Reports of the Committee on the Conduct of the War: Fort Pillow Massacre. Returned Prisoners. 

8vo. Illustrated with 8 portraits (on 4 pages) of woodcut engravings after photographic portraits of Belle Island POWs. Contemporary green cloth gilt with morocco spine label gilt-lettered. First Edition. [Washington, D.C.]: N.p., [1864]. 

Presentation inscription to front fly leaf: "Lyman Trumbull to D.J. Ely". 

The cover title of sammelband that contains two Senate Reports related to Confederate atrocities: 

1. U.S. Congress. May 5, 1864. - Ordered to be printed...Joint Resolution directing the Committee on the Conduct of the War to examine into the recent attack on Fort Pillow... Senate Report, 38th Congress, 1st Session. Senate, Rep. Com. No. 63. Nevins I: 204.

Nevins writes "Hurriedly written and hate-filled, yet contains a mass of evidence essential to any study of this alleged massacre." 

2. U.S. Congress. May 9, 1864 - Ordered, That the report...be printed in connexion with the report of the committee in relation to the Fort Pillow massacre...Joint Resolution directing the Committee on the Conduct and Expenditures of the War... Senate Report, 38th Congress, 1st Session. Senate, Rep. Com. No. 68. 

On p. 204, Nevins mentions another Report (no. 65), that seems related to both topics. No. 68, however is not listed. 

A fascinating publication that makes a direct connection between the massacre at Fort Pillow and the treatment of prisoners of war at Belle Isle. This booklet, binding the related reports together, brings attention to the two events to highlight what they clearly viewed as more than isolated incidents in the Confederate conduct of the war. 

On 12 April 1864, surrendering Union troops, many of them United States Colored Troops (USCT) regiments, were slaughtered by Confederates commanded by General Nathan Bedford Forrest. 

Shortly afterward in May 1864, emaciated prisoners from Belle Isle Prisoner of War camp arrived in Annapolis. The prison was grossly overcrowded after the Battles of Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville, its population swelling to more than double its capacity. The already harsh conditions worsened in 1864 when food supplies ran out.

Several photographs were taken at the U.S. General Hospital in Annapolis where they received care. Woodcut engravings were made of the haunting portraits and were used in both Harper's Weekly, Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper, and evidently in this Senate report as well. 

Both events were used by Union leadership and the press to publicize Confederate atrocities and galvanize support for Abraham Lincoln (seeking reelection) and the continued war effort. 

This copy is further enhanced with the presentation inscription by abolitionist Senator Lyman Trumbull (1813-1896). A leader in the Republican party and Chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, he notably authored the Confiscation Acts which created the legal basis for the Emancipation Proclamation, the 13th Amendment, and the Civil Rights Act of 1866 which led to the 14th Amendment.  

An important late-war government publication with stellar association. 

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