Used thoughtfully, your source materials will make your argument more complex and convincing for readers. Sources can support your thesis by playing several different roles.
Providing background information or context
You can use facts and statistics to support generalizations or to establish the importance of your topic, as student writer Ned Bishop does early in his paper.
Fort Pillow, Tennessee, which sat on a bluff overlooking the Mississippi River, had been held by the Union for two years. It was garrisoned by 580 men, 292 of them from United States Colored Heavy and Light Artillery regiments, 285 from the white Thirteenth Tennessee Cavalry. Nathan Bedford Forrest commanded about 1,500 troops.1
Explaining terms or concepts
If readers are unlikely to be familiar with a word, a phrase, or an idea important to your topic, you must explain it for them. Quoting or paraphrasing a source can help you define terms and concepts clearly and concisely.
The Civil War practice of giving no quarter to an enemy—in other words, “denying [an enemy] the right of survival”—defied Lincoln’s mandate for humane and merciful treatment of prisoners.9
Supporting your claims
As you draft, make sure to back up your assertions with facts, examples, and other evidence from your research (see also A4-e). Ned Bishop, for example, uses an eyewitness report of the racially motivated violence perpetrated by Nathan Bedford Forrest’s troops.
The slaughter at Fort Pillow was no doubt driven in large part by racial hatred. . . . A Southern reporter traveling with Forrest makes clear that the discrimination was deliberate: “Our troops maddened by the excitement, shot down the ret[r]eating Yankees, and not until they had attained t[h]e water’s edge and turned to beg for mercy, did any prisoners fall in [t]o our hands—Thus the whites received quarter, but the negroes were shown no mercy.”19
Lending authority to your argument
Expert opinion can give weight to your argument (see also A4-e). But don’t rely on experts to make your argument for you. Construct your argument in your own words and, when appropriate, cite the judgment of an authority in the field for support.
Fort Pillow is not the only instance of a massacre or threatened massacre of black soldiers by troops under Forrest’s command. Biographer Brian Steel Wills points out that at Brice’s Cross Roads in June 1864, “black soldiers suffered inordinately” as Forrest looked the other way and Confederate soldiers deliberately sought out those they termed “the damned negroes.”21
Anticipating and countering alternative interpretations
Do not ignore sources that seem contrary to your position or that offer arguments different from your own. Instead, use them to give voice to opposing points of view and alternative interpretations before you counter them (see A4-f). Readers often have opposing points of view in mind already, whether or not they agree with you. Ned Bishop, for example, presents conflicting evidence to acknowledge that some readers may credit Nathan Bedford Forrest with stopping the massacre. In doing so, Bishop creates an opportunity to counter that objection and persuade those readers that Forrest can be held accountable.
Hurst suggests that the temperamental Forrest “may have ragingly ordered a massacre and even intended to carry it out—until he rode inside the fort and viewed the horrifying result” and ordered it stopped.15 While this is an intriguing interpretation of events, even Hurst would probably admit that it is merely speculation.