Fort Negley - Nashville, Tennessee
Posted by: 
BruceS
N 36° 08.582 W 086° 46.560
16S E 520152 N 3999836
Historic partially restored Civil War fort now historical park in Nashville, Tennessee listed on the Tennessee Civil War Trail.
Waymark Code: WMGCWV
Location: Tennessee, United States
Date Posted: 02/15/2013
Views: 6
Text of marker:
Fort Negley
Defending the Capital
Hood's Campaign
After the Confederate defeat at Fort Donelson in February 1862, Nashville surrendered to Union forces. Tennessee Military Governor Andrew Johnson insisted on the fortification of Nashville, a key transportation and supply hub. On August 6, Union Capt. James St. Clair Morton began implementing an elaborate design that made the capital the most heavily defended United States city outside Washington, D.C. More than 2,700 African American laborers constructed Fort Negley, the largest and most complex of Nashville's five major forts. Soldiers occupied the fort in October while the laborers occupied the slope. The formidable stronghold protected Nashville's southern approaches and deterred Confederate attacks. On November 5, the fort's guns helped drive off Confederate forces under Gens. Nathan Bedford Forrest and John Hunt Morgan. The Nashville Banner announced the fort's completion on November 16.
In spring 1863, Mary Overall, a young Confederate spy, capitalized on the amiable relations between civilians and the military while attending a dance party here to gather information. Union Gen. Zebulon B. Tower proposed $20,000 in improvements in October 1864. On December 15-16, two newly installed Parrott guns provided artillery support during the Battle of Nashville, firing at targets more than three miles away. The 12th Indiana Light Artillery, along with soldiers from Illinois, Ohio, and Tennessee, as well as U.S. Colored Troops, occupied Fort Negley. It remained a federal post until 1867.
After the fort closed it languished and deteriorated. During the 1930s the WPA undertook a restoration project of the fort. They rebuilt many of the deteriorated stone walls of the fort and built the current entrance gate. With the advent of World War II the funding and interest for maintaining the old fort vanished and the fort languished and began deteriorating and becoming overgrown. It became a place of vandalism and minor crime so it was closed and set off limits to the public. In the early 2000s a new restoration effort was begun and now the old fort is again open to the public with a new visitors center which opened in 2007.