Question

At Fort Pillow, the worst Confederate prison camp, where men were jammed together without shelter and drank from the same stream that served as their sewer, nearly a third of the prisoners died.

True
False

Answer 1

The claim about Fort Pillow is false; it was the site of a massacre of surrendered African American Union soldiers, not a prison camp with high mortality rates. The notorious Confederate prison with such conditions was Andersonville.

Step-by-step explanation:

The statement about Fort Pillow being a Confederate prison camp with high mortality rates is false. Fort Pillow, located in Tennessee, is historically recognized for the massacre that occurred on April 12, 1864, where Confederate troops under Major General Nathan Bedford Forrest killed numerous African American Union soldiers following their surrender. The real notorious Confederate prison camp was Andersonville in Georgia, which had a mortality rate of about 29 percent, due to its exceptionally harsh conditions, including a lack of shelter, inadequate nutrition, overcrowding, and disease. Moreover, Fort Pillow became infamous as a site of racial violence where Confederate soldiers executed surrendered African American troops, which was a separate incident from the general treatment of prisoners of war.