escape. At the Confederate council of war the night before, the vain Pillow had expressed concern that his capture would be a disaster for the Southern cause. "He thought you'd rather get hold of him than any other man in the Southern Confederacy," Buckner told Grant. "Oh," replied Grant, "if I had got him, I'd let him go again. He will do us more good commanding you fellows." Suspension and later commands Pillow assumed command of the 3rd Division of the Army of Central Kentucky, but was suspended from command by order of Jefferson Davis on April 16 for "grave errors in judgement in the military operations which resulted in the surrender of the army" (at Fort Donelson). Pillow resigned October 21, 1862 but Confederate President Jefferson Davis rescinded the resignation and restored Pillow to command on December 10, 1862. Pillow commanded a brigade in Major General John C. Breckinridge's division of the Army of Tennessee, commanded by General Braxton Bragg, during the third day at the Battle of Stones River, January 2, 1863, arriving on the battlefield just an hour before Breckinridge's assault. Breckinridge was furious to find Pillow cowering behind a tree and ordered him forward. After the battle, Pillow was one of the few Confederate officers to speak in favor of General Bragg's battlefield decisions, denigrating Breckinridge's execution of the ill-fated assault. Pillow commanded the Volunteer and Conscription Bureau of the Army of Tennessee and related recruiting assignments starting January 16, 1863. Although he had no combat assignments after Stones River, he had a short and unsuccessful field command in June 1864 when he was assigned to disrupt Major General William Tecumseh Sherman's communications between Chattanooga, Tennessee and Atlanta, Georgia during the Atlanta Campaign. He then resumed recruiting assignments. Pillow was the Commissary General of Prisoners for the Confederacy starting February 10, 1865 after the death of Brigadier General John H. Winder on February 7, 1865. He was captured by Union forces at Union Springs, Alabama, on April 20, 1865, and was paroled in Montgomery, Alabama, in May. He received a presidential pardon on August 28, 1865. Fort Pillow Fort Pillow on the Mississippi River in Tennessee, the site of the controversial 1864 Battle of Fort Pillow, was constructed by and named for Pillow. Postbellum career and death After the war, Pillow was forced into bankruptcy, but embarked on a successful law practice in Memphis, Tennessee, as