Mar 01, 2012 - Sale 2271

Sale 2271 - Lot 378

Price Realized: $ 14,400
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 6,000 - $ 8,000
A CONTEMPORARY MAP OF FORT PILLOW (MILITARY--CIVIL WAR.) [ANON.] Pen and watercolor map with legend, and manuscript notations. 13-1/4 x 15-5/8 inches; professionally conserved with archival paper backing. Np, circa 1864
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Additional Details

a contemporary rendering of fort pillow, the site of one of the worst atrocities of the civil war, probably made just prior to the event. Both Union and "Rebel" grave sites are shown because the fort had been occupied alternately by both sides during the war. The map itself takes up a space of 10-1/2 x 16 inches. Beneath that is the title, "Fort Pillow," and to the left and right "Explanation" above the details of the area numbered from 1 through 23. It is more than likely that the author of this map was a Union soldier, and probably an officer. The placement of every aspect of the fort in relation to the Mississippi River is meticulously set down.
On March 16, 1864, Major General Nathan Bedford Forrest launched a month-long cavalry raid with 7,000 troops into western Tennessee and Kentucky. Their objectives were to capture Union prisoners and supplies and to demolish posts and fortifications from Paducah, Kentucky, south to Memphis. Forrest's Cavalry Corps, which he called "the Cavalry Department of West Tennessee and North Mississippi", consisted of the divisions led by Brig. Generals James R. Chalmers (brigades of Brig. Gen. Robert V. Richardson and Colonel Robert M. McCulloch) and Abraham Buford (brigades of Cols. Tyree H. Bell and A.P. Thompson). Forrest arrived at Fort Pillow at 10:00 on April 12. By this time, Chalmers had already surrounded the fort. A stray bullet struck Forrest's horse, felling the general and bruising him (this would be the first of three horses he lost that day.) He deployed sharpshooters around the higher ground that overlooked the fort, bringing many of the occupants into their direct line of fire. Major Booth was killed by a sharpshooter's bullet to the chest and Bradford assumed command. By 11:00, the Confederates had captured two rows of barracks about 150 yards from the southern end of the fort. The Union soldiers had failed to destroy these buildings before the Confederates occupied them and subjected the garrison to murderous fire. Conflicting reports of what happened next--from 16:00 to dusk--led to controversy and eventual investigation. Both Union and Confederate sources claimed that even though the Union troops surrendered, Forrest's men massacred them in cold blood. Such was the bitter hatred the Confederate forces held for Negro troops. Surviving members of the garrison said that most of their men surrendered and threw down their arms, only to be shot or bayoneted by the attackers, who repeatedly shouted, "No quarter! No quarter!" The Joint Committee On the Conduct of the War immediately investigated the incident and concluded that the Confederates shot most of the garrison after it had surrendered. General Forrest became leader of the early Ku Klux Klan after the war.