As part of his raid into Union held West Tennessee and Kentucky, in an effort to gain recruits and supplies and interfere with General Sherman's preparations for his march on Atlanta. Confederate general, Nathan Bedford Forrest and some two thousand Confederate cavalrymen, surrounded Fort Pillow and the 500 Union troops garrisoned inside it on the morning of April 12, 1864.
Forrest's men kept up constant sharpshooter and artillery fire throughout the day. Even managing to kill the fort's commanding officer, Major Lionel Booth. By 3:30 PM, Forrest demanded for the fort to surrender. Major William Bradford, Booth's second in command, requested a one hour cease-fire to confer with his officers and plan for Union reinforcements. However, Forrest, having received news of Union boats approaching the fort and suspecting Bradford for using the cease-fire to fortify his defenses, he announced that his men would storm the fort in twenty minutes.
Easily making it over the parapets and ditches protecting the fort, Confederate troops swiftly defeated the poorly led and organized Union soldiers. The fighting lasting less than a half hour. While of little strategic significance, eyewitness accounts and the ensuing congressional investigation of the battle, determined that a massacre had occurred in which an unknown number of mostly African American troops were killed after having surrendered. It is unclear how many soldiers were killed during the fighting as opposed to afterwards, but it is known that only 20% of Black soldiers at the battle were captured compared to 60% of the White soldiers.
Similar to the Alamo during the Texas Revolution, the battle at Fort Pillow became of huge importance to Black soldiers, their battle cry being, "Remember Fort Pillow!" During the Battle of New Market Heights, Black regiments spearheaded the attack, having to cross over 800 yards of open field in order to reach the Confederate line. The Black troops were encouraged to shout these words as they charged, the whole time being mowed down by Confederate forces. In the end, the Black troops were unwavering and proved extremely brave, able to overrun the Confederate's position despite heavy losses. This battle showed the worthiness of Blacks to serve in the army and debunked the myth that Black men could not fight as well as their White counterparts.
Works Cited:
https://www.britannica.com/event/Fort-Pillow-Massacre
https://www.civilwar.org/learn/articles/battle-new-market-heights-usct-soldiers-proved-their-heroism
It's amazing how a loss and an event that many people may overlook played such an important role in the war. Furthermore, the involvement of African Americans in the civil war in itself was one of the key reasons the Union was able to win. The impact first began when John Mercer Langston volunteered to lead an entirely African American unit. His actions and the actions of the regiment showed the first signs of how important African Americans would be to the war itself, fighting for a cause they truly believed in.
ReplyDeleteSource : http://www.oberlinheritagecenter.org/blog/2014/09/the-battle-of-new-market-heights-the-5th-uscts-glory/
The dilemma that both the North and South faced concerning black soldiers is interesting, as we have already discussed. But another thing that I think is important to talk about is how the South treated black prisoners of war. This situation posed another problem: if they treated black POWs the same way as whites, then it would legitimize them as both soldiers and men, and therefore the South would be implicitly accepting the Emancipation Proclamation. So, shortly before the Proclamation was signed, Jefferson Davis basically allowed the death penalty for any black POWs, regardless of whether they were formally freedmen or escaped slaves. Lincoln, for his part, rejected this, stating that "the law of nations … permit no distinction as to color in the treatment of prisoners of war." This meant that the Union army was bound to retaliate if any special grievances were committed against black POWs. However, the Confederacy didn't pay much attention to this. Black soldiers were sometimes forced to work or even returned to old masters, if they had been runaways before. They were placed in segregated prisons. Many were killed. At first, the Confederacy wouldn't trade captured blacks soldiers for white ones, for that would signify equality. However, as the war dragged on and their numbers dwindled (but the North's didn't), they were forced to relinquish some black soldiers for white ones, playing right into Lincoln's hands. The Civil War was very hard for black soldiers, and even harder for black prisoners of war.
ReplyDeletehttps://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/08/27/the-plight-of-the-black-p-o-w/
I liked how you compared the battle to other situation like the Alamo. IT's always interesting to read about battles but this ones is especially interesting because while it wasn't strategically special, the symbolic significance likely led to an increase in union morale especially among black soldiers. Given that this occurred in 1864, this was around when the Civil War ended. Given that, this battle likely gave the union and very much needed boost to victory despite its strategic loss.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Drew that this battle was definitely used as a much needed morale boost, giving the Union Army the power to push through and win the war. This was not the only time that a battle was glorified in order to give troops morale, like the Battle of the Alamo, as stated in the article, but also in other wars as well. For example, a few decades later, in the Great Sioux of 1876, Custer's last stand was over glorified in order to give that morale boost and call to action for the other troops. While the massacre at Fort Pillow was in no means insignificant, it could have easily been overshadowed by many of the other larger and bloodier battles during the Civil War.
Deletehttp://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/custer.htm
While I do agree that these battles were significant to the morale of the respective troops, I do not think that it is so much a morale boost as a need for revenge against the perpetrators of the massacres. For the black troops, fort pillow sort of told them that the only option would be to fight harder, because they did not have the option to surrender. Because of this the resolve of black troops would be drastically strengthened.
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