- Joined
- Feb 23, 2013
- Location
- East Texas
State Capitol Building and War Memorial Plaza as seen from Nashville's 1906 Hermitage Hotel.
At the beginning of the Civil War, Tennessee boasted one of the newest, largest, and most beautiful State Capitals in the Nation. Completed in 1859 immediately before secession and the outbreak of hostilities, it was so reknowned it was featured on new Confederate currency as a symbol of Southern pride, power and culture. It was therefore a terrible blow to the South when Nashville fell so early in the war to the Army of the Ohio led by Maj. Gen. Don Carlos Buell at the end of March, 1862. From that time, Nashville remained in Federal hands and served as the capital of the restored pro-Union government of Military Governor and politically-appointed Brig. Gen. Andrew Johnson.
The classically-inspired building is deceptively larger than it appears at first glance. From here, "Tennessee" Johnson and his successor, Knoxville Unionist newspaperman William G. "Parson" Brownlow, ruled over a far-flung "empire", often with a heavy hand. Ever fearing a Confederate resurgance, Federal occupation troops heavily fortified the building, even arming it with 30-pounder Parrott rifled cannon! A garrison was encamped just outside the strong-but-makeshift government "fortress", remaining there until well after the one vain attempt, that by John Bell Hood's severely outnumbered and outclassed army in December, 1864.
Hopefully, the current occupants of the beautifully restored House ( above ) and Senate ( below ) chambers are less turbulent than their wartime counterparts!
Tennessee pays tribute throughout the building to it's former U. S. presidents, especially Andrew Jackson and Andrew Johnson, but the tomb of James K. Polk ( above ) was considered a tourist attraction during the war and Federal occupation. The original study for the famous Antebellum statue of Jackson in New Orleans' Jackson Square was placed on the grounds postwar, below.
A more recent tribute to a favorite son of a later conflict also graces the capitol grounds: