In April 1864 tragedy befell Union soldiers defending Fort Pillow along the Mississippi River in Tennessee. After capturing the garrison, Confederate cavalry commander Nathan Bedford Forrest and his troops murdered more than two hundred black and white Union soldiers as they tried to surrender. Though Forrest’s men took some prisoners, northerners decried the massacre as a brutal response to the Union army’s decision to arm black soldiers.
On February 17, 1864, the H. L. Hunley, a Confederate submarine, sank the USS Housatonic in the Charleston Harbor. It was a mixed victory for the Confederate navy. The Mobile Daily Tribune reported that an “object, just on the edge of the water, was discovered astern of the ship. In an instant the cable was slipped, the alarm sounded, and all hands sent…to quarters, but before the ship had made any headway the torpedo exploded under her starboard quarter.”
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Becoming Alabama:
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