Rebellion Record: a Diary of American Events: Documents and Narratives, Volume 8.
Frank Moore, Ed.

Answer. I should. I should be just as positive of that as I should be of any thing I had not actually seen.

Question. You take it that they were sick or wounded men, endeavoring to escape from the hospital, who were knocked in the head?

Answer. I should say so.

Paymaster William B. Purdy, sworn and examined: by the Chairman:

Answer. Acting Assistant Paymaster of the navy. I have no regular station or quarters at present; but on the day of the attack on Fort Pillow I was acting as Signal Officer on the gunboat Number Seven.

Question. Will you state what you observed that day, and afterward, in relation to that affair?

Answer. After our flag was down, I saw the rebels firing on our own men from the Fort, and I should say that while the flag of truce was in, before the Fort was captured, I could see the rebels concentrating their forces so as to be better able to take the Fort.

Question. Do you mean that they took advantage of the flag of truce to place their men in position so as to better attack the Fort?

Answer. Yes, sir; I could see them moving down to their new positions, and, as soon as the flag of truce was out, firing commenced from these new positions.

Question. Do you understand such movements to be in accordance with the rules of warfare?

Answer. No, sir; I do not.

Question. Had you any conversation with one of General Chalmers's aids about their conduct here?

Answer. Yes, sir; with one who said he was an aid-de-camp to General Chalmers, and a captain in the Second Missouri cavalry. He told me that they did not recognize negroes as United States soldiers, but would shoot them, and show them no quarter — neither the negroes nor their officers.

Question. When was this?

Answer. That was the day after the capture of the Fort, while the flag of truce was in. He then spoke in relation to the Tennessee loyal troops. He said they did not think much of them; that they were refugees and deserters; and they would not show them much mercy either.

Question. Was this said in defence of their conduct here?

Answer. No, sir; there was not much said about that. He opened the conversation himself.

Question. How many of our men do you suppose were killed here after our flag was down, and they had surrendered?

Answer. I have no idea, only fron what citizens have told me. They said thee were not more than twenty-five or thirty killed before the place was captured; that all the rest were killed after the capture, and after the flag was down.

Question. Were you on the ground the day after the fight?

Answer. Yes, sir.

Question. Did you discover upon the field, or learn from any information derived there, of any act of peculiar barbarity?

Answer. I saw men who had been shot in the face, and I have since seen a body that was burned outside of the Fort. The day after the fight I did not go inside the Fort at all.

Question. Did you see the remnants of one who had been nailed to a board or plank?

Answer. I did not see that.

Question. Then it was another body that had been burned which you saw?

Answer. Yes, sir.

Question. It has been said that men were buried alive. Did any such information come to your notice.

Answer. I heard of it, but did not see it.

Question. What was said about it?

Answer. A young man said he saw one in the morning up there who was alive, and he went back a short time afterward to attend to him, but he was then dead; and I have heard of others who crawled out of their graves, and were taken up on the Platte Valley, but I do not know about them.

Question. Where was this man you found burned?

Answer. He was inside of a tent.

Question. Do you suppose him to have been burned with the tent?

Answer. Yes, sir. I took him to be a white man, because he was in the quarters where the white men were.

Question. So far as you could observe, was any discrimination made between white and black men, as to giving no quarter?

Answer. I should think not, from all I could see, because they were firing from the top of a hill down the bluff on all who had gone down there to escape.

Question. Did you notice how these men had been buried by the rebels?

Answer. I saw officers and white men and black men thrown into the trenches — pitched in in any way, some across, some lengthways, some on their faces, etc. When I first saw them, I noticed a great many with their hands or feet sticking out.

Question. Have you lately discovered any that are still unburied?

Answer. Yes, sir.

Question. Did you see the three there to-day that were lying unburied?

Answer. No, sir; I heard about them, but did not go to see them.

Eli A. Bangs, sworn and examined: by the Chairman: