Been in the Storm So Long_ The Aftermath of Slavery - Leon F. Litwack [70]
Calling the attempts to enslave prisoners “a relapse into barbarism and a crime against the civilization of the age,” Lincoln decreed in July 1863 that for every Union soldier killed “in violation of the laws of war,” a Confederate soldier would be executed; and for every Union soldier enslaved or sold into slavery, a Confederate soldier would be placed at hard labor on the public works. Although this pronouncement appeared to satisfy black demands, the President, as well as some black leaders, fully recognized that the real problem lay with implementation. “The difficulty is not in stating the principle,” Lincoln remarked, “but in practically applying it.” And once applied, he advised Douglass, there was no way to know where it might end. Among the questions raised by the President’s order was whether the northern white public was actually prepared to accept this kind of retaliation. At least one black newspaper remained skeptical. If any attempts were made to retaliate for the murder of black soldiers, the editor suggested, Confederate authorities were counting on the probability “that Northern sentiment, already weak on the subject, will revolt against taking the life of white men for ‘Niggers.’ ”62
The battle fought on April 12, 1864, at Fort Pillow, Tennessee, where blacks comprised nearly half the garrison, provoked the most bitter black protest of the Civil War. “We had hoped,” a black newspaper declared, “that the first report might have been exaggerated; but, in this, we have been doomed to disappointment.” Nearly 300 Union soldiers (the precise number varied with every report) were slain after they had thrown down their arms and surrendered. The conflicting accounts of what happened were never satisfactorily resolved. Subsequent testimony, however, leaves little doubt as to the indiscriminate slaughter undertaken by Confederate troops. Only the extent of the annihilation remains uncertain. To black people, and to much of the white northern public, it became known as the “Fort Pillow Massacre.” But to General Nathan Bedford Forrest, who commanded the Confederate forces, it was simply that place on the Mississippi River, “dyed with the blood of the slaughtered,” where his troops had conclusively demonstrated “to the Northern people that negro soldiers cannot cope with Southerners.” The total number of Union dead, Forrest observed, “will never be known from the fact that large numbers ran into the river and were shot and drowned.” The casualness with which the general treated the massacre suggested no need to defend his conduct or the murders committed under his command.63
Although shocked by the Fort Pillow Massacre, angry blacks expressed little surprise. Since the United States government refused to recognize black soldiers as equal to whites, why should the Confederacy? The tragedy, blacks charged, only underscored the tardiness with which the Lincoln administration and Congress had acted upon their demands for equal protection, equal treatment, and equal rights. “I do not wonder at the conduct and disaster that transpired at Fort Pillow,” a Massachusetts soldier wrote from South Carolina. “I wonder that we have not had more New York riots and Fort Pillow massacres.” Perhaps, though, these deaths had not been in vain, suggested Richard H. Cain, a black clergyman. At the very least, he hoped, what transpired at Fort Pillow might serve to educate the northern public. “None but the blacks of this land, have heretofore realized the hateful nature