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

[63] defence. Allow as little intercourse as possible with the country, and cause all supplies which go out to be examined with great strictness. No man whose loyalty is questionable should be allowed to come in or go out while the enemy is in West-Tennessee.

Your obedient servant,

A true copy.

A true extract from the last report received from Major L. F. Booth, Sixth United States heavy artillery, commanding Fort Pillow.

Sir: In compliance with your request that I would forward to you a written statement of what I witnessed and learned concerning the treatment of our troops by the rebels at the capture of Fort Pillow by their forces under General Forrest, I have the honor to submit the following report:

Our garrison at Fort Pillow, consisting of some three hundred and fifty colored troops and two hundred of the Thirteenth Tennessee cavalry, refusing to surrender, the place was carried by assault about three P. M. of the twelfth instant. I arrived off the Fort at six A. M. on the morning of the thirteenth instant. Parties of rebel cavalry were picketed on the hills around the Fort, and shelling those away, I made a landing and took on board some twenty of our troops, some of them badly wounded, who had concealed themselves along the bank, and came out when they saw my vessel. Whilst doing so I was fired upon by rebel sharp-shooters posted on the hills, and one wounded man limping down to the vessel was shot. About eight A. M. the enemy sent in a flag of truce, with a proposal from General For, rest that he would put me in possession of the Fort and the country around until five P. M., for the purpose of burying our dead and removing our wounded, whom he had no means of attending to. I agreed to the terms proposed, and hailing the steamer Platte Valley, which vessel I had convoyed up from Memphis, I brought her alongside, and had the wounded brought down from the Fort and battle-field and placed on board of her. Details of rebel soldiers assisted us in this duty, and some soldiers and citizens on board the Platte Valley volunteered for the same purpose.

We found about seventy wounded men in the Fort and around it, and buried, I should think, one hundred and fifty bodies. All the buildings around the Fort, and the tents and huts in the Fort, had been burned by the rebels, and among the embers the charred remains of numbers of our soldiers, who had suffered a terrible death in the flames, could be seen.

All the wounded who had strength enough to speak, agreed that after the Fort was taken an indiscriminate slaughter of our troops was carried on by the enemy, with a furious and vindictive savageness which was never equalled by the most merciless of the Indian tribes. Around on every side horrible testimony to the truth of this statement could be seen.

Bodies with gaping wounds, some bayoneted through the eyes, some with skulls beaten through, others with hideous wounds, as if their bowels had been ripped open with Bowie knives, plainly told that but little quarter was shown to our troops, strewn from the Fort to the riverbank, in the ravines and hollows, behind logs and under the brush, where they had crept for protection from the assassins who pursued them. We found bodies bayoneted, beaten, and shot to death, showing how cold-blooded and persistent was the slaughter of our unfortunate troops. Of course, when a work is carried by assault there will always be more or less bloodshed, even when all resistance has ceased; but here there were unmistakable evidences of a massacre carried