Looking back at Lincoln: On May 17, 1864

Concerning what came to be known as the 'Fort Pillow Massacre,' Lincoln wrote the following letter to Secretary of War Edwin Stanton; although according to the annotation, it doesn't appear that anything was actually done officially concerning this matter:

Executive Mansion
Washington, D. C. May 17. 1864

Hon. Secretary of War:

Sir.

Please notify the insurgents, through the proper military channels and forms, that the government of the United States has satisfactory proof of the massacre, by insurgent forces, at Fort-Pillow, on the 12th. and 13th. days of April last, of fully white and colored officers and soldiers of the United States, after the latter had ceased resistance, and asked quarter of the former.

That with reference to said massacre. the government of the United States has assigned and set apart by name insurgent officers, theretofore, and up to that time, held by said government as prisoners of war.

That, as blood can not restore blood, and government should not act for revenge, any assurance, as nearly perfect as the case admits, given on or before the first day of July next, that there shall be no similar massacre, nor any officer or soldier of the United States, whether white or colored, now held, or hereafter captured by the insurgents, shall be treated other than according to the laws of war, will insure the replacing of said insurgent officers in the simple condition of prisoners of war.

That the insurgents having refused to exchange, or to give any account or explanation in regard to colored soldiers of the United States captured by them, a number of insurgent prisoners equal to the number of such colored soldiers supposed to have been captured by said insurgents will, from time to time, be assigned and set aside, with reference to such captured colored soldiers, and will, if the insurgents assent, be exchanged for such colored soldiers; but that if no satisfactory attention shall be given to this notice, by said insurgents, on or before the first day of July next, it will be assumed by the government of the United States, that said captured colored troops shall have been murdered, or subjected to Slavery, and that said government will, upon said assumption, take such action as may then appear expedient and just.

Annotation

[1] ADf, owned by Charles W. Olsen, Chicago, Illinois. See Lincoln's letter to cabinet members and note, May 3, supra. Presumably this communication to Stanton was never signed or delivered, and there is some mystery surrounding the fact that it should have been preserved until recently in the papers of Thomas T. Eckert of the War Department telegraph office. No record has been found of a communication from Stanton to the Confederate authorities carrying out Lincoln's instructions. According to Nicolay and Hay, action on the Fort Pillow massacre was "crowded out of view and consideration'' by Grant's Wilderness campaign (Abraham Lincoln: A History, VI, 483).