River Run Red: The Fort Pillow Massacre in the American Civil War

Few Civil War figures inspire as much debate and discussion as Nathan Bedford Forrest. The so-called "Wizard of the Saddle" has been anointed America's greatest natural military genius, and has been the subject of numerous books highlighting both his military achievements and his unsavory business dealings before and after the war. The April 12, 1864, battle of Fort Pillow, Tennessee, and the events that followed it, form the crux of the debate over Forrest's place in our national consciousness. Was Fort Pillow one of the most celebrated of Forrest's victories, or was it an out-and-out massacre of blacks and whites that highlighted the war's essential racial component? In River Run Red, author and screenwriter Andrew Ward demonstrates conclusively the latter, in what should be the final word on this topic for some time to come. The seasoned Civil War reader should not be put off by the author's lack of formal academic qualifications. Ward brings a newspaper correspondent's eye for detail and turn of phrase to this familiar story. He makes excellent use of archival and published primary sources; of particular note is his use of the pension questionnaires of many of the Fort Pillow survivors. One of the unique and valuable features of this book is the author's ability to flesh out the lives and backgrounds of the battle's various participants, both black and white, giving the reader a clear and detailed understanding of the war in western Tennessee. This was a "civil war" in the truest sense, with Tennesseans, many from communities within a day's ride of the fort, on both sides in the resulting battle. In addition to Confederate cavalrymen, there were white Union officers of black artillery units, all-white Union forces, escaped slaves, and white merchants at Fort Pillow. All of these groups bring unique perspectives to the battle, and Ward tells their stories. From the Union perspective, Fort Pillow was a blunder of the first magnitude. The fort's garrison was poorly supported and supplied, and Ward places the blame squarely on the shoulders of the district commander, Maj. Gen. Stephen A. Hurlbut. After a lengthy approach march during which he captured or defeated other Union forces, Forrest easily surrounded Fort Pillow in the predawn darkness of April 12, and continued the battle long after all resistance had ceased. The most compelling and disturbing portion of the narrative documents in excruciating detail the depredations of Forrest's command. Any objective reader will be convinced beyond doubt that a deliberate atrocity took place. After the battle, Forrest's command returned to Mississippi, taking with it a column of prisoners. Some 139 white soldiers made their way to Andersonville, where 107, or 77 percent, died in captivity. Many of those who died at Andersonville were residents of west Tennessee and veterans of the Mexican War, heightening the heartbreak of this story. Forrest retained 62 black Union soldiers as prisoner

Fort Pillow still stirs emotions. Neo-Confederates claim that no massacre occurred. Due to the persistence and volume of their complaints textbooks and even Fort Pillow's official webpage state that there is "controversy over what exactly occurred on April 12, 1864." However, arround 40 survivors gave testimony to a Congressional investigation that defenders of Fort Pillow were shot down after they had laid down arms, many of them surviving wounds they received after trying to surrender. Union survivors not only gave testimony under oath to the investigation, but they also related their experiences to newspaper interviewers and family members in their own letters immediately after the battle. And yes, there were a couple of Confederates who described the massacre in letters to their families. Many others freely admitted shooting soldiers who were floundering in the Mississippi. It was official Confederate policy not to recognize blacks as soldiers. Only after northern outrage boiled over did Forrest and the South begin to build their case that Fort Pillow was not a massacre. Some reviewers will have you believe that Ward is hiding some of the story, but that is not the case. He uses the works of Forrest's defenders, and mentions his late in life disavow of violence. Forrest's black aids are in the book. Ward also does a fine job of setting up the battle, showing why Fort Pillow's defenders were in no mood to surrender without a fair fight. Yes, there are errors in the book; Ward is not a Civil War specialist. But, the case for the massacre is there. Ex-slaves and Tennessee whites fighting for the North defended Fort Pillow. Forrest and his men reviled them as traitors to the South. Apparently, they are still hated by Neo-Confederates. Only by discounting their testimony as lies can anyone claim that there was no massacre.

I'm still reading this book, but I wanted to respond to a couple of comments made by the reader who gave the book one star. He derides the author for describing Fort Pillow as "crescent-shaped." The reviewer scornfully claims that the fort was a shallow "w" in shape. If you google the term, "Fort Pillow" and "crescent," guess what pops up? Among other things, a reproduction of Nathan Bedford Forrest's after action report about the capture of Fort Pillow. Guess what the "Wizard of the Saddle" describes the fort as being shaped like? Here's what he said in the report: "The fort is an earth-work, crescent shaped, is 8 feet in height and 4 feet across the top, surrounded by a ditch 6 feet deep and 12 feet in width, walls sloping to the ditch but perpendicular inside." Personally, I would take the impression of the man who captured the place over any reviewer here. I wonder what Forrest would have to say to him? (probably something memorably profane). Now, let's talk about the endpaper map: I've looked at it too. First, it isn't that great a map. If I had been the author, I would have found a better, clearer one. But it doesn't show barracks or anything else in the Mississippi River! I'm not saying this book is perfect, but people need to have a sense of proportion. Does it really matter in a study on the massacre at Fort Pillow whether the author placed a statue of Andrew Jackson in the wrong city? Getting the description of the fort wrong as the "one star" reviewer so clearly did is a worse error than something like that. The bit about the Army of Tennessee is a legitimate ding, but people ought to think about the odds that in a book that is 530 pages long, anyone could get all of the thousands of facts contained within it correct. As far as the idea that the book is some sort of hatchet job on Nathan Bedford Forrest, that is just that reviewer's interpretation. Forrest came up the hard way. He was a slave trader, and I think one had to be pretty hard-minded to prosper at it the way he did. He was also a military genius. But he allowed the massacre at Fort Pillow to take place. Does that mean he was monster? No. It just means that there's a shadow across his reputation --just like the role he played in setting up the KKK after the Civil War.