The Forgotten Battle of Fort Pillow and the Birth of the KKK

In April 1864, Major General Nathan Bedford Forrest, one of the most brilliant and controversial Confederate military leaders, led an attack on the Union Army's encampment at Fort Pillow on the Tennessee side of the Mississippi. After Forrest's defeat at Fort Donaldson, largely due to the heroic fighting of newly-commissioned black soldiers, he vowed that he would never again let his men be bested by what he considered little more than "sub-humans." The producers have done an admirable job in recreating the battle of Fort Pillow, offering viewers an opportunity to form their own opinion of Forrest and the events of that bloody, controversial campaign. African-American historians and civil rights leaders say that the slaughter of hundreds of black soldiers at the hands of vengeful Southerners was nothing short of a massacre; whites insist that this was legitimate wartime behavior. The North used the battle to revitalize a demoralized Union; the South claimed that the soldiers who were killed were "runaway slaves" and deserving of their fate. After the war, Forrest went on to become one of the leaders of the Ku Klux Klan, although in later years, he regretted his actions and disbanded the KKK 1869. He made several attempts at reconciliation with blacks before his death in 1877, but to this day, his very name is anathema to most African-Americans. Recommended. [Note: A DVD version of this title with curriculum material is expected to be available by late spring.] Aud: H, P. (J. Carlson)