The Fort Pillow Massacre in Tennessee on April 12, 1864, in which some 300+ African American soldiers were murdered by Confederate soldiers, was one of the most controversial events of the American Civil War. Though most of the Union garrison (both White and African American) surrendered and thus should have become prisoners of war, the African American soldiers were murdered. The Confederate refusal to treat these troops as traditional prisoners of war infuriated the North and led to the Union’s refusal to participate in prisoner exchanges.
General Nathan Bedford Forrest was commanding the Confederates that attacked Ft. Pillow, Tennessee, but reports were that Gen. Forrest wasn’t involved in the massacre. Some of his troops – his sergeants and captains and majors attacked on their own. But again, that’s subjective to who you believe.
General Forrest, however, was renowned for his military tactics. He won battle after battle with less men and inferior weaponry, but with unconventional and innovative strategies. His tactics and insight into military engagement allowed him to garner victories when others would have suffered defeat. So much so that 70 years later, United States’s General George Patton and Nazi Germany’s General Erwin Rommel (the Desert Fox) studied and applied his methods during World War 2. This is History With a Twist.