kened on both sides to allow the guns to cool off. The "New
Era," nearly out of shell, backed into the river to clean her guns.
During this lull Gen. Forrest sent a flag of truce demanding the
unconditional surrender of the fort. A consultation of the Federal
officers was held, and a request made for twenty minutes to consult
the officers of the gun-boat. Gen. Forrest refused to grant this,
saying that he only demanded the surrender of the fort and not the
gun-boat. He demanded an immediate surrender, which was promptly
declined by Major Bradford. During the time these negotiations were
going on, Forrest's men were stealing horses, plundering the buildings
in front of the fort, and closing in upon the fort through the
ravines, which was unsoldierly and cowardly to say the least. Upon
receiving the refusal of Major Booth to capitulate, Forrest gave a
signal and his troops made a frantic charge upon the fort. It was
received gallantly and resisted stubbornly, but there was no use of
fighting. In ten minutes the enemy, assaulting the fort in the centre,
and striking it on the flanks, swept in. The Federal troops
surrendered; but an indiscriminate massacre followed. Men were shot
down in their tracks; pinioned to the ground with bayonet and sabre.
Some were clubbed to death while dying of wounds; others were made to
get down upon their knees, in which condition they were shot to death.
Some were burned alive, having been fastened into the buildings, while
still others were nailed against the houses, tortured, and then burned
to a crisp. A little Colored boy only eight years old was lifted to
the horse of a rebel who intended taking him along with him, when
Gen. Forrest meeting the soldier ordered him to put the child down and
shoot him. The soldier remonstrated, but the stern and cruel order was
repeated, emphasized with an oath, and backed with a threat that
endangered the soldier's life, so he put the child on the ground and
shot him dead! From three o'clock in the afternoon until the merciful
darkness came and threw the sable wings of night over the carnival of
death, the slaughter continued. The stars looked down in pity upon the
dead--ah! they were beyond the barbarous touch of the rebel
fiends--and the dying; and the angels found a spectacle worthy of
their tears. And when the morning looked down upon the battle-field,
it was not to find it peaceful in death and the human hyenas gone.
Alas! those who had survived the w