18641776 Club
Confederates hold the Saltville saltworks; wounded Union prisoners are murdered after the battle
Black cavalrymen who surrendered or lay wounded on the field were shot where they fell.
Confederate saltworks at Saltville, Virginia produced salt the South could not do without, and by October 1864 Union commanders wanted it gone. On October 2, Brigadier General Stephen G. Burbridge attacked the town with regular troops and two regiments of United States Colored Cavalry, but Confederate defenders held the ground and drove the Federals back. The retreat left dozens of wounded Union soldiers behind. Over the following hours, Confederate troops and guerrillas under Champ Ferguson shot wounded prisoners where they lay, singling out Black soldiers for killing even after they had surrendered…
