A command of this battalion. With serious misgivings in his capacity in this emergency, and sorrow felt at the necessity, he arrived to do his best in seconding the gallant fearlessness and conspicuous example of the commanding officer, to save his troops from a panic and to rally them into line. His efforts were supported by the daring courage of Lieutenant Barrow, commanding Captain Chinn's company, by the energy of Lieutenant Burnett, Captain Bynum's company, and by the cool and noble example of Lieutenant Brown, of the same company. partial success only rewarded their exertions. We were saved a panic, but the annoying fire from the enemy's sharpshooters left them no other alternative but to fall back across the field to the shelter of the woods. Here another effort was made to rally the brigade into line, now massed confusedly. The commanding off cer employed every incentive and expedient that courage could suggest, but with haggard results. The men made no response to his appeals. They were not cowed or panic-stricken; they were simply exhausted, hopelessly exhausted, and seemed to be staggering under the half of that last ounce which breaks the camel's back of endurance. Having been under arms for more than sixteen hours; having neither supper, breakfast, nor sleep; having marched over twelve miles, and having gone through four hours fighting, is it a matter of surprise or for blame that they paid but little heed to the rallying cries of their leaders? Their conduct was, however, only in accordance with the example of troops who had been under fire, and were reported veterans. Many vicissitudes of this battle must remain unnoticed. The undersigned was not called to command till a late hour, and many events, doubtless, noted by the experienced eye of Colonel Boyd, must be unchronicled because of his absence. While Colonel Boyd was in command, his promptitude and courage ably sustained the policy of Colonel Allen. His Adjutant, Lieutenant Breeden, was conspicuous for daring devotion to duty throughout the trials of the day. The men generally behaved with coolness and courage. | SIR: I was ordered to take part in the action of the fifth instant, which I did. My men behaved well. The officers, Lieutenants J. T. M. Barnes and J. A. West, acted with great coolness and bravery, at times firing their pieces personally. Lieutenant T. F. Fauntleroy was detached with a section, and I did not see The casualties were him during the action. five men killed, five severely wounded, five slightly wounded; nine horses killed, two badly wounded, two missing; one caisson exploded by rendered worthless, and left on the field. Four an enemy's shell, the rear carriage of another sets of harness lost. I fired two hundred rounds of smooth bore six-pounder ammunition, and one hundred and twenty rounds of sixDr. Lewis, A. S., C. S. A., renpounder rifled. dered efficient service to my wounded on the I am, sir, respectfully, O.T. SEMMES, field. Captain, commanding C. S. Light Battery. At 4 o'clock P. M. of the fifth instant, I took position between Colonel Allen's and Colonel Thompson's brigades, filling a vacancy of some eighty yards, moved forward with the infantry line half a mile, opened fire on an enemy's battery, driving them back, moved to the right of the Second division, General Ruggles commanding, when I opened on a battery with effect, at about two hundred and fifty yards, then occupied my first position, opening on a column of infantry, doing much execution; was ordered to the support of Colonel Allen's brigade. I took position on its right and silenced a battery. This was my last firing, after which I rejoined the main forces. Return of Casualties in the Second Division. O. T. S. Officers and Soldiers mentioned in the Report of Price and Lieutenant H. C. Holt. Other officers Brigadier-General Ruggles: on special service, amongst whom were Captain Augustus Scott, commanding squadron on temWal-porary service, Captains Curry, Henderson, and Lieutenant Behcum, as volunteer aids for the occasion, and Captain J. M. Taylor served with great gallantry. Doc. 62. HOISTING THE BLACK FLAG-OFFICIAL CORRESPONDENCE AND REPORTS. GENERAL S. D. LEE TO GENERAL COOPER. to avoid, as far as is consistent with my idea of the dignity of my position, resorting to such an extremity as the black flag; and the onus shall be with the Federal commander. Colonel A. P. Thompson and Colonel H. len, brigade commanders, both severely wounded; Fifth Kentucky regiment, Captain Bowman; Seventh Kentucky, Colonel Crossland, and his color-bearer, James Rawlings; Sixth Kentucky regiment, Captains Isaac Smith, Utterback, and Thomas Page, and First Lieutenant F. Harned; Thirty-sixth Alabama, Colonel Robertson and Lieutenant-Colonel Goodwin; of the Second brigade, the Fourth Louisiana, Lieutenant-Colonel Hunter, Lieutenant Corkern, Company B, Lieutenant Jeter, Company F, and SergeantMajor Daniels; Battalion of Stewart's Legion, Lieutenant-Colonel Sam Boyd, who was disHEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT ALABAMA, MISSISSIPPI, AND EAST LOUISIANA, MERIDIAN, abled by a flesh wound in the arm. Captain June 30, 1864 Chinn also was wounded, the command devolved upon Captain Bynum, who acted with GENERAL: I have the honor to transmit copies gallantry. The battalion Thirtieth regiment of correspondence between General Washburn, Louisiana volunteers, commanded by Colonel U. S. A., General Forrest, and myself, which I G. A. Breaux, who speaks in high terms of the consider very important, and should be laid beofficers and men of his regiment, especially Cap-fore the Department. It will be my endeavor tain N. Trepagnier and Lieutenant Dapremont, both wounded. Lieutenant-Colonel Shields, Thirtieth Louisiana, commanding separate detachment, who speaks in high terms of the intrepidity of Lieutenant Fauntleroy, commanding section of guns in his detachment; Captain Semmes, commanding battery, and his officers, Lieutenants Barnes and J. A. West, performed gallant service. Captain Blount, Brigade-Inspector of Second brigade, rendered gallant service in the field, where it is believed he has fallen, as nothing has been heard of him since. I also have the gratification to name the members of my staff, who served with me on this occasion, viz.: Lieutenant L. D. Sandige, corps artillery, C. S. A., A. A. A., and Inspector-General, Captain George Whitfield, Chief Quartermaster, Major E. S. Ruggles, acting ordnance officer, and acting chief commissary of subsistence, First Lieutenant M. B. Ruggles, aide-de-camp, Lieutenant-Colonel Charles Jones, who was severely wounded, and Colonel J. O. Fuqua, District Judge Advocate and Provost Marshal General, who were all distinguished for their efficiency, coolness, and gallantry throughout the conflict. The following officers, attached to the general staff, also rendered gallant service: Captain Sam. Bard, on special service; Lieutenant A. B. DeSaulles; Engineers, Lieutenant H. H. VOL. X.-Doc. 46 I would like that the onus be put where it properly belongs, before the public, should the extremity arise. The correspondence is not complete yet, and the Department will be informed of the result at the earliest practicable moment. I am, General, yours respectfully, GENERAL S. COOPER, A. and I. G., Richmond, Va. Lieutenant-General. GENERAL FORREST TO GENERAL WASHBURN. Major-General Washburn, commanding United GENERAL: I have the honor herewith to enclose copy of letter received from BrigadierGeneral Buford, commanding United States forces at Helena, Arkansas, addressed to Colonel E. W. Rucker, commanding Sixth regiment of this command; also a letter from myself to General Buford, which I respectfully request you will read and forward to him. There is a matter also to which I desire to call your attention, which, until now, I have not thought proper to make the subject of a communication. Recent events render it necessary-in fact, demand it. It has been reported to me that all the negro troops stationed in Memphis took an oath on their knees, in the presence of Major-General Hurlbut and other officers of your army, to avenge Fort Pillow, and that they would show my troops no quarter. Again, I have it from indisputable authority that the troops under Brigadier-General Sturgis, on their recent march from Memphis, publicly and in various places proclaimed that no quarter would be shown my men. As his troops were moved into action on the eleventh, the officers commanding exhorted their men to remember Fort Pillow, and a large majority of the prisoners we have captured from that command have voluntarily stated that they expected us to murder them, otherwise they would have surrendered in a body rather than taken to the bushes after being run down and exhausted. The recent battle of Tishemingo Creek was far more bloody than it otherwise would have been but for the fact that your men evidently expected to be slaughtered when captured, and both sides acted as though neither felt safe in surrendering even when further resistance was useless. The prisoners captured by us say they felt condemned by the announcements, etc., of their own commanders, and expected no quarter. In all my operations since the war begun, I have conducted the war on civilized principles, and desire still to do so, but it is due to my command that they should know the position you occupy and the policy you intend to pursue. I therefore respectfully ask whether my men in your hands are treated as other Confederate prisoners, also the course intended to be pursued in regard to those who may hereafter fall into your hands. GENERAL WASHBURN TO GENERAL LEE. HEADQUARTERS DISTRICT OF WEST TENNESSEE, Major-General S. D. Lee, commanding Confed- GENERAL: When I heard that the forces of Brigadier-General Sturgis had been driven back, and a portion of them probably captured, I felt considerable solicitude for the fate of the two colored regiments that formed a part of the command, until I was informed that the Confederate forces were commanded by you. When I learned that, I became satisfied that no atrocities would be committed upon those troops, but that they would receive the treatment which humanity as well as their gallant conduct demanded. I regret to say that the hope that I entertained has been dispelled by facts which have recently come to my knowledge. From statements that have been made to me by colored soldiers who were eye-witnesses, it would seem that the massacre of Fort Pillow had been reproduced at the late affair at Bryce's Cross-roads. The detail of the atrocities there committed I will not trouble you with. If true, and not disavowed, they must lead to consequences too fearful to contemplate. It is best that we should now have a fair understanding upon this question, of the treatment of this class of soldiers. If it is contemplated by the Cofederate government to murder all colored troops that may by the chance of war fall into their hands, as was the case at Fort Pillow, it is but fair that it should be freely and frankly avowed. Within the last six weeks I have, on two occasions, sent colored troops into the field from this point. In the expectation that the Confederate government would disavow the action of their commanding General at the Fort Pillow massacre, I have forborne to issue any instructions to the colored troops as to the course they should pursue towards Confederate soldiers that might fall into their hands; but seeing no disavowal on the part of the Confederate govern ment, but, on the contrary, laudations from the entire Southern press of the perpetrators of the massacre, I may safely presume that indiscriminate slaughter is to be the fate of colored troops that fall into your hands. But I am not willing to leave a matter of such grave import, and involving consequences so fearful, to inference. and I have therefore thought it proper to address you this, believing that you would be I made such an arrangement with Major-Gen- able to indicate the policy that the Confederate eral Hurlbut when he was in command of Mem-government intend to pursue hereafter on this phis, and am willing to renew it, provided it is desired, as it would be better than to subject them to the long and fatiguing delay necessary to a regular exchange at City Point, Virginia. I am, very respectfully, Your obedient servant, N. B. FORREST, Major-General I have in my possession quite a number of wounded officers and men of General Sturgis' command, all of whom have been treated as well as we were able to treat them, and are mostly in charge of a Surgeon left at Ripley by General Sturgis to look after the wounded. Some of them are too severely wounded to be removed at present. I am willing to exchange them for any men of my command you may have, and as soon as they are able to be removed will give them safe escort through my lines in charge of the Surgeon left with them. question. If it is intended to raise the black flag against that unfortunate race, they will cheerfully accept the issue. Up to this time no troops have fought more gallantly, and none have conducted themselves with greater propriety. They bave fully vindicated their right (so long denied) to be treated as men. I hope that I have been misinformed in regard to the treatment they have received at the battle of Bryce's Cross-roads, and that the accounts received result rather from the excited imaginations of the fugitives than from actual fact. For the government of the colored troops under my command, I would thank you to inform me, with as little delay as possible, if it is your intention, or the intention of the Confederate government, to murder colored soldiers that may fall into your hands, or treat them as prisoners of war, and subject to be exchanged as other prisoners. I am, General, respectfully, C. C. WASHBURN, GENERAL WASHBURN TO GENERAL FORREST. HEADQUARTERS DISTRICT OF WEST TENNESSEE, } Major-General N. B. Forrest, commanding Confederate Forces: GENERAL: Your communication of the fourteenth instant is received. The letter to Brigadier-General Buford will be forwarded to him. In regard to that part of your letter which relates to colored troops, I beg to say that I have already sent a communication on the subject to the officer in command of the Confederate forces at Tupelo. Having understood that Major-General S. D. Lee was in command there, I directed my letter to him-a copy of it I enclose. You say in your letter that it has been reported to you that all the negro troops stationed in Memphis took an oath on their knees, in the presence of MajorGeneral Hurlbut, and other officers of our army. to avenge Fort Pillow, and that they would show your troops no quarter. I believe it is true that the colored troops did take such an oath, but not in the presence of General Hurlbut. From what I can learn, this act of theirs was not influenced by any white officer, but was the result of their own sense of what was due to themselves and their fellows who had been mercilessly slaughtered. I have no doubt that they went into the field, as you allege, in the full belief that they would be murdered in case they fell into your hands. The affair of Fort Pillow fully justified that belief. I am not aware as to what they proclaimed on their late march, and it may be, as you say, that they declared that no quarter would be given to any of your men that might fall into their hands. Your declaration that you have conducted the war, on all occasions, on civilized principles, cannot be accepted; but I receive with satisfaction the intimation in your letter that the recent slaughter of colored troops at the battle of Tishemingo Creek resulted rather from the desperation with which they fought than a predetermined intention to give them no quarter. You must have learned by this time that the attempt to intimidate the colored troops by indiscriminate slaughter has signally failed, and that, instead of a feeling of terror, you have aroused a spirit of courage and desperation that will not down at your bidding. I am left in doubt, by your letter, as to the course you and the Confederate Government intend to pursue hereafter in regard to colored troops, and I beg you to advise me, with as little delay as possible, as to your intentions. If you intend to treat such of them as fall into your hands as prisoners of war, please so state; if you do not so intend, but contemplate either their slaughter or their return to slavery, please state that, so that we may have no misunderstanding hereafter. If the former is your intention, I shall receive the announcement with pleasure, and shall explain the fact to the colored troops at once, and desire that they recall the oath they have taken; if the latter is the case, then let the oath stand, and upon those who have aroused this spirit by their atrocities, and upon the Government and people who sanction it, be the consequences. In regard to your inquiry relating to prisoners of your command in our hands, I have to state that they have always received the treatment which a great and humane Government extends to its prisoners. What course will be pursued hereafter towards them must, of course, depend on circumstances that may arise. If your command. hereafter, does nothing which should properly exclude them from being treated as prisoners of war, they will be so treated. I thank you for your offer to exchange wounded officers and men in your hands. If you will send them in, I will exchange man for man, so far as I have the ability to do so. Before closing this letter, I wish to call your attention to one case of unparalleled outrage and murder that has been brought to my notice, and in regard to which the evidence is overwhelming. Among the prisoners captured at Fort Pillow was Major Bradford, who had charge of the defence of the fort after the fall of Major Booth. After being taken prisoner, he was started, with other prisoners of war, in charge of Colonel Duckworth, for Jackson. At Brownsville they rested over night. The following morning two companies were detailed by Colonel Duckworth to proceed to Jackson with the prisoners. After they had started, and proceeded a very short distance, five soldiers were recalled by Colonel Duckworth, and were conferred with by him; they then rejoined the column, and after proceeding about five miles from Brownsville the column was halted, and Major Bradford taken about fifty yards from the roadside and deliberately shot by the five men who had been recalled by Colonel Duckworth, and his body left unburied upon the ground where he fell. He now dies buried near the spot, and, if you desire, you can easily satisfy yourself of the truth of what I assert. I beg leave to say to you that HEADQUARTERS FORREST'S CAVALRY, "; } I regard your letter as discourteous to the commanding officer of this department, and grossly insulting to myself. (your) hands, which clearly conveys to my mind two very distinct impressions. The first is, that in not giving them instructions and orders you have left the matter entirely to the discretion of the negroes as to how they should dispose of prisoners. Second, an implied threat to give such orders as will lead to "consequences too fearful" for contemplation. In confirmation of the correctness of the first impres sion (which your language now fully develops), I refer most respectfully to my letter from the battle-field, Tishemingo Creek, and forwarded you by flag of truce on the fourteenth instant. As to the second impression, you seem disposed to take into your own hands the settlements which belong to, and can only be settled by, your government; but if you are prepared to take upon yourself the responsibility of inaugurating a system of warfare contrary to civilized usages, the onus as well as the consequences will be chargeable to yourself. Deprecating, as I should do, such a state of affairs; determined, as I am, not to be instrumental in bringing it about; feeling and knowing, as I do, that I have the approval of my government, my people, and my conscience as to the past, and with the firm belief that I will be sustained by them in my future policy, it is left with you to determine what that policy shall be, whether in accordance with the laws of civilized nations or in violation of them. I am, General, yours, Very respectfully, N. B. FORREST, GENERAL FORREST TO GENERAL WASHBURN, HEADQUARTERS FORREST'S CAVALRY, Major-General C. C. Washburn, commanding You seek by implied threats to intimidate him, and assume the privilege of denouncing me as a murderer and as guilty of the wholesale slaughter of the garrison at Fort Pillow, and found your assertion upon the ex parte testimony of (your friends) the enemies of myself and country. I shall not enter into the discussion, therefore, of any of the questions involved, nor undertake any refutation of the charges made by you against myself; nevertheless, as a matter of personal privilege alone, I unhesitatingly say that they are unfounded and unwarranted by the facts. But whether those charges are true or false, they, with the question you ask as to whether negro troops, when captured, will be recognized and treated as prisoners of war, subject to exchange, etc., are matters which the Governments of the United States and Confederate States are to decide and adjust, not their subordinate officers. I regard captured negroes as I do other captured property, and not as captured soldiers; but as to how regarded by Allow me to say that this is a subject upon my government, and the disposition which has which I did not and do not propose to enlighten been and will hereafter be made of them, I re- you. It is a matter to be settled by our governspectfully refer you, through the proper chan-ments through their proper officers, and I renel, to the authorities at Richmond. It is not spectfully refer you to them for a solution of the policy or the interest of the South to de- your doubts. stroy the negro, on the contrary to preserve and protect him, and all who have surrendered to us have received kind and humane treatment. Since the war began I have captured many thousand Federal prisoners, and they, including the survivors of the "Fort Pillow Massacre," "black and white," are living witnesses of the fact that, with my knowledge or consent, or by my order, not one of them has ever been insulted or in any way maltreated. You speak of your forbearance in not giving your negro troops instructions and orders as to the course they should pursue in regard to Confederate soldiers that might fall into their You ask me to state whether "I contemplate either their slaughter or their return to slavery.” I answer that I slaughter no man except in open warfare, and that my prisoners, both white and black, are turned over to my government to be dealt with as it may direct. My government is in possession of all the facts as regards my official conduct, and the operations of my command since I entered the service, and if you desire a proper discussion and decision, I refer you again to the President of the Confederate States. I would not have you understand, however, that in a matter of so much importance I am indisposed to place at your command and |