[For full account of these hideous atrocities, see testimony of survivors before the Committee on Conduct and Expenditures of the War. (H. R. Report, No. 65, 1st S. 38th Cong.)]
[For full account of these hideous atrocities, see testimony of survivors before the Committee on Conduct and Expenditures of the War. (H. R. Report, No. 65, 1st S. 38th Cong.)]
And all this murderous malignity, for what?—Simply, and only, because one-half of the Patriot victims had Black skins, while the other half had dared to fight by the side of the Blacks!
In the after-days of the War, the cry with which our Union Black regiments went into battle:—"Remember Fort Pillow!"—inspired them to deeds of valor, and struck with terror the hearts of the Enemy. On many a bloody field, Fort Pillow was avenged.
It is a common error to suppose that the first arming of the Black man was on the Union side. The first Black volunteer company was a Rebel one, raised early in May, 1861, in the city of Memphis, Tenn.; and at Charleston, S. C., Lynchburg, Va., and Norfolk, Va., large bodies of Free Negroes volunteered, and were engaged, earlier than that, to do work on the Rebel batteries.
On June 28th of the same year, the Rebel Legislature of Tennessee passed an Act not only authorizing the Governor "to receive into the Military service of the State all male Free persons of Color between the ages of fifteen and fifty, or such number as may be necessary, who may be sound in mind and body, and capable of actual service," but also prescribing "That in the event a sufficient number of Free persons of Color to meet the wants of the State shall not tender their services, the Governor is empowered, through the Sheriffs of the different counties, to press such persons until the requisite number is obtained."
At a review of Rebel troops, at New Orleans, November 23, 1861, "One regiment comprised 1,400 Free Colored men." Vast numbers of both Free Negroes and Slaves were employed to construct Rebel fortifications throughout the War, in all the Rebel States. And on the 17th of February, 1864, the Rebel Congress passed an Act which provides in its first section "That all male Free Negroes * * * resident in the Confederate States, between the ages of eighteen and fifty years, shall be held liable to perform such duties with the Army, or in connection with the Military defenses of the Country, in the way of work upon the fortifications, or in Government works for the production or preparation of materials of War, or in Military hospitals, as the Secretary of War or the Commanding General of the Trans-Mississippi Department may, from time to time, prescribe:" while the third section provides that when the Secretary of War shall "be unable to procure the service of Slaves in any Military Department, then he is authorized to impress the services of as many male Slaves, not to exceed twenty thousand, as may be required, from time to time, to discharge the duties indicated in the first section of the Act."
And this Act of, the Rebel Congress was passed only forty days before the fiendish massacre of the Union Whites and Blacks who together, at Fort Pillow, were performing for the Union, "such duties with the Army," and "in connection with the Military defenses of the Country," as had been prescribed for them by their Commanding General!
Under any circumstances—and especially under this state of facts—nothing could excuse or palliate that shocking and disgraceful and barbarous crime against humanity; and the human mind is incapable of understanding how such savagery can be accounted for, except upon the theory that "He that nameth Rebellion nameth not a singular, or one only sin, as is theft, robbery, murder, and such like; but he nameth the whole puddle and sink of all sins against God and man; against his country, his countrymen, his children, his kinsfolk, his friends, and against all men universally; all sins against God and all men heaped together, nameth he that nameth Rebellion."
The inconsistency of the Rebels, in getting insanely and murderously furious over the arming of Negroes for the defense of the imperiled Union and the newly gained liberties of the Black Race, when they had themselves already armed some of them and made them fight to uphold the Slave-holders' Rebellion and the continued Enslavement of their race, is already plain enough.