Fort Pillow Research Articles

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

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

Fort Pillow, a Civil War Massacre, and Public Memory

Fort Pillow, a Civil War Massacre, and Public Memory

Black Soldiers in Blue: African American Troops in the Civil War Era (review)

Reviewed by: Black Soldiers in Blue: African American Troops in the Civil War Era Larry M. Logue Black Soldiers in Blue: African American Troops in the Civil War Era. Edited by John David Smith. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2002. Pp. 451. $39.95 cloth; $19.95 paper.) Nearly a century and a half after African Americans served in the Civil War, we continue to ask the same questions about them as contemporaries did. Did black soldiers fight gallantly? Were they well led by their (mostly white) officers? Did Confederates massacre black troops? Several essays in this collection address these questions, while others pursue additional perspectives on African American service to the Union. Though the collection has no formal section designations, the essays fall into distinctive parts. In the first, John David Smith surveys the development of a policy on black soldiers. Smith joins those who question Abraham Lincoln's pragmatism in accepting African American troops; the decision, Smith argues, was part of Lincoln's "linear course" toward emancipation (9). Five essays focus on significant battles fought by African American soldiers. The authors center on the conventional battle narrative, adding details on the involvement of black troops and seeking answers to the traditional trio of questions. Agreeing with virtually every other study, these essays find that black soldiers fought bravely and effectively, winning whites' admiration in the process. The authors also agree with most predecessors that the attitude and military skills of commanders fell far short of those of their black troops. There were, of course, exceptions—William Glenn Robertson notes Benjamin Butler's steadfast support for African American troops, and Anne J. Bailey acknowledges Thomas J. Morgan's leadership skills—but mostly the authors point to mismanagement born of prejudice. Arthur W. Bergeron Jr. describes the misuse of black troops at Olustee, several authors note William T. Sherman's refusal to use black soldiers in combat, and Robertson recounts commanders' disastrous vacillation about black soldiers before the Battle of the Crater. [End Page 329] Most of the battles studied in these essays were free of systematic atrocities. To be sure, few engagements involving African Americans were without incident—Richard Lowe points to probable executions after Milliken's Bend, and Robertson reminds us of the spontaneous slaughter of black troops at the Crater—but most tales of black flags and calculated massacres are unsubstantiated. Other engagements of lesser military significance, however, did produce evidence of premeditated racial violence. Fort Pillow, examined by John Cimprich, and Saltville, described by Thomas D. Mays, differ from other engagements in the scale and nature of their atrocities. Cimprich finds, in the preponderance of the evidence, a partial verdict for the plaintiffs: a massacre occurred at Fort Pillow. But other allegations, such as that black soldiers were buried alive or that Nathan Bedford Forrest ordered the killing, are probably untrue. At Saltville, the scale of killing may have been smaller, but the nature of the barbarity—wounded black soldiers executed on the battlefield and in a hospital—was especially chilling. Several more essays take up topics usually overlooked in the focus on the traditional three questions. Michael T. Meier shows that even unsympathetic whites' careers could be transformed in a biracial army: Lorenzo Thomas went from a desk job to prominence as a dynamic organizer of black regiments. Noah Andre Trudeau introduces the lesser-known U.S. Colored Cavalry, whose most remarkable feature was its existence, given the additional prejudice against African Americans serving in the army's elite branch. Keith Wilson examines the worldview of three commanders of black soldiers, contrasting the paternalism of Thomas Wentworth Higginson and Robert Gould Shaw with James Montgomery's evangelical devotion to warfare as punishment for slavery. Edwin S. Redkey profiles Henry M. Turner, a chaplain in the U.S. Colored Troops whose service developed his skills for and devotion to evangelism for black churches. Two final essays focus on black soldiers' experience after Appomattox. Robert J. Zalimas Jr. finds in 1865 an ominous precursor of Reconstruction in Charleston, South Carolina: black soldiers in the occupation force were relentlessly abused by white comrades, regardless of whether the latter were "praying men" recruited from churches or ex...

Black Soldiers in Blue: African American Troops in the Civil War Era

The history of the U.S. Colored Troops during the Civil War and Reconstruction; Inspired and informed by the latest research in African American, military, and social history, the fourteen original essays in this book tell the stories of the African American soldiers who fought for the Union cause. An introductory essay surveys the history of the U.S. Colored Troops (USCT) from emancipation to the end of the Civil War. Seven essays focus on the role of the USCT in combat, chronicling the contributions of African Americans who fought at Port Hudson, Milliken's Bend, Olustee, Fort Pillow, Petersburg, Saltville, and Nashville. Other essays explore the recruitment of black troops in the Mississippi Valley; the U.S. Colored Cavalry; the military leadership of Colonels Thomas Higginson, James Montgomery, and Robert Shaw; African American chaplain Henry McNeal Turner; the black troops who occupied postwar Charleston; and the experiences of USCT veterans in postwar North Carolina. Collectively, these essays probe the broad military, political, and social significance of black soldiers' armed service, enriching our understanding of the Civil War and African American life during and after the conflict.

The Contested Image of Nathan Bedford Forrest

OVER ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY YEARS AFTER HIS DEATH, CONFEDERATE general Nathan Bedford Forrest continues to haunt America. The general's exploits in the Civil War and his attitude towards African Americans throughout his life have combined to form malleable and controversial image that underscores contrasting aspects of southern history. During the Civil War, the uneducated general directed number of limited victories over superior, if poorly led, Union forces. Although he may not have lost major battle, most historians agree that his handful of successes failed to have any real impact on the future of the Confederacy. He was, as Charles Royster has noted, a minor player in some major battles and major player in minor battles.(1) Nevertheless, after the war Forrest's exploits soon attained mythic stature, and admirers of the general proclaimed him one of the primary heroes of the Confederate military effort. After his death in 1877, issues of race and racism tended to frame conflicting interpretations of Forrest's image in popular historical memory. A notorious slave trader and an early leader of the Ku Klux Klan, Nathan Bedford Forrest became an obvious target for African American anger and contempt, especially in the late twentieth century. White Americans, however, have not always conformed to any one particular view. In the 1870s many white northerners, appalled by the general's involvement in the massacre of black troops at Fort Pillow during the Civil War, viewed Forrest as the most reprehensible former Confederate. But white southerners were also divided in their attitudes toward the general. To many, he was the quintessential Confederate hero, whose rough-hewn, unschooled martial style reflected the virtues of the southern plain folk; others, in contrast, found him an ambiguous figure at best, preferring instead the stoicism of Robert E. Lee over the more unruly Forrest. Around the turn of the twentieth century, trend toward national reconciliation began to modify Forrest's image: even as he gained more widespread legitimacy as an honorable soldier in service to his nation, his image became increasingly polarized in racial terms. In 1905 Memphis--the city most associated with Forrest--honored the general with bronze equestrian statue in his memory. The celebration surrounding the monument's dedication revealed that most white Americans accepted some version of the iconic image of Forrest as heroic warrior. By the 1980s, however, the statue became focal point for attacks by African Americans incensed by public memorial to notorious Klansman. The ensuing debate, fueled in part by the general's prominent role in Ken Burns's widely watched documentary on the Civil War, made Forrest highly visible figure in popular historical culture. At the end of the twentieth century, as in the 1870s, the struggle over Forrest's image took place on national scale, but the debate in Memphis, with its large black population, provides useful case study of the ways that Americans have continued to redefine the popular memory of one of its most infamous Civil War commanders. The image of Nathan Bedford Forrest still touches upon concerns vital to Americans, both black and white, while the transformations in public perceptions of the general reflect larger shifts in southern views on history, identity, masculinity, and race. Forrest had been born into poverty in rural Tennessee in 1821, and after establishing himself as successful planter in Mississippi, he moved to Memphis and eventually became one of the largest slave traders on the Mississippi River. With its direct river route into the slave markets of the deep South, Memphis was perfectly situated for the commerce in slaves, and by the late 1850s Forrest claimed to be worth over million dollars. The slave trade, with its attendant wealth and business connections, also afforded Forrest great deal of influence in Memphis, where he was elected town alderman in 1858. …

A Model for Teaching Secondary History: The Case of Fort Pillow

As HISTORY TEACHERS we struggle to make history interesting to our students without sacrificing the integrity of chronology, facts, and narrative. The question we often wrestle with is, how do we encourage the sense of the historian as detective that every student needs to feel to be able to push beyond the boring facts?' How do we balance an inquiry approach with a firm respect for historical objectivity in the classroom? In other words, how do we as history teachers responsibly establish the boundaries between fact and fantasy? Every historian deals with these questions. We try to evaluate documents and construct and support interpretations. We argue about which interpretations have the greatest validity. Some of us argue with Popperian certainty that our goal is the truth and that the truth is built on the most formidable foundation of fact supported by the longest footnotes. Recently, some critics and historians have come to believe that the boundaries between fact and fiction are more blurred than most of us would

An unerring fire: the massacre at Fort Pillow

An unerring fire: the massacre at Fort Pillow

A Friend to God's Poor: Edward Parmalee Smith (review)

BOOK reviews335 phes are used in words that are not possessives but not used in words that are; and there are several sentences containing extra words or phrases, for example, "After cutting off his enemy's rail links had been severed" (148), and "Lawry's men past were unaware of a cavalry force" ( 1 53). There is a sidebar on Fort Pillow for no apparent reason other than to allow the author to write about it, for it is not put into the context of the Atlanta campaign, nor is it mentioned in the main text. The maps, which appear to be taken from an early Civil War atlas, are useless. The one captioned "Action around Kennesaw Mountain" (95) shows several hundred square miles. It is difficult even to find Kennesaw Mountain on it, and the author made no attempt to indicate the action that took place there. The map labeled "Map of action from Adairsville to Dallas" misses including Dallas on the map by five miles. Incredibly, The Chancellorsville Campaign is even worse. It abounds in errors in grammar, spelling, punctuation; suffers from vague or incorrect pronoun use (e.g., 88, 103); uses apostrophes incorrectly; and uses hyphens inappropriately . A chart copied from another source has no explanation whatsoever, either in a caption or in the text, rendering two of the four columns meaningless (41 ). There are scores of typographical errors (e.g., 63, 71, 80, 81, 91, 127), missing words, and words run together without a space between them. The author takes pains to explain the difference between William Henry Fitzburgh (he meant Fitzhugh) "Rooney" Lee, Robert E. Lee's son, and Fitzhugh Lee, the general's nephew (66), and then confuses the two when he writes, "Fitz Lee moved to the east, where he would perform superb service for his father's army. . . . Rooney Lee chose to withdraw south" (76). The author also trips up on the twenty-fourhour time when he has Sedgwick receive an order fifty minutes before it was written (170). The authors and the publisher of the Great Campaigns series believe the "pedantic writings oftoday's historians" renders academic production unfit for the average Civil War student or buff, and claim this series is intended to fill a "qualitative gap" that exists between works that are either "very serious, highly technical," or "less dry, but merely lightly review the events with the intention of informing and entertaining the layman" (Wilderness, 219; Series Preface). Given the careless editing, poor maps, appalling lack of attention to detail, and the high price, one wonders just what "gap" they are aiming to fill. Judith Lee Hallock Middle Country Schools Centereach, N.Y. A Friend to God's Poor: Edward Parmalee Smith. By William H. Armstrong. (Athens: The University of Georgia Press, 1994. Pp. xiii, 518. $50.00.) In his preface to his study of the life and career of Edward Parmalee Smith, William H. Armstrong asserts that 'To write a biography about a little-known minister with the common name of Smith is to make a statement about the significance of lesser-known people in our history" (xii). Although few of us 336CIVIL WAR HISTORY recognize his name today, Smith was hardly an insignificant figure, especially given the fact that the middle decades of the nineteenth century saw the development and maturation of organized "benevolence" under the auspices of American churches. A Congregationalist minister, Smith was at the center of his denomination's efforts to redeem the nation and the world. As Armstrong sets out in his preface, and supports throughout his text, "Smith's story weaves together some ofthe main threads running through American church history in the mid-nineteenth century: the massive response of the churches to the Civil War and its suffering; their work with the freed slaves, especially in the field of education; and the assistance the churches gave to President Grant's Indian policy" (xii). Armstrong has done impressive research in primary sources, including Smith's vast correspondence, which allows him to recreate the clergyman's career . Smith was drawn away from his New England pastorate in early 1863 when he signed on as a delegate of the United States Christian Commission...

Cotton and Capital: Boston Businessmen and Antislavery Reform, 1854-1868 (review)

274CIVIL WAR history a railroad bridge so train passengers could strike them as they passed by. George Pickett, whose charge failed at Gettysburg, executed twenty-two members ofthe Union 2d North Carolina Infantry on desertion charges, leading to an investigation of Pickett for war crimes (which was prevented only by the intercession of his West Point classmate, General Grant). And at Fort Pillow, the well-known massacre of blacks by Nathan Bedford Forrest's troops was accompanied by the murder of 127 loyal white Tennesseans, who were shot down in cold blood. If Lincoln's record in the area of civil liberties can be criticized, the Davis government's actions, which are usually ignored, were apparently worse. During the era of Reconstruction, the sacrifices of Southern loyalists along with the contributions of black troops were quickly forgotten. Either they became Republicans, who were discredited by their cooperation with the socalled carpetbag-scalawag governments, or else they resisted Reconstruction and identified with the ex-Confederates. They no longer wished to be remembered as one-time comrades of men whom they now looked on as blackloving Yankees. It is little wonder that they became the forgotten soldiers. One final statistic is compelling. If somewhere in the neighborhood of nine hundred thousand Confederates fought in the Civil War, then the loyalists deprived the South of 10 percent of its manpower. In reality, this was a 20 percent deficit, since every Southerner who served the Union was a double loss. If the state's rights tendencies of the Confederacy were a significant factor in its ultimate demise, so was the presence of these armed and dedicated loyalists within its borders, as this brilliantly conceived and executed study so clearly demonstrates. Thomas R. Turner Bridgewater State College Cotton and Capital: Boston Businessmen and Antislavery Reform, 18541868 . By Richard H. Abbott. (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1991. Pp. x, 294. $32.50.) Wealthy Boston businessmen such as Edward Atkinson, Amos A. Lawrence, and John Murray Forbes and other members of the Boston elite such as John A. Andrew and Edward Everett Hale would seem to be unlikely ardent reformers . But they were. As Richard H. Abbott's meticulously researched and well-written analysis makes amply clear, these men devoted a great deal of time and considerable sums of money to the antislavery cause, to agitation for the recruitment of black soldiers in the Union army, and to the enfranchisement , education, and equal protection of former slaves after the war. Nevertheless, although active and energetic reformers, they were conservatives —as Atkinson put it, "rashly conservative ofthe principle offreedom and honesty" (218). Indeed, this conservatism kindled their humanitarian hatred of slavery and injustice and motivated their reformism. But they grounded their lofty principles in very practical considerations—a fervent be- BOOK REVIEWS275 lief in a free-labor society and, more specifically, in laissez-faire economics. Uke so many Northerners, they saw no contradiction between "practical economic considerations and personal moral concerns"; rather, they considered the two as "mutually reinforcing" (5-6). If this combination of practical and moral principles led the Boston businessmen to support such reforms as the abolition of slavery, the recruitment of black troops, the creation of the Freedmen's Bureau, and the enfranchisement of blacks, it also led them to oppose other reforms. They opposed confiscation of Rebel lands and their distribution to former slaves, and they wanted sharp limitations on the amount of aid given former slaves. The blacks, they insisted, had to be treated fairly, but they had to earn their own way, and this meant working in the fields producing the South's staple crops. Only in this way would blacks become productive free workers instead of a new self-sufficient peasantry making little contribution to the nation's wealth and providing little in the way of a market for manufactured goods. Other features of their conservative reformism stemmed from their very direct and immediate interests, putting them in conflict with some of their fellow Republicans. They opposed the Republican high-tariffpolicies and favored a quick return to hard money, justifying their position in moral terms; the tariff kept food prices for workers artificially high, and soft money gave profits to...

Shallow Deformation Along the Crittenden County Fault Zone Near the Southeastern Boundary of the Reelfoot Rift, Northeast Arkansas

Abstract The Crittenden County fault zone (CCFZ) is located near the southeast boundary of the Reelfoot rift in northeastern Arkansas. The southeastern boundary of the rift has been characterized as an 8-km-wide zone of down-to-the-northwest displacement. The CCFZ, however, shows significant down-to-the-southeast reverse faulting of Paleozoic and Cretaceous rocks and flexure and thinning within the Tertiary sedimentary section. We discuss four of nine Mini-Sosie seismic reflection profiles, each 1 to 2 km long, acquired over the surface projection of the CCFZ and Reelfoot rift boundary. One second of two-way traveltime data was recorded, which corresponds to a maximum depth of approximately 1.2 km. Sedimentary layers between 50 and 800 m are well imaged; deeper strata are evident but not well imaged. Well data at one site on the CCFZ indicate approximately 63 and 82 m of vertical displacement of Cretaceous and Paleozoic rocks, respectively. Proprietary seismic-reflection data show reverse displacement of these rock units, indicating compressional tectonics. From the Mini-Sosie profiles, we estimate structural relief across the CCFZ at the Paleocene (Fort Pillow Sand) level to range between 14 and 70 m. The overlying middle-to-late Eocene section shows a similar or slightly smaller amount of thinning, indicating that much of the movement on the CCFZ dates mid-to-late Eocene. Displacement, flexure, and thinning in the geologic section increases as the CCFZ converges with the Reelfoot rift boundary, in the southwest part of the area studied. Surface expression of the CCFZ has not been identified. Reflections from the Quaternary-Eocene unconformity, however, show warping, dip, or interruptions in places over the CCFZ, suggesting that the CCFZ may have experienced Quaternary or Holocene movement as well.

The Fort Pillow Massacre: A Statistical Note

Journal Article The Fort Pillow Massacre: A Statistical Note Get access John Cimprich, John Cimprich associate professor of history Thomas More College Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Robert C. Mainfort, Jr. Robert C. Mainfort, Jr. regional archaeologist Tennessee Division of Archaeology Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal of American History, Volume 76, Issue 3, December 1989, Pages 830–837, https://doi.org/10.2307/2936423 Published: 01 December 1989

A Texas Cavalry Raid: Reaction to Black Soldiers and Contrabands

In June 1863 when Major General Ulysses S. Grant's army bottled up the Confederates in Vicksburg, the Unioncampaignto gaincontrol ofthe Mis- sissippi Rivermoved into its final stage. As summer began many Southern- ers feared the army defending the town could not hold out much longer. Nevertheless, Confederate troops on the west side of the river displayed guarded optimismthat they still might offer some support to their besieged comrades. Early in June, therefore, Texas infantry assaulted enemy posi- tions on the Louisiana bank opposite Vicksburg and late in the month Texas cavalry raided Federal strongholds in the same region. The former, an attack on Milliken's Bend, has often been utilized by historiansto point out atrocitiesthataccompanywar. Thelatter, a cavalry raidjust over three weeks later, had much the same result, but has never been examined care- fully. Neither of these forays, however, effected any military significance. The majorresult ofthe fighting to publicize thecontroversysurround- ing northern employment of black troops.1 Events in the Trans-Mississippi have neverreceived thesamerecognition as those in other theaters. Perhaps one reason little is known ofthe Texas cavalry raid in Louisiana is because anyaccount of Southern brutality to- ward blacks fades in comparison with Nathan Bedford Forrest's infamous assault upon Pillow in April 1864. Forrest's biographer, Robert S. Henry, correctly observed, Fort Pillow was the'atrocity'ofthewar.Cer-

Fort Pillow Revisited: New Evidence about an Old Controversy

FORT PILLOW REVISITED: NEW EVIDENCE ABOUT AN OLD CONTROVERSY Edited by John Cimprich Robert C. Mainfort, Jr. The capture of Fort Pillow on April 12, 1864, by a force of Confederate cavalry under the command of Major General Nathan B. Forrest is, perhaps , the most controversial battle of the Civil War. A congressional report on the engagement concluded not only that Forrest's troops massacred a substantial portion of the racially mixed garrison, but also that they committed numerous grisly atrocities. The report drew much criticism from southern writers, who indignantly denied that a massacre took place and even more vehemently defended Forrest's conduct. More recently, several historians have held that the report correctly labelled the event a massacre but exaggerated the additional atrocities. Further evidence, mostly new Confederate sources, provides the first really solid support for the latter interpretation and also offers a more detailed picture of the event.1 The federal garrison at FortPillow at its last count, officially consisted of 580 men, of whom 292 belonged to the Sixth United States Colored Heavy Artillery or the Second United States Colored Light Artillery (hereafter designated U.S.C.H.A. and U.S.C.L.A. respectively) and 285 to the white Thirteenth Tennessee Cavalry. Three men (post staff The authors of this article were aided by funding from the Tennessee Department of Conservation (Division of Planning and Development) and the Southeast Missouri State University's Grants and Research Funding Committee. They also acknowledge the help of research assistants Karen M. Johnson, Joe Mannard, Stephan Rogers, Marion Smith, and Parris Stripling. 1 U.S., Congress, Senate Committee Reports, 38th Cong., 1st sess., No. 83, passim; Thomas Jordan and J. P. Pryor, The Campaigns of Lt. Gen. N. B. Forrest (New York, 1868), pp. 439-45; Charles W. Anderson, "The True Story of Fort Pillow," Confederate Veteran3 (Nov. 1895):326;John AllanWyeth, The Life of General Nathan Bedford Forrest (New York, 1899), pp. 355-56; John L. Jordan, "Was There a Massacre at Fort Pillow?" Tennessee Historical Quarterly 6 (June 1947):122-32; Dudley T. Cornish, The Sable Arm: Negro Troops in the Union Army, 1861-1865 (New York, 1956), pp. 174-75; Albert Castel, "The Fort Pillow Massacre: A Fresh Examination of the Evidence," Civil War History 4 (Mar. 1958):46-49; idem, "Fort Pillow: Victory or Massacre," American History Illustrated 9 (Apr. 1974):4-11, 46-48. CivilWar History, Vol. XXVIII, No. 4 Copyright® 1982by The KentState University Press 0009-8078/82/2804-0001 $01.00/0 294civil war history members) belonged to other white units.2 Forrest's troops numbered about 1500 men. Contrary to the claim by the historian Ronald K. Huch, these troops had never before faced blacks in combat.3 The April 12, 1864, entry in the log4 of the gunboat New Era, which participated in the Union defense, summarizes the engagement: @6 a.m. Received information from Maj Booth5 commanding post that his Pickets were driven in and that the enemy were advancing on the Fort[.] @6.10 got underway[;] went into the Stream[;] Beatto quarters and commenced Shellingthe enemy in the ravinebelow the Fort and rendering all the assistance in ourpower to the Garrison[.] @8.15 Took in tow an empty Coal Barge containing Females and Non combat[;] towed it above Coal Creek out of danger[;] returned and commenced Shelling above the Fort throwing five inch Shell and Schrapnel and enfelading the enemys advance to such an advantage that a quantity of Sharp Shooters were stationed in the bank to drive us away[.] @9.30 a.m. Str. Liberty passed down landing at the barge and taking on board all who wished to leave[] In passing the Fort she received a Volley[.] [We] continued firing from a Signal from the Fort[;] Keeping underway[;] running a head and dropping as required[.] @noon the enemy opened on us from their battery of two light field pieces Stationed under cover of Wolfs Hül[;]e the Sharp Shooters Continued firing on us[.] @ 1.45 the enemy sent in a flag of Truce and firing was discontinued from the Fort[.] Owing the Strength of Wind and current all the firing was done by the...

Who Fired the First Shot? and Other Untold Stories of the Civil War (review)

Book Reviews441 prising that these "socialist" facilities did not long survive the war. Published by a pharmaceutical history institute, the book should fascinate those pharmacists who are also Civil War buffs. It should also interest students of business history. To yet other readers it may serve as an example of a worth-while piece of research which has proved too long for an article, too short for a book. Without some of the trivia and much of the massive detail it would make an interesting article. But then the pharmacists might be unhappy. George W. Adams Southern Illinois University (Carbondale) Who Fired the First Shot? and Other Untold Stories of the Civil War. By Ashley Halsey, Jr. (New York: Hawthorn Books, 1963. Pp. 224. $5.00.) This is a very unusual Civil War book, and deserves a better title. The present one is misleading, and applies only to the first chapter, which is not one of the best. Although Halsey has found some new material for it, the question of who fired the first shot has been threshed over before, far beyond its inherent interest. Other chapters rate considerably higher and bring out much which will be new to most readers, and some which will no doubt be new to all. Those on prisons, on the Indians who fought on both sides, on massacres, and on the influence of soldiers' wives on their husbands' allegiances are exceptionally well done. Halsey discusses the various interpretations of the word "massacre," and how they differ, depending which side you favor; that no one will excuse the mass killing of civilians by the bushwhacker Quantrill, is obvious, but that the much-exploited affair at Fort Pillow, in which only soldiers were involved, may be considered legitimate because certain conditions existed, Halsey analyzes without taking sides. The author is not quite correct in his chapter on medical practices. Lister founded aseptics and antiseptics in 1867, not 1865, and while, generally speaking, sanitary measures were as bad as Halsey describes them, both treatments were applied during the war, although empirically and without their present designations. He fails to relate that on account of the progress which had been made hospital gangrene, the greatest killer of all, had been completely vanquished in the North by the time the war neared its end, and that Southern surgeons were practicing aseptics, without knowing it, by boiling cotton and horse hair before using them. To review the entire contents of this volume in a few hundred words is impossible. The author carries us from weapons to duels, from inventions to snipers, from fratricidal combats to outdated forts. Students who prefer the truth to biased traditions will thank Halsey for pointing out that Northern writers often have distorted or suppressed evidence, and that, as he expresses it in a clever bon mot, "history is on the side of the bigger printing presses." As an example he demonstrates that Andersonville was by no means the worst 442CIVIL WA R history prison camp, but that some in the North, both the well-known and the littleknown ones, surpassed it in beastliness by a good-sized margin. The last chapter, which deals with a would-be hero who never reached the fighting front, supplies some healthy humor, giving the volume a refreshing ending. The book is not without its faults. The author's repeated references to his own collection of weapons and to his excellent marksmanship are not in the best of taste, and the illustrations leave something to be desired. Despite its drawbacks, Who Fired The First Shot? as a whole stands out as one of the few recent publications which is not mere rehash. The author has explored many heretofore neglected aspects of the conflict, and for those tired of reading about many-times-told battles and campaigns his book should make a welcome addition to their shelves. Otto Eisenschiml Chicago Federals on the Frontier: The Diary of Benjamin F. Mclntyre, 18621864 . Edited by Nannie M. Tilley. (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1963. Pp. xv, 429. $7.50.) Ben McIntyre was an Iowa carpenter who recorded his day-by-day experiences in the Union army from September, 1862, to August, 1864. He...

The Jayhawkers and Copperheads of Kansas

A member of the History Department at the University of California, Los Angeles, Albert Castél has specialized in the Civil War. His article on the Fort Pillow Massacre appeared in this magazine in March, 1958, and his book A Frontier State at War: 1861-1865 was published by the Cornell University Press last year. The Jayhawkers and Copperheads of Kansas ALBERT CASTEL "i would not for my life go into any part of Kansas and advocate the rebel cause. . . . The mere suspicion that one is disloyal may result in his being shot."1 So wrote a New York Tribune correspondent following a trip through Kansas early in 1863. The correspondent did not exaggerate. The overwhelming majority of Kansans were Northern in origin, Republican in politics, and intensely antislavery in sentiment. Moreover, they had bitter memories of the Missouri border ruffian invasions of the 1850's and of the long struggle to make Kansas a free state. As a consequence probably nowhere else in the North did there exist so fanatical a devotion to the Union cause and so passionate a hatred of the South and slavery as in this recently admitted and sparsely settled frontier state. The patriotism of the Kansans led to their contributing more Federal troops, in proportion to population, than any other Northern state; these troops suffered a higherpercentage of casualties than those of any other Northern state.2 Their strong antislavery, anti-Southern feeling also resulted in a fierce and ofttimes vicious persecution of any group or person in Kansas suspected of disloyalty or Southern sympathies. Thus the citizens of Elwood, as well as those of many other Kansas communities, 1 Quoted in Freedom's Champion (Atchison), March 31, 1863. 2 The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1880-1901), Ser. Ill, VoL 5, p. 667; hereinafter cited as O.R., followed by the series number in Roman numerals, the volume number in Arabic, the part number (if any), and the page, as O.R., III, 5, p. 667. 283 284albert castel publicly flogged alleged "secessionists" and ordered them to leave the state.3 At Topeka, members of the local Union League moved to "take care" of all Copperheads following the Lawrence Massacre.4 In Jefferson County, failure to join the militia or to enthusiastically support all war measures was generally sufficient to cause a man to lose his property or even his life.5 And at Junction City and Fort Scott, soldiers sacked newspapers accused of publishing treasonable statements.8 Such repressive measures, moreover, could be committed with legal impunity : The state legislature had declared all "rebel sympathizers" to be outside the protection of the law.7 The brunt of suspicion and persecution fell on settlers of Southern antecedents, and in particular on members of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. When the ministers of this church met in Atchison in September, 1861, for their annual conference, city authorities notified them to transact their business and be out of town without two hours. Theirpresence caused an "unusual commotion" among the townspeople, who kept them under surveillance throughout their stay in Atchison. As the war proceeded and this sort of hysteria increased, members of the church became afraid of being known as such, and finally stopped attending public services. Soldiers destroyed a Southern Methodist meetinghouse at Shawnee Mission, and mobs wrecked its churches elsewhere. Often members found it necessary to meet clandestinely in private houses. Eventually all but four of Southern Methodist preachers in Kansas fled the state for fear of their lives; and of these four, only one "continued to preach through the war period." By the end of the war the Methodist Church, South, was nearly extinct in the state.8 The most notorious instance of the persecution of so-called Copperheads occurred in Leavenworth, then the chief city of Kansas. In June, 1861, Daniel R. Anthony, fiery Republican pubh'sher of the misnamed Leavenworth Daily Conservative, shot and killed R. C. Saterlee, Democratic editor of the rival Herald, for printing supposedly unpatriotic remarks . Anthony was brought to trial but acquitted; his deed apparently received general public approbation. The only...

The Fort Pillow Massacre: A Fresh Examination of the Evidence

The Fort Pillow Massacre: A Fresh Examination of the Evidence