I sent this to a personal friend who works at the park. Without giving up their title, they said, "This needs to be the park video we show to guests, its awesome" Between me and several other reenactors and visitors that frequent that site, your channel name is well known, and I believe, very appreciated by the people that work hard to preserve that site and its complete history.
superb stuff, it is so important that historic artefacts such as these and many others on your excellent channel are heard in order to provide a truly accurate picture of history
It does not matter the accounts and recollections of anyone who was there, be they officers or enlisted, soldier or civilian, freeman or slave, the winner will write the history. It is that history that will be recalled and preached into the ears and hearts of those who hear. This nation is divided even more than it was during the “War of Northern Aggression”. The TRUTH OF ITS WRONGS AND RIGHTS, are muddled by those seeking revenge on and reparations from people who are not responsible for the actions or damages of past generations. This nation teeters on the edge of its collapse and there are to few who see the calamity looming in its path. And much fewer who will warn of it.
This is a fascinating account that begs a lot of questions. For one thing, the transcription the narrator reads contains a number of errors. But be that as it may, it was while Forrest was directing the cannon fire at the New Era that much of the massacre transpired under the command of his field commanders. Though you show the Union report as if it supports Forrest’s assertion that in burning the barracks the garrison burned men to death, it only says that the barracks were burned which no one disputes. By the time Forrest asserted his command to stop the killing, a great many men from the garrison were killed or wounded, and the majority of them were black troops who had no role in any reputed depredations committed against local people, as they were artillerists who were kept exclusively in and around the fort and had no horses. The white Tennesseans fared better until they were taken to Andersonville. Forrest did not linger at Fort Pillow but left it in the care of Colonel Black Flag Bob McCulloch and his Missourians who resumed the killing deep into the night. What this account reveals is that Forrest’s culpability for the atrocities at Fort Pillow lies not necessarily in his reported order to give the garrison no quarter but in his doing nothing for what he deemed twenty minutes to stop his men from continuing to fire at unarmed men begging for their lives, and leaving the Missourians to oversee the captive garrison. Thus, though the issue of whether Forrest ordered the mayhem that followed may be somewhat muddled, the fact that a massacre transpired is irrefutable.
In one biography of Gen. Forrest, I read that he warned the commanding officer that if he did not surrender and Forrest was forced to attack, he could not be held responsible for what his men would do, such was the animosity they had for their fellow Tennesseans who were Union, and committed such atrocities on the locals. Indeed, from this account, it appears to have gotten out of his control.
Is it irrefutable? Numerous of the Yankee reports are verifiably false and exaggerated, all of the northern papers ran false narratives, belied by reports from the official records. All we have is written accounts which vary wildly. With that we have only our assumptions. At the end of the day though, it was war, not a pillow fight. If you don’t go into war expecting the possibility of death, you’re probably not going to make it.
Propaganda in war is as old as war itself. To attempt to understand history a person has to find as many sources as possible. Only in cross referencing sources can one even approach the truth. The further you get from an event the more the story is filtered through bias.
