Massacre at Fort Pillow
On April 12, 1896, General Nathan Bedford Forrest led 2,500-3,000 Confederate troops to overtake Fort Pillow, in southwest Tennessee, located 40 miles north of Memphis.
A garrison of 600 union soldiers, half white and half ex-slaves, were outnumbered and overtaken. About 80 black soldiers survived the attack, and conflicting reports said they were killed after they surrendered.
Despite this atrocity, ex-slave and free black soldiers continued to play a major and increasing role in the Union war effort, providing nearly 200,000 men to fight for the North.
Forrest went on to become the first grand wizard of the American terrorist organization, the Ku Klux Klan, formed on Christmas Eve, 1865 in Pulaski, Tennessee by six Confederate veterans.
