Submitted by Michael Kelley, Nov 16, 2006 07:59

Seth Gitell wrote: "In his breathless praise of Forrest, Mr. Webb is paying tribute to the Confederate general in charge at the Fort Pillow massacre. In that incident, Forrest's troops overwhelmed a Union garrison defended by former slaves, and Forrest's men slaughtered the enemy. Historians still wrangle over the degree of Forrest's culpability. Forrest is the same Confederate general who later helped found the Ku Klux Klan. While Forrest subsequently denied ordering the massacre and disavowed violence within the KKK and purportedly broke with the group..." Mr. Gitell should know that William Tecumseh Sherman - who could never be counted as a friend of Forrest - chaired an 1871 Congressional investigation of the Klan and the possible involvement of several former Confederate generals. The investigation spilled over into reinvestigating the "Ft. Pillow Massacre." The findings of the Congressional investigation were that Forrest's only involvement with the Klan was to work to have it disband but that he did not found it or participate in any way in its activities. They also found that while there were "incidents along the riverbank" at Ft. Pillow Forrest stopped them as soon as he arrived on the scene. They found there was no "massacre,'" proving that the 1864 "investigation" was a propaganda farce. Checking the Federal Official Records it can be shown that the barracks Forrest's men were accused of burning with wounded Union soldiers inside were actually torched by Lieutenant John D. Hill, Sixth U. S. Heavy Artillery. We can also find that the Acting Master of the U.S. Steamer Silver Cloud signed a receipt accepting from Forrest's command the most severely wounded Union soldiers from Ft. Pillow - including 14 United States Colored Troops. We also find that Lieutenant Daniel Van Horn, Sixth U. S. Colored Heavy Artillery reported in the Federal Official Records: "There never was a surrender of the fort, both officers and men declaring they never would surrender or ask for quarter." What we find is that Mr. Gitell makes accusations based on his own lack of knowledge of factual history and attempts to put himself on a higher moral plane through his academic ignorance.

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