Freedom by the Sword - US Army Center Of Military History

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Freedom by the Sword: The U.S. Colored Troops, 1862–1867
deem it safe to take your command.” Prudence was important, for “home-made
Yankees” taken captive could expect no more mercy from the Confederates
than the Union’s black soldiers might—less, perhaps, for white prisoners had
no cash value. 42
Four companies of the 6th USCA, numbering about two hundred seventy
officers and men, and one section of Battery D, 2d USCA, with two cannon and
thirty-five officers and men, made up the rest of Fort Pillow’s garrison in the
early spring of 1864. Most of the men of the 6th USCA had enlisted at Corinth,
Mississippi, in the summer and fall of 1863, while those of the light artillery
had enlisted at Memphis in the fall. In mid-January, the 6th USCA, only five
companies strong, had moved from Corinth to Memphis. After further recruiting,
the regiment had sent its four senior companies to Fort Pillow at the end of
March. Since both the light and heavy artillery gained a few recruits among the
black refugees who flocked to army camps, officers of the 13th Tennessee Cavalry
hoped that a white regiment’s presence would encourage white Unionists
in the neighborhood to enlist as well. Black soldiers and white, Fort Pillow’s
garrison amounted to somewhere between four hundred fifty and five hundred
fifty men fit for duty during the second week of April 1864. 43
The fort itself was a sprawling two-mile line of entrenchments that faced
inland on the bluffs above the river, dug to protect gun emplacements that
Confederates had built on the riverbank early in 1862 and named after one
of their generals, the Tennessee politician and Mexican War veteran Gideon
J. Pillow. After Confederates in the region surrendered in June 1862, when
a Union landing force occupied Memphis, U.S. Navy crews removed the
serviceable ordnance, for the Confederates had no naval force to guard against.
In the spring of 1864, Fort Pillow’s artillery consisted of Battery D’s two field
pieces and two more that the 6th USCA battalion had brought with it. Well
within the post’s outer defenses, close to the river, the garrison had constructed
a small fort with six embrasures for artillery surrounded by a ditch six feet
deep and twelve wide. The 6th USCA’s Maj. Lionel F. Booth supervised its
final preparation during the two weeks after his battalion arrived at Fort Pillow
at the end of March. In siting the earthworks to protect the battalion’s camp, he
neglected to enclose some nearby cabins that earlier troops had built to serve as
42 OR, ser. 1, vol. 32, pt. 1, p. 562 (“home-made”), and pt. 2, p. 311 (“hunt up”); G. W. Buswell
Jnls, 8 Jun 1864, Huntington Library, San Marino, Calif. The 6th USCA changed its designation
twice more during the war, becoming the 7th USCA on 26 April 1864 and the 11th USCI (New) on
23 January 1865. The 2d Mississippi Heavy Artillery, at Natchez, became the 6th USCA on 26 April
1864. ORVF, 8: 154, 182.
43 Three officers who survived the fight estimated the number of Union soldiers present for duty
as 550, 500, and 450. OR, ser. 1, vol. 32, pt. 1, pp. 559, 563, 569; NA M594, roll 206, 11th USCI;
ORVF, 8: 166. John Cimprich, Fort Pillow, A Civil War Massacre, and Public Memory (Baton
Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2005), p. 129, lists the garrison’s total strength as between
593 and 611. Cimprich bases his count on personnel records in the National Archives, rather than
the figures in Fort Pillow’s post return at the end of March (OR, ser. 1, vol. 32, pt. 1, p. 556). The 2d
USCA was a collective term for nine independent light batteries that served in six states, from South
Carolina to Arkansas. Unlike other black artillery regiments, the 2d USCA had no field officers or
noncommissioned staff.