1864 CIVIL WAR. War Crimes of the Confederacy Against "Colored Troops." Gruesome Illustrations.

Bound together as a single official congressional volume, these two congressional reports, Senate Report No. 63 (investigating the Fort Pillow Massacre) and Senate Report No. 68 (investigating the deliberate mistreatment and starvation of Union prisoners of war at Belle Isle and Richmond), represent the United States government's definitive official documentation and condemnation of Confederate war crimes against Union soldiers, particularly the United States Colored Troops (USCT), many of whom were formerly enslaved persons..

Published in May 1864 by the Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War, Report No. 63 provided eyewitness testimony detailing how Confederate forces under General Nathan Bedford Forrest systematically murdered over 300 surrendered Black soldiers and their white officers at Fort Pillow, Tennessee, serving as official proof of retaliatory atrocities committed against formerly enslaved men serving in the U.S. military. By binding this landmark investigation alongside Report No. 68, which included graphic photographic engravings of emaciated Union POWs, Congress created a powerful legislative instrument that galvanized Northern public opinion, directly influenced President Abraham Lincoln’s cabinet debates regarding military retaliation, and justified the Union's hard war policies and suspension of prisoner exchanges due to the Confederacy's refusal to treat Black soldiers as legitimate prisoners of war.

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.

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. 128pp.

[With]

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.

A good+ example in original title publisher's boards; nicks to cloth at the head of spine as shown. Else generally solid, clean and good. The blank ffep is lacking; a ghost of the original inscription appears on the blank ffep and appears to be a gift inscription to C. W. Wilson from a Corporal or Captain. Worth investigating.