Fort Pillow Massacre

(April 12, 1864), in the American Civil War, Confederate slaughter of black Federal troops stationed at Fort Pillow, Tenn. The action stemmed from Southern outrage at the North's use of black soldiers. From the beginning of hostilities, the Confederate leadership was faced with the question of whether to treat black soldiers captured in battle as slaves in insurrection or, as the Union insisted, as prisoners of war. In 1864 Confederate Colonel W.P. Shingler ordered those in his command to take no more black prisoners.

In what proved the ugliest racial incident of the war, Confederate forces under General Nathan B. Forrest captured Fort Pillow on April 12, 1864, and proceeded to wipe out the black troops within; some were burned or buried alive. A Federal congressional investigating committee subsequently verified that more than 300 blacks, including women and children, had been slain after the fort surrendered. After the incident, black soldiers going into battle used the cry “Remember Fort Pillow!” Later in the year, the South agreed to treat blacks as prisoners of war.