Fort Pillow State Historic Park

The bluff above the Mississippi at Fort Pillow was Chickasaw country until the treaty of 1818. Confederate troops built batteries here in 1861, and the fort took the name of General Gideon Pillow. Union forces held it from 1862, and it became a refuge for people fleeing slavery and for Unionists, and by early 1864 a recruiting post for Black soldiers.

On April 12, 1864, about 1,500 Confederate cavalrymen under Major General Nathan Bedford Forrest attacked a garrison of roughly 600, about half of them Black soldiers of the United States Colored Troops and the rest white Tennessee Unionists. When the fort fell, many men were shot or bayoneted as they tried to surrender or flee. Historians' tallies put the deaths at about 64 percent of the Black troops and at least 31 percent of the white. Forrest claimed the garrison refused to surrender. Survivors, a congressional committee and most historians since have called it a massacre. "Remember Fort Pillow" became a rallying cry for Black soldiers for the rest of the war.

The state has run the site since 1971, and it is a National Historic Landmark. The park covers about 1,642 acres, with a visitor center and museum, a trail to the restored earthworks, overlooks on the river and a campground. In 1867 about 250 of the dead were moved from the battlefield to Memphis National Cemetery. The earthworks are small and the walk is quiet. Take it slowly.