What Role Did Nashville Play in the Civil War?
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- 1 table
- 3 sources cited
Nashville was the first Confederate state capital to fall to the Union, and it spent the rest of the war as a Union base. The Union took Fort Donelson on February 16, 1862, while the General Assembly was in session in Nashville. Before the end of that month, the city became “the first state capital to fall to Union troops”, under Don Carlos Buell. Governor Isham Harris had urged citizens to burn their property and moved the executive office to Memphis, and retreating Confederate troops destroyed the bridges over the Cumberland (Wikipedia). President Lincoln then made future president Andrew Johnson military governor of Tennessee, with offices in Nashville. Union troops quickly fortified the city. Fort Negley, about 2 miles south of the center, was “the largest inland fort built in the United States during the war” (Wikipedia). It was built largely with the labor of enslaved and newly freed people, including women. The war returned to Nashville in December 1864. Confederate General John Bell Hood’s army arrived south of the city on December 2, and the Union attacked on December 15. The outnumbered Confederates were badly defeated and retreated south.
Nashville’s Civil War Timeline
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| 1861 | Tennessee becomes the last state to secede and join the Confederacy |
| February 16, 1862 | Fort Donelson falls to the Union |
| late February 1862 | Nashville becomes the first state capital to fall to Union troops |
| 1862 | Andrew Johnson is appointed military governor; Fort Negley is built |
| December 2, 1864 | Hood's Army of Tennessee arrives south of the city |
| December 15 to 16, 1864 | the Battle of Nashville |
Sources: Wikipedia, History of Nashville, Tennessee; Fort Negley; and Tennessee in the American Civil War.
A Divided State
Tennessee sent soldiers to both sides. Wikipedia counts 135,000 Confederate soldiers and 51,000 Union soldiers from the state, and 20,000 of the Union soldiers were Black (Wikipedia). Inside occupied Nashville, Wikipedia says “Confederate uprisings and guerrilla attacks continued sporadically in the city.” After the war, the city became a center for Confederate memory. The Confederate Veteran magazine was founded in Nashville in 1893 by Sumner Archibald Cunningham, and the United Daughters of the Confederacy was established in Nashville on September 10, 1894.
Visiting the Sites
- Fort Negley, at 1100 Fort Negley Blvd, reopened to the public on December 10, 2004, after restoration.
- The Battle of Nashville sites are covered in what happened at the Battle of Nashville.
- Franklin’s battlefield houses are a short drive south; see what to do in Franklin, Tennessee for a half-day trip.
Fisk University, founded after the war, is in who the Fisk Jubilee Singers were.