Congressman Cohen Advocates Fort Pillow National Battlefield Study

WASHINGTON - Congressman Steve Cohen (TN-9) today addressed the Natural Resources Subcommittee on Federal Lands, urging it to pass his Fort Pillow National Battlefield Park Study Act, a measure calling for a determination of the suitability of the existing state park as a unit of the National Park system.

The major Civil War battle at Fort Pillow in Lauderdale County on the Mississippi River north of Memphis was the site of a massacre of Union troops by Confederate forces in April 1864.

Congressman Cohen presented the history of the national landmark and the brutality of the fighting in which at least 300 soldiers were killed, including many members of the U.S. Colored Troops.

Congressman Cohen noted that the Joint Select Committee on the Conduct of the War, the congressional body that investigated after the war ended, called the massacre "a scene of cruelty and murder without parallel in civilized warfare."

"Word of the massacre became a rallying cry for Black soldiers across the Union, which included 179,000 in the Army and 19,000 in the Navy," Congressman Cohen testified. "There was a call to 'Remember Fort Pillow!' and honor those who fiercely fought for the preservation of the Union with the knowledge that surrender was not an option."

Tennessee made the site a state park in 1971. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1973 and became a National Landmark in 1974.

The bill now awaits action by the full Committee on Natural Resources.

See Congressman Cohen's full remarks, including his introduction of Fort Pillow massacre victims' descendants in the hearing room, here.

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