminary fight, demanded under a flag of truce the unconditional surrender of the garrison of Fort Pillow,(2) saying that otherwise he should with his sufficient force take the fort by storm. This demand was refused. The bugle sounded; his men giving the well-known yell made a spirited charge, captured the fort at once and in less than thirty minutes had killed 221 and wounded 130 more out of a garrison of 557. "The river was dyed with the blood of the slaughtered for 200 yards" are the words of Forrest in one of his reports.(3) Of the Confederates 14 were killed and 86 wounded.(4) Make due allowance for the ability and daring of Forrest, the incompetency of the surviving Federal commander and the cutting off of the retreat of the Union troops: even then 39 per cent. of a garrison defending a fort do not get killed and 24 per cent. more wounded in "open warfare," which is the term used by Forrest to describe the action. (5) It seems clear however that there was no official surrender, and that the United States flag was not hauled down by the garrison or the white flag authoritatively displayed. It is true too that some of the garrison thinking no quarter would be given made a desperate resistance and were shot in the act but undoubtedly more were killed after they had surrendered themselves and were asking quarter or even begging for mercy.
(1) Nicolay and Hay, vol. vi. p. 478.
(2) Fort Pillow was on the Mississippi River on the Tennessee side about forty miles above Memphis.
(3) O. R. , vol. xxxii. part i. p. 610.
(4) Life of Forrest, Wyeth, p. 361.
(5) O. R. , vol. xxxii. part i. p. 591.
[p 5l2] The garrison consisted of 295 white and 262 coloured troops. Whites and negroes seem to have been massacred indiscriminately, but the negroes suffered the worse, about 77 per cent. of their number being killed or wounded to about 43 per cent. of the white soldiers. The white men were from Tennessee, "Tories" Forrest called them,(1) and between these and the Tennessee regiments in his command there was the bitterness of neighbourhood feuds and internecine warfare, which accounts for the desperate fighting of some and the massacre of other white troops. The general feeling against negro soldiers in the South explains the killing of the negroes many of whom were panic-stricken, some even in a state of frenzy. The massacre was unauthorized by Forrest or by Chalmers his second in command. In his demand for surrender, knowing that part of the garrison were coloured troops Forrest had said that they would be treated as prisoners of war. The evidence seems good too that after the fort was taken he rode to the scene and stopped the firing of his troops which he did not hesitate later to call a massacre (2)
(1) O. R., vol. xxxii part i. p. 610.
(2) Ibid. , pp. 590, 596 ; Wyeth, pp. 383, 386.
The Fort Pillow massacre was investigated by the Union commander of the district of Cairo and by the Committee on the Conduct of the War. With part of their evidence before him Lincoln wrote to each member of his cabinet : (3) "It is now quite certain that a large number of our colored soldiers with their white officers were by the rebel force massacred after they had surrendered at the recent capture of Fort Pillow; " and he asked each one's opinion "as to what course the Government should take in the case." Answers from all in writing were received but the President took no action.(4) No retaliation followed. Due attention to the subject may have been prevented as Nicolay and Hay suggest from the hurry of events now beginning with the Wilderness campaign ; or it may be that Lincoln dominated by the quality of mercy shrank from inaugurating a policy of retaliation which from the known temper of Forrest and the Richmond government would have been met with reprisals. But it is more probable that when the President looked thoroughly into the evidence he was convinced that the massacre was perpetrated in the heat of conflict and had neither been ordered nor suggested by Forrest.
(3) May 3,1864.
(4) Nicolay and Hay, vol. vi. p. 481.
In the correspondence which ensued between him and Washburn, the Union commander at Memphis, Forrest said that he would have " furnished all the facts " connected with the capture of Fort Pillow " had they been applied for properly"; and his superior officer General S. D. Lee wrote to Washburn, "No demand for an explanation has ever been made either by yourself or your government." (1) These statements could not be gainsaid.
(1) June 23, 28, 1864, O. R., vol. xxxii. part i. pp. 591, 600.
My authorities are the correspondence reports, affidavits and statements in
Official Records, vol. xxxii. part 1. ;
John A. Wyeth, Life of Gen.
Nathan Bedford Forrest (1899); p. 335 et seq. ; Dr. Wyeth's account shows much industry and is full and candid. While I have not accepted entirely his conclusions, his relation has been of great use to me and deserves the careful consideration of all students of the subject.
Nicolay and Hay, Abraham Lincoln: A History
(New York, 1890) vol. vi. p. 478 et seq. ; [see the magazine version of this chapter; Nicolay and Hay were senior staff to Lincoln]
Report of Committee on Conduct of the war on the Fort Pillow massacre.
end of Rhodes excerpt
Copyright (c) 2002 Richard Jensen. This Guide was prepared with support from the Robert H. Michel Civic Education Grants sponsored by The Dirksen Congressional Center. Scholars are invited to link to this Guide and distribute it to students.