"These devils are not fit to live on God's earth": War Crimes and the Committee on the Conduct of the War, 1864-1865

The beginning of this article is focused on the reaction of the North shortly after the Massacre at Fort Pillow. The author states that many citizens of the Union called for a gruesome fate should Rebel forces try to surrender during the war. For instance, the article quotes a story from the Indianapolis Daily Journal advocated for the slaughter of Rebel soldiers and stated "and their blood be upon the heads of the Fort Pillow Butchers."Fort Pillow even drew attention from Abraham Lincoln, who spoke of retaliation against the South for Fort Pillow if the allegations made were proved to be true.

This is when the article gets into the Congressional investigation. The investigation was called for by a senator from Michigan who was concerned about the treatment of black soldiers. The legislature was not unanimous in their decision to pursue the investigation however, it took some debate and the resolution calling for the investigation was passed with an amendment. The congressional committee which was already heavily antislavery, chose two members to serve as a sub-committee to investigate the Battle at Fort Pillow. The two men chosen were an outspoken antislavery Republican Senator from Ohio and a moderate former lawyer who was a Republican House-member from Massachusetts. What complicated and possibly fueled an even more exaggerated report from Congress was that the Committee as a whole visited a Naval Hospital shortly after a shipment of P.O.Ws from the Confederacy arrived in terrible condition before publishing the report on Fort Pillow. Upon this visit, the Committee decided to publish both reports together rather than separately.

Due to the two reports being published together, it was determined that the Rebel forces were engaging in the policy of brutal murder and starvation. However, the reports should have been published separately. After all, one of the findings to describe the massacre was that the Rebel force murdered the soldiers at Fort Pillow in a bloodlust until the Commander Forrest order them to stop. Fort Pillow was not part of a policy of murder or starvation, but the product of a racist reaction to black soldiers. However, due to the motives of those in the Congressional Committee that heavily favored antislavery sentiment and the restructuring of Southern society, the reports were combined to show a lack of civilization within the Rebels.

Tapp, Bruce. "'These devils are not fit to live on God's earth': War Crimes and the Committee on the Conduct of War, 1864-1865" Civil War History 42, no. 6. (June 1996) 116-132.