Hoyt Cagle
Fort Pillow Massacre
Fri Jul 27 09:01:44 2001


Mr. Birge:
Thank you for your thoughts on this subject. Please allow me to answer various items one by one:

(1)..."was surprised that you felt Mr Martin discounted the events of Fort Pillow"

The reason that I think thusly is because Mr. Lowe states unequivocally, "This is another case (see the thread on Indians in the Civil War, above) of Union propaganda." Mr. Martin has no reply for this, thus implying tacit approval. I state, "The preponderance of historical primary source data certainly shows that a massacre did, indeed, occur." Mr. Martin says that I am "extreme" and "absolute." Think about this for a moment. I think that anyone can see that Mr. Martin is certainly discounting the whole concept, and indeed is perhaps not quite as fair on this topic as he believes himself to be.

(2)..."I must also say that rarely in any 'after action' report are the facts totally correct."

Very true, Mr. Birge. However, I am not basing my conclusion on these alone. We have here one of the best documented of all Civil War atrocities on either side. I have yet to see personally any other SWORN TESTIMONY concerning this or any other war atrocity. The discrepancies in this testimony are, at least to me, only further indications of its truthfulness. Were it a case of a massive conspiracy of "Union propoganda," one would reasonably assume that while putting words in the witnesses' mouths, an effort would be made to see that the various stories matched. (I have stated this previously, but it bears repetition.) Also, I have for years collected, from post-Civil War writings, both direct and indirect references to this event, such as:

a) private correspondence between Gen. Sherman and his brother, the senator, which obviously they had no reason to expect would ever be made public,

b) a casual mention, by a man in his personal memoirs, of having hired a survivor of the massacre,

c) an 1864 speech at Baltimore, MD, in which Lincoln, while hoping that rumors of the massacre were false, expresses his fear that they were not and agonizes over what action to take in such case,

d) a report, telegraphed by Gen. Forrest to Gen. Polk, in which he states, "I attacked Fort Pillow on the morning of the 12th instant ... I stormed the fort, and after a contest of thirty minutes CAPTURED THE ENTIRE GARRISON, killing five hundred and taking one hundred prisoners ..." He also adds that he sustained a loss of only twenty killed and sixty wounded, and that all the Union officers were slain,

e) an Englishman's 1866 history of the war which mentions the massacre, citing as a source of his information, a Confederate army surgeon (alas, unnamed) who eyewitnessed the event and related it to him, "viva voce."

In conclusion, if the massacre were simply fruit of a Union propaganda machination, one could not reasonably expect such a variety of casual, unmotivated references to it, both from partisan and non-partisan observers.

I am at present pressed for time, even though I have more to say on this topic. I will only ask Mr. Martin how the fact that there were other, bigger massacres (Indian, etc) could possibly negate this particular one?

Hoyt Cagle