[The following takes place during the American Civil War, and details what are undoubtedly war crimes committed by a Union cavalry regiment during the war.]
Ben Grierson, Hurlburt’s cavalry commander, had ordered Hurst to “scour the country well on your route and reach Memphis as soon as possible after the 1st of February. You will gather all serviceable stock on your route as heretofore directed, and subsist your command upon the country.” On January 17, General William Sooy Smith, the chief of cavalry of the Department of the Mississippi, reported to Grant that he had given Hurst “a roving commission” and directed him to ‘grub up’ West Tennessee. I think,” he assured Grant, “he will reduce that district to order.”
Hurst’s men, however, exceeded their instructions. They left one of Forrest’s men to die “after cutting off his tongue, punching out his eyes, splitting his mouth on each side to his ears, and inflicting other mutilations.” After arresting Lieutenant Willis Dodds of Colonel Newsom’s regiment at his father’s home in Henderson County, they apparently put him to death “by the most inhuman process of torture.” According to a rebel infantryman who saw his body afterward, “it was most horribly mutilated, the face having been skinned, the nose cut off, the under jaw disjointed, the privates cut off, and the body otherwise barbarously lacerated and most wantonly injured.”
Outraged, Forrest demanded that Hurst and his officers give themselves up and stand trial before a Confederate tribunal for extortion and murder. When the Union command at Memphis predictably refused his demand, Forrest issued a decree denouncing Fielding Hurst and his command as outlaws, “not entitled to be treated as prisoners of war falling into the hands of the forces of the Confederate States.”
Source:
Ward, Andrew. “Duckworth’s Bluff.” River Run Red: The Fort Pillow Massacre in the American Civil War. Viking, 2005. 103-4. Print.
Original Source(s) Listed:
B. H. Grierson/Fielding Hurst: January 20, 1864, in ORCW.
Wyeth, That Devil Forrest, p. 339, 340.
Wyly M. Reed/J. P. Strange: March 21, 1864, in ORCW.
Forrest/Buckland: March 22, 1864, in ORCW.
Forrest/To Whom It May Concern”: March 22, 1864, in ORCW.
Further Reading:
Ulysses Simpson Grant (born Hiram Ulysses Grant)
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