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 General
Nathan Bedford Forrest
and Fort Pillow
Recently
there has been a renewed
statement of antagonism toward Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest in our area as a part
of the statement of anger toward the Confederate flag. At the opposite pole are
those who have much admiration for Gen. Forrest. It is my opinion that many of
those who are singling out Gen. Forrest know very little about him and are
largely influenced by what they have read that came from the Northern Press
during the War Between the States. Mr. Jack Hurst, in 1993, published what I
consider the best book written on Gen. Forrest, entitled Nathan Bedford
Forrest, a Biography1. In it Hurst did an excellent job in
describing Forrest's pre-military life and the times in which he lived. He gave
us an excellent picture of the man as a person.
From Hurst, it is apparent that Gen. Forrest was an
opportunist throughout his life but was also, at the same time, a man of pride
who tried hard to live his life with a high code of ethics. This nature
permitted him to progress from a poor lad with very little education and one
whose father died when he was young, to a man of considerable wealth by 1861; to
progress from an enlisted private to a Lieutenant General in the Confederate
Army; to become a military leader so effective that Gen. Sherman said that the
war in the west could not be won as long as Gen. Forrest was alive; to become a
handler of cavalry so effective that the German High Command sent military men
to Tennessee and Mississippi before WWII to study his tactics, and then applied
them to their Panzer Units during WWII.
Forrest made his fortune in part as a slave trader. There
were good slave traders, and there were bad. Forrest was a good one. Being a
practical man, he realized the value of taking good care of his merchandise, and
he fed and humanely cared for the slaves he owned as well as those he had in his
compound which, incidentally, was a part of his own living quarters. However, he
went further than that, even when it meant reduced profits. The legend in the
area is that he was good to his human stock in trade, never separated members of
a family, and allowed his slaves to go out into the city and chose their own
masters. No slave ever took advantage of this freedom to run away. Hurst quoted
an Atlanta slave dealer and later newspaper executive, Colonel George W. Adair,
who was intimately associated with Forrest during that period of his career. He
said "Forrest was overwhelmed by applications from many of that class who
begged him to purchase them. When a slave was purchased, his first act was to
turn him over to his slave valet, Jerry, with instructions to wash him from head
to foot thus making the slave 'proud of belonging to him' and was always careful
when he purchased a married slave to use every effect to secure also the husband
or wife as the case might be, and to unite them. In handling children he would
not permit the separation of a family." Hurst recounts an incidence after
the war where Forrest defended a black woman who was being abused by her black
husband, telling him to desist. The black man, saying it was none of Forrest's
business, attacked Forrest who had to defend himself. In the end Forrest had to
kill the black man in self defense. At Forrest's funeral hundreds of blacks
flocked to view his remains and evidenced genuine sorrow over his death
according the Memphis Appeal. This is in stark contrast to the accusation that
Forrest ordered the taking of no prisoners at the storming of Fort Pillow
because there were black troops in the garrison.
It has been my belief for many years that the troops of Gen.
Forrest disobeyed orders at Fort Pillow and ran amok. There is no evidence that
Gen. Forrest ordered the taking of no prisoners. There were 450 blacks and 250
whites in Fort Pillow, of which 40 blacks and 100 whites were taken prisoner. It
is my opinion that the inexperience of the black soldier had something to do
with a higher percentage of blacks dying. I have recently come upon evidence to
support my long held belief that Forrest's troops disobeyed his orders. Forrest
had requested surrender with assurance that all would be treated as prisoners of
war in spite of the fact that the Trans-Mississippi Confederate Commander,
Lieutenant General Kirby Smith, had declared the policy that all captured blacks
wearing U.S. uniforms were to be killed. In Hurst's book there are quotes from
some survivors including a black by the name of Private Ellis Falls who attested
that he heard Forrest order his troops to stop fighting and a Private Major
Williams reported a Confederate officer shouted that the blacks should be killed
but another Confederate officer contradicted him, saying that Forrest had said
that the blacks should be captured and returned to their masters.
I have recently come across some material that I think
substantiates my belief. This recently acquired material came to me in my
genealogical research into my wife's family of Cato. Several of the brothers of
her great, great, great grandfather moved out of Christian Co., Ky. about
1815-18 to Wayne Co., southeastern Mo. (later to be a part of Bollinger Co.) One
of these brothers, Richard Cato, b. 1785 married Malvina, sister of Thomas
Jefferson McGee. Another brother, Lewis Cato, b. 1786 had a daughter Tabitha
Cato to marry Thomas Jefferson McGee. There is a book written on this family
entitled Lost Cause, Lost Family2 by Ivan N. McKee. It may, on
first thought, seem unlikely that one family could have any significant effect
on such an incident as the massacre at Fort Pillow, but let me summarize what
may be found in this book. First however let me quote from The Civil War, A
Guide to Civil War Activities in the Southeast Missouri Region3 found
on the Internet. In part it says "in no other part of Missouri was the loss
of property and life more devastating than in Southeast Missouri. While only a
few large-scale military operations between uniformed armies occurred, the
complex of military units operating in the region made it a bloody battlefield
for four long years. Northern sympathizers who were not in the regular Union
Army formed the Missouri Enrolled Militia which engaged in constant warfare with
Missouri Confederate Militia. Guerrilla bands, some loyal to the North, others
with allegiance to the South, engaged in some widespread, long-lived and most
destructive guerrilla warfare of the Civil War. Homes and business were looted
and burned. Civilians and fighters, men, women, and children were swept into the
nightmare".
The following family members are principal players on the
Confederate side. They were Simeon Cato, b. ca 1805, older brother of Tabitha
Cato McGee; Thomas Jefferson McGee, b. 1800, husband of Tabitha Cato and their
three sons: Daniel, b. 1828; Blair, b. 1835 and Hugh McGee, b. 1844. On the
Union side, the principal player is Captain William T. Leeper of Company B of
the 12th Missouri Regiment (Union) which later became the 3rd Regiment. The
Cato's and the McGee's were slave owners and very active supporters of the
Southern cause. The two oldest McGee brothers enlisted into the Missouri
Confederate State Guard in Nov. 1861. Daniel was a Captain and Blair was a 2nd
Lieutenant. Blair was seriously wounded in early action and was a non combatant
after early 1862. The Missouri State Guard was disbanded in early 1862 and
Daniel McGee's Company became Company C of the 2nd Regiment of the Missouri
Cavalry (Confederate). Daniel was a Lieutenant in the new Regiment. Hugh, at the
age of 17 years, enlisted into Company C in Feb. 1862. One month later, Hugh was
captured, spent some time in prison, took the Oath of Allegiance, was released,
and immediately returned to his old unit where he remained until the end of the
War. There were also 7 Cato men; Richard, William, James H., William B., Henry,
Lathiel, and Nathan on the roster of Company C on 10/31/1862, cousins of the
McGee men. According to McKee, this unit was a part of the forces of Nathan
Bedford Forrest in most of his West Tennessee campaigns and was at times
Forrest's bodyguard unit.
During this time there was increasing harassment of the
Confederate supporters in Missouri by the Missouri Union Militia. Because of the
hostilities being carried out by Union Militia against their families at home, a
number of Confederate Missouri soldiers deserted the 2nd Regiment to protect
their families. Apparently Daniel McGee was one of these and he led a group in
guerrilla warfare against the Union Militia who were the principal people doing
the harassment. He became a marked man. On 2/4/1863 the 12th Regiment of the
Union Militia under the command of Captain Leeper ambushed Daniel McGee and 28
others at the home of his uncle Simeon Cato. It would appear that many had no
arms and were probably recruits. The number of arms and horses reported by
Captain Leeper as taken were less than the number of men killed. Some were
elderly members of the family of Cato. Apparently they were seated, unarmed at
the time, and Capt. Leeper stated in a later communication that he had given the
order to take no prisoners. All 29 were killed. It was said that Daniel McGee
was shot so many times that his torso was nearly cut in two. Not all the names
of the 28 men are known, so we do not presently know how many Cato men were
killed besides Simeon Cato, but it is thought that one was Simeon's Uncle
Richard Cato, great uncle of Daniel McGee. He was at the time 78 years old,
hardly an age to be a combatant.
This occurred just 14 months before the Fort Pillow massacre
on 4/12/1864. Daniel's brother Hugh was there at Fort Pillow, a member of the
2nd Missouri Cavalry, the bodyguard unit for Gen. Forrest. The 24th Missouri
(Union) Cavalry was in Fort Pillow. It is not hard to imagine that, regardless
of the Commander's order, this Confederate unit would take no prisoners and was
also in a position to lead other units to do so. There were also Tennessee units
under Forrest's command that were very angry with the Union Tennessee units
within Fort Pillow who were, in part, deserters from the Confederate Army and
had been ravaging the west Tennessee countryside. They, too, were in no mood to
take prisoners.
Then, to cap all of this off, four months later, on
8/10/1864, the 12th Missouri Union Militia, apparently in retaliation, came to
the home of Thomas Jefferson McGee, an elderly man of 64 years, murdered him,
and hid his corpse which was not found for 2 weeks. They also burned his home.
Three days later they came to the home of Blair McGee and killed him in the
presence of his 12 year old daughter, Carolyn McGee. Finally, when Hugh McGee
surrendered at a designated surrender place in Arkansas, he and 6 others were
shot down before a firing squad on 5/28/1865. This obliterated this family, save
for the females. It is interesting to note that the McGee former slaves would
not leave. They remained and were the chief support for these women for the next
20 years.
To further substantiate this account there is on the
Southeast Missouri Home Page the following under Bollinger County, Missouri:
"In Wayne County, a monument in the Cowen Cemetery marks the graves of
seven Confederate soldiers, several with family ties to Bollinger County, who
were shot by Union Troops in Arkansas after they surrendered on May 28,
1865." Further on is written, "Greenbrier Cemetery, in southern
Bollinger County, contains a mass grave discovered many years ago. An
investigation of the grave determined that the plot contained remains of
Confederate soldiers. Uniforms, coats, buttons and skeletal remains were found.
The remains are thought by some to be those of Confederate troops under the
command of Captain Daniel McGee who were killed by Union troops in the Mingo
Swamp on Feb. 3 or 4, 1863. Although accounts vary, over 20 Confederates were
killed in the encounter, while no Union soldiers were injured. Although McGee is
documented in the National Archives as being a Confederate officer, Union troops
at the time considered him an outlaw."
All of this leads me to suspect that the massacre at the home
of Simeon Cato on 2/4/1863 may have contributed to the massacre at Fort Pillow
on 4/12/1864, which in turn led to the later killing of Blair, Thomas Jefferson
and Hugh McGee. This points out that life is a very complex thing, and many
factors are involved in the cause of events both large and small, obvious and
obscure. Although I do not propose to say that racism may not have motivated
some, I am saying that at Fort Pillow there were also other factors involved,
such as; the long term feud between Union and Confederate factions of the border
state of Missouri, and that Gen. Forrest probably had no knowledge of the extent
it existed in his own troops and that he certainly had no control over them.
Such a massacre was in no way typical of the nature of Gen Forrest. But, as a
result of the action of the small players at Fort Pillow, Gen Forrest has been
unjustly accused, and there has been a concerted effort by some to paint a
picture of him that is both slanted and untrue.
Bibliography:
1) Nathan Bedford Forrest, a
Biography by Jack Hurst, Alfred A. Knopf, 1993
2) Lost Cause, Lost Family by
Ivan N. McKee, Pine Hill Press, Freeman, S. Dakota 57029, copyright 1978
3) The Civil War, A Guide to Civil
War Activities in the Southeast Missouri Region Home Page, Cape Girardeau,
Mo., http://rosecity.net/civil war/home.html
Copyright by Henry B. Brackin Jr.
Nathan B
Forrest
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