George,

Okay, if you provided evidence that directly challenged or refuted a claim I made, I would have to acknowledge it. A version of this actually happened on this board earlier, when Jim and Stan pointed out Art Bergeron's post about the 1st Louisiana Native Guard. Based on my previous reading, I believed that most of the unit transferred over to the Union army voluntarily and mentioned that in a post. In fact, only 11% or so of the original Native Guard members joined the Union army. That was hard evidence that I was not previously aware of, so I acknowledged it.

Now, in regards to your specific example, I do not know exactly what the professor said (beyond what you explained from the newspaper article). If this person is trying to make an absolute claim about events at Ft. Pillow without hard evidence to defend it, that could be a problem and could reflect badly on other historians. It is unfortunate the person has not written back to clarify his views.