the Congressional Committee,--and also contradictory
to the confederate General S. D. Lee's report, in which he fails to
convince himself even of the inaccuracy of the reports of brutality, as
made by the few who escaped being murdered. Lee says:

[Illustration: THE MASSACRE AT FORT PILLOW.--APRIL 12TH, 1864.]

"The garrison was summoned in the usual manner, and its
commanding officer assumed the responsibility of refusing to
surrender after having been informed by General Forrest of
his ability to take the Fort, and of his fears of what the
result would be in case the demand was not complied with.
The assault was made under a heavy fire, and with
considerable loss to the attacking party. Your colors were
never lowered, and your garrison never surrendered, but
retreated under cover of a gunboat, with arms in their hands
and constantly using them. This was true particularly of
your colored troops, who had been firmly convinced by your
teaching of the certainty of slaughter, in case of capture.
Even under these circumstances, many of your men, white and
black, were taken prisoners."

Continuing, he says:

"The case under consideration is almost an extreme one. You
had a servile race armed against us. I assert that our
officers with all the circumstances against them endeavored
to prevent the effusion of blood."

This is an admission that the massacre of the garrison actually
occurred, and because Phalanx troops were a part of the garrison. That
the black soldiers had been taught that no quarter would be shown them
if captured, or if they surrendered, is doubtless true. It is also too
true that the teaching was the _truth_. One has but to read the summons
for the surrender to be satisfied of the fact, and then recollect that
the President of the Confederate States, in declaring General Butler an
outlaw, also decreed that negroes captured with arms in their hands,
their officers as well, should be turned over to the State authorities
wherein they were captured, to be dealt with according to the laws of
that State and the Confederacy.

The sentiment of the chief confederate commander regarding the
employment of negroes in the Union army, notwithstanding the Confederate
Government was the first to arm and muster them into service, as shown
in previous and later chapters, is manifested by the following dispatch,
though at the time