The Forgotten Trail to Appomattox by Mr Randy Denmon

Author:Mr Randy Denmon
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781493033522
Publisher: Lyons Press
Published: 2018-07-22T16:00:00+00:00

The stories you read and hear are wide, varied, and never-ending. Some of the Union troops picked up guns and shot after they surrendered; Forrest rode through ranks yelling, “shoot them down like dogs”; the Union soldiers never raised the white flag and drunk, they taunted the rebels; the Rebels were drunk and blood-thirsty; Forrest finally arrived to stop the murders. There’s a never-ending list. Just do a little research. The accounts of Union soldiers, blacks, and Confederates both blame and pardon Forrest.

The only thing I’ll believe for sure is they were all probably drunk and taunting, having been sent to this Godforsaken place to fight! It is known that Forrest captured the Union commander, William Bradford, alive, and kept him as a prisoner of war, at least for a few days. Allegedly, Rebel guards shot Major Bradford while he “attempted to escape!” It is documented that Forrest wasn’t present for that. It’s also been asserted that Forrest’s men terminated the Unionist Tennesseans and deserters on their knees. They at least let the colored troops stand. Only soldiers received the privilege of standing to be executed.

Forrest provided few words on the matter, but he did later say that the fight proved, “Negro soldiers cannot cope with southerners,” and “the river was dyed with blood for two-hundred yards.” No matter, it was a heinous crime, and by any measure, a massacre. The degree of the slaughter, and who was responsible will never be known. Jack Hurst, one of Forrest’s contemporary biographers, has surmised that the truth may be in the middle. His temper up, Forrest may have ordered it, but arriving on the scene and witnessing the carnage in person, then tried to curtail it. I guess the state of Tennessee’s official opinion, inscribed on the historical marker, is, “Forrest lost control over his troops.”

The Northern press went wild, embellishing and spinning the events into the means they sought, even publishing completely unfounded stories of women and children slain at the Fort. It’s hard for me to believe the American press, in any century, would spin and embellish a story to get their point across. The New York Herald’s headline read, “Capture of Fort Pillow by the Rebels. Reported Massacre of Black and White Troops. Women and Children Murdered in Cold Blood. The Dead and Wounded Negroes Burned.”

Anyway, the after-effects were tragic and far exceed any cost here on the riverbank. In the remaining year of the War, mostly in the West, the call for no quarter became tragically ever-present, and all sides were guilty, North and South, black and white. Much worse, especially in its toll, after Fort Pillow, plans to reinitiate the prisoner-exchange policy were put on the back burner. There’s no telling how many men who honorably surrendered eventually perished in the horrid conditions of Andersonville, or one of the other prison camps, North and South, none of which apparently displayed any real concern for the well-being of their captives. During the War, about thirty thousand bluecoats and twenty-six thousand men in gray died in captivity.

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