Civil War Atrocity  	 Nathan B. Forrest raid on Fort Pillow 	Andrew Ward is a professional writer whose previous works included Fits and Starts: The Premature Memoirs of Andrew Ward; The Blood Seed: A Novel of India; Our Bones Are Scattered: The Cawnpore Massacres in the Indian ...

Cimprich, John

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Civil War Book Review Spring-Summer 2006 Article 17 River Run Red: The Fort Pillow Massacre in the American Civil War John Cimprich Follow this and additional works at: https://repository.lsu.edu/cwbr Recommended Citation Cimprich, John (2006) "River Run Red: The Fort Pillow Massacre in the American Civil War," Civil War Book Review: Vol. 8 : Iss. 2 . DOI: 10.31390/cwbr.8.2.17 Available at: https://repository.lsu.edu/cwbr/vol8/iss2/17 ReviewCimprich, JohnSpring 2006Ward, Andrew River Run Red: The Fort Pillow Massacre in the American CivilWar. Viking, $29.95 ISBN 670034401Civil War AtrocityNathan B. Forrest raid on Fort PillowAndrew Ward is a professional writer whose previous works included Fitsand Starts: The Premature Memoirs of Andrew Ward; The Blood Seed: A Novelof India; Our Bones Are Scattered: The Cawnpore Massacres in the IndianMutiny of 1857; and Dark Midnight When I Rise: The Story of the JubileeSingers Who Introduced the World to the Music of Black America. Thisbackground and his writing style shape River Run Red.The book centers upon the Confederate attack on Fort Pillow on April 12,1864. The fort sat on the Mississippi River north of Memphis. Its garrison ofunionist and black Federals became a target of Major General Nathan B. Forrestwhen he raided western Tennessee and Kentucky. Federal survivors claimed thata massacre followed the fort's fall, but Forrest denied it. It has always ranked asthe war's most famous alleged atrocity, and today most studies by professionalhistorians consider it a massacre. Ward's coverage divides into four parts:background of the site and those involved, the incident, the wartime aftermath(including investigations), and the postwar lives of participants. He aids readers'visualization of the story through maps and illustrations. A preface explains hisapproach to the controversial subject.Strong points in Ward's analysis include the psychology of those denyingguilt, corruption among officers in the first Federal garrison, the poor leadershipskills of the unionist Major William Bradford, the shaping factors in Forrest'sbackground, and Forrest's rough management of his own troops. Ward makes astrong case that a massacre resulted when some Confederates' racial hostilitiescaused a breakdown of discipline and that Forrest knew what happened but1Cimprich: River Run Red: The Fort Pillow Massacre in the American Civil WarPublished by LSU Scholarly Repository, 2006covered it up. The analysis builds from extensive research.Ward primarily aims the book at the popular audience. He will catch andmaintain the interest of many of those readers. Chapters have catchy titles andshort length. His passionate writing tells the story using vivid images, a widevocabulary, and in general very polished phrasing.Ward's analysis and endnotes indicate that his secondary audience isscholars. They will have more mixed reactions. Not all of his content isdocumented and some citations are either incorrect or incomplete. Sometimes hededuces too much from documents or misreads them. Lieutenant ColonelThomas Jackson's report on the incident states that Private Eli Cothel was savedfrom burial when Confederates saw he was alive, not that he dug himself out.General Stephen A. Hurlbut's order sending reinforcements to Fort Pillow wentout at 7:00 p.m. (not a.m.) after, rather than before, receiving news of the battleon April 12. River Run Red also contains a number of minor errors. CharlesDavis was a captain in the United States Navy, not an admiral. The FederalArmy mostly recruited blacks into the infantry, rather than into the artillery. Theauthor should not use unpublished essays and newspaper articles bynonprofessional historians as sources for historical facts and quotations notverifiable elsewhere, nor should he trust an account of the battle by WilliamWitherspoon, a Confederate not present.Some of the work's analysis is problematic. The New Era's canons probablycould not be raised high enough to hit the barracks beside Fort Pillow on thebluff. Most significantly, Ward accepts debatable Confederate claims aboutdepredations and drunkenness by the last Federal garrison.Professional historians should consult Ward's study but do so with caution.Other readers who like great breadth of context and detail--River Run Red istwice as long as any other book on the subject--will find it entertaining andenlightening on the major aspects of the incident.John Cimprich (cimpricj@thomasmore.edu), professor of History at ThomasMore College, published Fort Pillow, a Civil War Massacre, and Public Memorywith Louisiana State University Press one month after Ward's book appeared.2Civil War Book Review, Vol. 8, Iss. 2 [2006], Art. 17https://repository.lsu.edu/cwbr/vol8/iss2/17DOI: 10.31390/cwbr.8.2.17

River Run Red: The Fort Pillow Massacre in the American Civil War

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River Run Red: The Fort Pillow Massacre in the American Civil War

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