The events at Fort Pillow need to be judged somewhere in the middle not at either extremes. I've seen both types of history on Fort Pillow, the truth is somewhere in the middle of those.

There were a good many white soldiers, many from West Tennessee. Usually a definition of a massacre, does not include a large percentage of survivors. Out of 536 effective troops in Fort Pillow, 226 were taken prisoner, and another good many made their escape according to accounts. The largest percent of these survivors were white. Of those Union killed, how many were killed inside the fort during the siege? How many were killed in the assault? How many were killed in the mob rush to escape (where accounts say the largest slaughter occured)? How many were killed on the bank of the river or in the river where it is reported defenseless men tried to surrender? Nobody knows.

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David Upton