Q & A (September 2024)

Questions and Comments from readers. These are a few I received last year. I answer them all.

Q: In several of your posts you indicate a lack of respect for the famous Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest. He was a tactical cavalry genius, he won far more than he lost, and his troops loved him as their leader.  I and many others consider him one of the great heroes of the Southern rebellion. You are off-base with your assessments.

A:  I agree that he was an effective Cavalry officer, dedicated to his mission, and his men willingly followed him into battle not only because he was a good tactician, but he led from the front. However,  while he showed courage on numerous occasions, he had character flaws which I cannot overlook.  First, before the War, he not only had a plantation and owned slaves, he also was an active slave trader at his slave auction house, Forrest & Maples, in Memphis. There, his company bought and sold slaves, broke up families, and severely punished any infractions by the “commodities” he was trading. Certainly, it was a legal activity at the time, but in no way was it morally justified. Most telling, however, he led his men into what became known as the Fort Pillow Massacre on April 12, 1864. Forrest watched as his men murdered at least 300 of the Union soldiers who were surrendering after the successful Confederate assault on the fort. Most of those killed were black soldiers in uniform. One historian called it….. “one of the bleakest, saddest events of American military history." Survivors later recalled that almost all of the Union soldiers surrendered and dropped their weapons, but were shot or struck with bayonets by the Confederates who repeatedly shouted, "No quarter! No quarter!"  Some Confederates later said, as justification, that there were Union soldiers who ran, but kept firing, and were killed in self defense. That is probably true, but a letter from Confederate soldier, Achilles V. Clark, to his sisters on April 14, tells, the rest of the story. “The slaughter was awful. Words cannot describe the scene. The poor deluded negros would run up to our men fall on their knees and with uplifted hands scream for mercy but they were ordered to their feet and then shot down. The white men fared but little better. The fort turned out to be a great slaughter pen. Blood, human blood stood about in pools and brains could have been gathered up in any quantity. I with several others tried to stop the butchery and at one time had partially succeeded but Gen. Forrest ordered them shot down like dogs and the carnage continued. Finally our men became sick of blood and the firing ceased.” Forrest was charged with War Crimes, but the charges were dropped as the country became more interested in reconstruction and reconciliation than vengeance. While he remained dedicated to White supremacy, at the end of the War, Forrest told his men to: “Go home, the Confederate experiment had failed, and conduct yourselves as citizens of the reunited country, obey the laws, and preserve your honor.” After the War, for a while, he embraced the Ku Klux Klan (KKK), which he hoped would influence political issues, accelerate pardons for former Confederate officials, restore some confiscated lands,  and again permit some forms of servitude. There are some reports that he was the first “Grand Wizard”, but he was not, although he was considered a leader by the membership. But by 1870, he left the organization as it turned more toward violence against individual Negroes and interference with voting rights of anti-slavery Whites.  In June 1871, he testified in Congress that he was no longer a member of the KKK. All things considered, his is a mixed legacy. His military prowess might earn a degree of respect, however, his ownership of the Forrest and Maples slave auction house and his loss of control at Fort Pillow, far outweigh any positives in his character; in my opinion.

Q: I understand that Abraham Lincoln wanted to continue to build the Capitol Building during the Civil War. I believe the dome was completed at his insistence. But the Washington Monument was also half finished at the start of the War, and he evidently did not seek to finish it. Do you know why he chose one over the other?

A: I am not sure he purposefully made that decision. Speaking just to the Capitol Dome, Lincoln stated that the country needed to see that the government’s work would not be interrupted as a symbol that the union would stand. Congress narrowly approved funds for the completion of the dome (as well as renovations of the White House). However, there was even less enthusiasm (read money) in Congress for continuing the Washington Monument at the time. Lincoln always carefully selected his battles with Congress and he chose to leave the Washington memorial until later. He did not live to see it finished.

Q: I recently watched an older movie called, “The Gangs of New York” and it included scenes of draft riots in the city during the Civil War. The implication in the movie was that Union troops killed many of the rioters. Is that true?

A: Partly true.  Because the Union conscription laws permitted a draftee to pay $300 to be excused and allowed others to pay a substitute, many in the North were calling the draft a “poor boy’s army”, and some were calling on young men to resist. But their outrage was further inflamed by some who called it a draft for “Lincoln's Negro War” or a “Slave War” which were actual headlines in the Democratic Daily News a few days before the protests began.  On Saturday, July 11, 1863, the first names of new draftees were read in New York City, ironically on the same day the names of New York casualties at Gettysburg were published.  On Monday evening, July 13, several organized anti-draft groups in New York carried out preplanned and coordinated attacks on the main draft office, several post offices, the home of the U.S. Postmaster and the home of the Republican mayor.  The attacks were carefully planned to be several quick strikes, ending early in the morning of Tuesday, July 14.  Part of the methodical plan included several hundred New York police and militia who agreed to not respond if and when called by authorities.  However, as news spread of the attacks, others not involved in the original plan began sporadic violence against unplanned targets. During the day and night of July 14, the chaos also brought in several well established criminal gangs, and the violence began to include looting of stores, homes, and armed robbery.  Even worse, there were several mob attacks on innocent pedestrians, including many Negroes; and two young Negro men, spotted by different mobs, were chased and beaten to death.  One mob even attacked and burned an orphanage for Negro children.  The original organizers were intending to only disrupt the draft and probably had less than 2000 members assigned to attack specific targets.  However, with those added who wanted to join the protest, plus the criminal element, there were probably 10,000 men rioting in New York on Wednesday, April 15. Lincoln hesitated at first to intervene, but by late Wednesday afternoon, he ordered Federal troops to end the riot. When two different mobs each with over 500 men attacked two small detachments of about 150 soldiers each, the resulting gunfire from the mobs killed one soldier, mortally wounded another, and left another 40 with various injuries.  Soldiers initially reported that their return fire killed at least 12 in the mobs, and wounded about 100 more, some probably with mortal injuries. Police records indicate the final civilian death toll from the soldiers' fire may have reached 30. The Federal troops quickly restored order and the violence stopped.  Most people in the state of New York were not anti-war or even against Lincoln, as he carried the state in both 1860 and 1864. In fact, by in large, they supported the concept of preserving the Union, and there had already been about 50,000 men who had volunteered to join the Union Army and Navy in the prior two years.  The draft was the issue; and linking the draft to “Lincoln's Negro War” further inflamed the resistance. Some modern authors incorrectly imply that the New York draft riots in July 1863 were spontaneous and that the riots only ended when Union troops were ordered to fire into the crowds, and some falsely claim that the troops killed over a thousand civilians and wounded many more.  The facts are that the protests were not spontaneous but had been planned for at least six weeks to coincide with the next draft in New York.  The riots did lead to casualties: we know there were about 30 White rioters killed in fighting among rival gangs, another 20 White pedestrians and two young Black men were killed when they inadvertently encountered the criminal elements that had joined in the riots, perhaps 30 civilian protesters were killed by the military, and two Union soldiers died of their wounds. This loss of civilian and military lives was a terrible price to pay to demonstrate disapproval of the draft; however, the recorded deaths and injuries, especially those caused by the military, were nowhere near the numbers made up by some of Lincoln's critics in his day and by some modern authors, and, as your question indicates, also by some modern day screen writers.