Nashville Three Battle of Nashville Sites

James N.

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Shy's Hill, scene of the climax of the Battle of Nashville, Dec. 16, 1864.

As with Atlanta and to a lesser extent Chattanooga and other towns and cities, the city and its transportation network have grown to cover and obliterate most of the Civil War-era sites, those related to the battle and otherwise. It seems the identity as Music City has erased all traces of the Southern Heritage so dear to its singer-songwriters! A few obscure places remain, however, for those persistant enough to look and savvy enough to realize what they are.

Fort Negley

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The Sally Port, main wartime entrance to Ft. Negley.

One such place is the huge and once-dominating Ft. Negley, built in the years following Union occupation of the State Capital. It was built along with nearby Ft. Casino ( now the location of the city's water cistern! ) on ajacent hills to protect Nashville from an approach from the southeast. The fort was named for brig. Gen. James Negley, at the time commanding the Nashville garrison and later a brigade and division commander in the Army of the Cumberland, and grew to cover four acres measuring some 600' X 300' in size. Negley was built mostly by contrabands, slaves, and even freemen dragooned for the job by engineer/General James St. Clair Morton, termed the Vandal general by citizens whose homes he cavalierly ordered destroyed to provide building materials and to clear fields of fire for the fort's guns.

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View from inside the fort showing the hills to the south occuppied by Hood's army during the Battle of Nashville.

Ft. Negley played no active role in the Dec. 15 - 16, 1864, battle, apart from shelling the Confederate lines with its 30-pounder Parrott at the beginning of the action. It remained in use into the early days of Reconstruction, however, as a symbol of Union power. Like many other such installations, Negley fell into decay and disuse following the war, occuppied by vagrants and stripped for building materials. It was largely forgotten until the 1930's and became a project for the Works Progress Administration or WPA. Because of its stone foundations, it had survived reasonably well and was somewhat restored to its wartime appearance to serve as a city park.

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Outline of the stone foundations, largely rebuilt in the 1930's by the WPA.

Unfortunately, by the time I first visited it in 1987, it had again fallen into neglect and decay; as I told people, it resembled far more a series of long-abandoned Japanese pillboxes on some forgotten Pacific jungle island than it did any Civil War fort! Once again it appears that Ft. Negley is being protected by the city of Nashville and even boasts its own Visitor Center. As you can see, however, it's not being maintained or mowed as befits one of the few remaining sites of Civil War Nashville.
 
Traveler's Rest

Otherwise known as the Overton House, this is one of a very few period structures on what was once the battlefield. Built by John Overton, one of Andrew Jackson's law partners, the oldest part of the house dates to prior to the War of 1812, as does Jackson's nearby much-better-known Hermitage. Now a house museum, it mainly interprets the life and career of Overton and his family, who continued to add to the original structure shown below. Before the war, the Nashville & Decatur Railroad passed just a little west of the house.

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By the time of Hood's approach to the outskirts of Nashville, his Army of Tennessee had been too eviscerated at Franklin to do more than position itself on hills overlooking the unassailable Federal works like Ft. Negley. Hood made the Overton House his headquarters for the two-week period it took Maj. Gen. George H. Thomas to prepare the expected counterattack to drive the Confederates away. Hood hoped in vain any such move would so weaken or derange Federal forces so as to make them vulnerable to a slashing counterattack, something he utterly failed to recognize his army was no longer capable of. It's easy to imagine the tense staff meetings and dinners held here in the dining room of which Mrs. Overton was so proud to have served so many distinguished Confederate guests!

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The opening of the battle, Dec. 15, 1864, saw Thomas hold Hood's right and envelop his left, driving the Confederate line for about two miles and uncovering the Overton House. Though Hood anchored his right on nearby Overton Hill ( now mainly a traffic intersection in a mostly residential neighborhood ), he abandoned the house as his headquarters. It has survived destruction largely because of its nearness to and association with the railroad, tucked as at is into a little pocket by the tracks, and provides one of the few glimpses into Antebellum Nashville.

Shy's Hill

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Small park and replica cannon guard the crest of Shy's Hill; in addition to the U.S. and Tennessee flags, that of Minnesota also flies here, in tribute to the losses suffered by the soldiers from that state storming the position.

Hood's line on the morning of Dec. 16, 1864, was now only about half as long as on the previous day, and ran on an east-west axis with Overton's Hill anchoring the right flank and what became known as Shy's Hill anchoring the left. Connecting the twin knobs in part is current Stonewall Lane, which runs through a residential neighborhood parallell with an actual stone wall reputed to be the same one used by the Confederate defenders. Unfortunately for them, their shortened line was all that much easier to flank in a late-afternoon duplicate of the previous day's action. Scofield's men completely surrounded the hill, overrunning it and causing the entire Confederate army to collapse and retreat, the only such instance in the war of such a Confederate rout.

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Shy's Hill is named for the 26-year-old colonel of the 20th Tennessee, William M.Shy, who was shot through the head and killed instantly here. Less fortunate perhaps, was Brig. Gen. Thomas Benton Smith who was captured and assaulted on his way to the rear by a vengeful Federal officer who struck the unarmed young general with his sword, cleaving his skull and leaving him mentally unbalanced for the rest of his long life. The location of the current park is totally unmarked from the main road, accessable by Shy's Hill Lane and Benton Smith Road; if I didn't remember its location from back in 1987, plus the 1964 guidebook I used then, I'd never have found it! There's little here, and what there is is reached only after a steep climb on a trail through a sheltering patch of woods amid another residential neighborhood. One can only wonder if there are any plans to somehow improve, tie together, or promiote that which remains in time for the Sesquicentennial of the battle next year.
 
The last time I was at Shy's Hill, only a small ditch in an alley was there, showing the Confederate line of trenches. I need to go back--it's not far from here and is off Granny White Pike.

One of my "treasures" I took with me on this trip is the 1964 Civil War Times Illustrated Special Issue, The Battle of Nashville. It contains an insert that served as the Official Program for the Centennial reenactment, which includes among other things, the text for all the Tennessee Historical Markers related to the battle, plus a superb map and driving tour that tells where everything is/was. Of course it predates the Interstate bypass that completely destroyed the entire battlefield of Dec. 15. At that time, there was nothing at Shy's Hill, but it wasn't as engulfed by housing as it has become in the intervening 49 years!
 
Belmont Mansion, on the grounds of my daughter's school Belmont University, was for two weeks prior to the Battle of Nashville the HQ for Gen Thomas Wood, IV Corps. There's a good history of the Mansion during the battle at the Belmont Mansion website.
I've walked that campus past that tower many a time. Used to live on Belmont.
 
Great photos! Speaking of what happened to Brig. Gen. Thomas Benton Smith, after he was attacked at Nashville and suffered brain damage he did recover enough to be able to do some railroad work after the war, and eventually ran for a seat in Congress in 1870 but lost the election. Despite being committed to an insane asylum, he was said to have still been able to attend Confederate reunions of the 20th Tennessee.

Confederate Veteran recorded one of those outings in 1910:
At a recent reunion of the 20th Tennessee Regiment at Nashville, Tenn., in the beautiful Centennial Park where was held the Tennessee Centennial Exposition in 1897, Gen. Thomas Benton Smith, an early commander of the regiment, who has been in the Tennessee Insane Asylum nearly ever since the war from a saber cut on the head after he surrendered in the battle of Nashville, was in command for a drill and short parade. The regiment was formed as a company, and the drill master, though now somewhat venerable, although he is said to have been the youngest brigadier general in the Confederacy, carried the men through the manual of Hardee's tactics as if half a century were half a year.

General Smith was self-poised, as full of the animation of the old days as could be imagined. When they stood at "Right dress! Eyes right!" he said: "Throw them sticks down; you don't need them!" A picture of that scene and a repetition of all he said would be most pleasing. General Smith has times of deep depression, and is sad over his long "imprisonment", but be is always happy at Confederate gatherings, and is still a magnificent specimen of Confederate manhood.

- Confederate Veteran, Vol. 18, 1910, pg. 577
 
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Talking of what happened to Brig. Gen. Thomas Benton Smith, after he was taken prisoner on Shy Hill, he was attacked by Col. William Linn McMillan of the 95th Ohio, who beat him several times with the blunt side of his sword until his skull was cracked... After he was attacked at Nashville and suffered brain damage, he recovered enough to be able to do some railroad work after the war and he eventually ran for a seat in the U.S. Congress in 1870, but lost the election. He spent most of his last 47 years in an insane asylum in Nashville, but he still attended Confederate reunions of the 20th Tennessee.

I'm especially glad to hear more of Gen. Smith's story and that he wasn't entirely incapacitated - I only knew of the little I stated here. During my previous visit to Nashville in 1987, I went to Mt. Olivet Cemetery and saw his grave in the circle of distinguished Confederates and wondered about it then; unfortunately, I didn't have the time necessary to go there on this vacation. I'd never heard a name attached to his assailant before, and suppose the "brave" Col. McMillian went entirely unpunished for his valor in attacking an unarmed prisoner.
 
Since today marks the Sesquicentennial of the first day of the Battle of Nashville, I'll revive this thread.
 
Yesterday I was told that there had been an artillery shoot (at Sevier Park, I think). Since I don't get the local paper, I missed out on that.
 
When you go to the fort, there is a tendency to take pictures of the same settings everyone else does. These are awesome pics, and I've seen other really good ones on websites. Mine never seem quite as good.
 
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