The action stemmed from Southern outrage at the North’s use of Black soldiers. From the beginning of hostilities, the Confederate leadership was faced with the question of whether to treat Black soldiers captured in battle as slaves in insurrection or, as the Union insisted, as prisoners of war.
The Battle of Fort Pillow occurred as part of Confederate Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest’s spring 1864 raid into West Tennessee and Kentucky, areas held by Union troops. By the third year of the war, the Confederacy was facing severe manpower shortages and a dearth of supplies—including the horses necessary to maintain active cavalry campaigning. Consequently, Forrest launched the expedition in an attempt to gain recruits, provisions, and mounts for his command. Furthermore, Union Gen. William T. Sherman was massing forces in Chattanooga, Tennessee, in anticipation of his drive on Atlanta. Forrest and his superiors hoped that his raid would disrupt Sherman’s preparations. By this stage in the conflict, Forrest had already earned a reputation as a fierce, temperamental, and violent commander who drove his men relentlessly and often issued “surrender or die” ultimatums to his Union adversaries.