Fort Pillow 
April 12, 1864
Driving Directions
Covington, TN
Updated Thursday, March 11, 2010 4:35 PM
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Click on the map for Interactive, Aerial and Birds Eye Views.
Maj. Lionel F. Booth USA
Maj. Wiiliam F. Bradford USA
Maj. Gen Nathan Bedford Forrest CSA
Gen. James R. Chalmers CSA
On a windy, gray day in April 1864 C.S. Gen Nathan Bedford Forrest’s 3,000 strong guerrilla cavalrymen over ran a useless position on the banks of the Mississippi and slaughtered the garrison in cold blood. There is no way to put a fine point on it, it was premeditated murder.
If there is any place on Earth that is haunted, this would be it. Having said that, I spent the night there sleeping in my car with a big black lab named Jake and all we say were racoons. There was no body else to be seen any where, but there were a lot of racoons.
The fort is higher abover the river than the drawng suggests and the gully between the ridge in the foreground and the fort iself is deeper and steeper and narrower than shown. To the left, where the American flag is shown there was a group of log cabins that housed the white troops. The black troops slept in tents. The relative diffrences in hights between the ridges is about right. It's easy to see how shapshooters in the foreground could make the fort untenable. Also missing are the crisscrossed felled trees that were all around the fort. The trees gave cover to Forrest's men as they crept forward to attack the fort.
Forrest
This picture is somewhat closer to the mark, the bluffs are much higher but the deep steep sided ravines can be seen, just scale the landscape up.
The Countryside
The Outer Works
The outer defense line was abandoned without a shot. While the inter fort was a much smaller area to defend, the outer line was actually stronger.
The Visitors Center
Forrest's Command Position
The Inter Fort
The thick walls made it impossible for the defenders to fire on the Confederates, once they got close to the wall, without raising up and exposing themselve to fire from the sharpshooters who held the high ground.
The Approach
At the time of the battle the trees had been cut down but they were left where they fell. It was an easy matter for the Confederates to move up the canyons under the cover of the downed trees.
The Rivers Edge
The massacre occured down by the waters edge, but when I was there the river was flooding so I could not get to the massacre site.
The Swinging Bridge
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