During the fall and winter of 1862, the
Union army built Fort Negley to defend Nashville against Confederate
army attacks.
In February 25, 1862, after the CSA Army
of the Tennessee retreated from the recent defeat at Fort Donelson,
the Union army occupied Nashville. In March of 1862, President Lincoln
appointed a Tennessean, U. S. Senator Andrew Johnson, to serve as
military governor. Johnson implored federal officials to fortify the
town. The commanding General ordered the post commander, General James
S. Negley, to use the post's 6,000 soldiers to construct
fortifications for Nashville. General Negley employed Captain James S. Morton, an army
engineer, to design and build a large fort to protect the south roads
and railroad approaches to Nashville. Because the Confederate armies
still roamed parts of Kentucky and Tennessee, Morton received orders
to move with all deliberate speed. On November 5, some Confederate
cavalry attempted to invade the city's eastern suburbs. The Federal
military drove the Confederates off and inflicted 68 enemy casualties.
More federal troops arrived to garrison the town and rebuild bridges.
The Union Army completed Fort Negley on December 7,
1862.
Fort Negley became the largest
Union fort west of Washington, D. C. The topmost structure consisted
of twelve-foot timbers, a stockade to hold horses and soldiers'
quarters. Rounded wooden rifle turrets rested on top of each corner of
the stockade. The artillery rested on carriages and smooth
plank-flooring on the parapet (flat, platform-like area) surrounding
the outside of the stockade. Three-foot ramparts (nine-foot-thick
embankments of earth walled with stone) protected the flat artillery
area. Projected redans protected the ramparts on the east and the west
sides of the stockade. Scarps (steep slopes) and glacis (a smooth,
gentle slope) rested below the east and west ramparts and parapets.
Two groups of four blockhouses (bomb shelters topped with railroad
iron, railroad timbers, and dirt) protected the bottom of these hills
on the left and the right sides of the fort's south section. A salient
system projected out to protect the bastioned blockhouses. Above the
bastion was a stone scarp to protect the first two blockhouses, a
passage connecting the two parallel blockhouses, another stone scarp
rising above the passage, and the other two blockhouses rising above
the scarp with a protected passage between these
blockhouses.
Morton placed the fort's entrance
on the north side with a gentle slope overlooking the city two miles
beyond. The fort also had a sharp salient, a gateway, a timber
guardhouse, and a loop-holed bomb shelter flanking the gate. Fort
Negley, a polygonal copy of an old European design consumed 62,500
cubic feet of stone and 18,000 cubic yards of dirt; occupied 600 by
300 feet and 51 acres of St. Cloud Hill; rested some 620 feet above
sea level.
The Union army abandoned Fort
Negley soon after 1867. In 1975, the fort was listed in the National
Register of Historic Places. It is presently in the first stages of
restoration.
Taken from an article written by
Bobby L. Lovett Transcribed by John H. Ross, December 1999 (Pvt.
Absalom Ross was stationed at Fort Negley during the winter of
1864-65)
