Provided by Cherokee Brasher, Chief of Heritage Defense for the Alabama Division, Sons of Confederate Veterans:
The
Battle of Ft Pillow Victory Stigma
By
Edwin L. Kennedy, Jr. Lieutenant Colonel, US Army (Ret.)
General Nathan Forrest was declared by leaders on both sides to be one of the
best commanders the war produced. Success tends to beget emotional and
irrational jealousies, especially by those who suffer from inferiority complexes.
Forrest's overwhelming victory at Fort Pillow provided a propaganda coup for
the northern press as survivors' accounts were coached and embellished to
denigrate a commander who could not be beaten on the battlefield. While
there may have been some truth in a few of the accusations, they were wildly
distorted, exaggerated and uncritically accepted ---- even when logical
explanations are considered and the results of official northern inquiries
could not "prove" malice by Forrest.
Forrest had a reputation of using deception throughout his military
career. When he threatened the garrison at Pillow, it was no
different than the other ruses he had previously employed and would continue to
employ. This seems to be the crux of the criticisms of Forrest's actions
leading to the use of the word "massacre" by those who conveniently
over-look the fact Forrest (and his subordinates) commonly used threats to
scare enemies into submission. The fact that it worked infuriated the
northerners for being duped. When Pillow's garrison refused to
succumb to the threats and then fell to assault, northerners illogically
assumed that the threats were executed. No subsequent Federal
investigations ever found evidence of such.
An enemy who appeared to be reinforcing the garrison by river during a truce
meant that Forrest's forces' reaction was questioned as the truce violation
when it was a natural response. Experienced soldiers know of the
difficulty of controlling attacking units, even with modern technology such as
radios. 150 years ago, attacking at Ft Pillow was fourfold more difficult
due to distances, background battle noise, rough terrain, and the inability of
sound commands to carry. Forces converging on an objective from multiple
directions are extremely difficult to control as Forrest knew but he had no
choices. Once the assault began, it traditionally ended with the
enemy surrendering, or running away. When the Federals refused to
surrender as a unit by striking the colors and then continued to resist, they
garnered a natural response that wasn't a planned massacre but the result of
passions in the heat of battle. The result was an embarrassment to the
Federals not only for their loss of the battle, but the high casualties resulting
from their soldiers feigning surrender but recovering arms to continue
fighting. They suffered the results of their poor decisions and
actions. Forrest unfairly suffers the stigma for victory.
The
Character of Nathan Bedford Forrest
By
Michael Bradley, Ph.D.
Prejudiced, White Supremacist, slave trader, rough, profane, known for
violence---all these terms are often applied to Nathan Bedford Forrest.
What about Christian, prayerful, respectful of religion, church
member? Have you ever heard these terms applied to Forrest? I
suspect that you have heard them used seldom, if at all. Yet, both sets
of terms are true and both can be used to describe Nathan Bedford
Forrest. Like all of us, he was a man of many parts, a man whose parts
often contradicted each other.
Let us examine the first set of terms. By the definitions current in the
21st Century society there are very few white people of the 19th
Century who cannot be described as “prejudiced” or who would not be called a “white
supremacist.” In the 19th Century the idea that Anglo Saxon
people were superior to all peoples of the world was a belief held universally
in Western Europe and in North America. So, to say that Nathan Bedford Forrest
was a “white supremacist” is to say that he was a typical white man who lived
in the 19th Century. He was no worse, and no better, that 99
per-cent of the rest of the people who lived during his era.
Jack Hurst, in his biography of Forrest, says that the racial views of Forrest
changed more than those of any other major character who fought in the War
Between the States. During the Reconstruction period Forrest advocated that
African Americans be given every opportunity to advance themselves economically
and politically, Forrest appeared at public meetings and espoused these goals
in political speeches. There is no documented evidence that Forrest led the KKK
and it is a well-established fact that he was not one of the founders of that
group. Despite the historical facts that Forrest advocated economic and
political rights for African Americans the baseless lies about his racism
continue to be cited.
Bedford Forrest was a man of many parts---quick tempered, coarse of language,
prone to violence when provoked; but he was also a man who possessed a sense of
the spiritual and who respected the Christian religion, a respect which ripened
into belief and commitment. We cannot omit recognition of this latter
fact if we wish to have an accurate view of this important, controversial
historical figure.
