150 Years | Tennessee Civil War Sesquicentennial

Fortress Rosecrans
After the Battle of Stones River, Union soldiers and newly freed slaves began building the earthen walls of Fortress Rosecrans in front of you. Named for Union Gen. William S. Rosecrans, it was the largest earthen fortress ever built in North America, covering about 225 acres. Union Gen. James St. Clair Morton, chief engineer for the Army of the Cumberland, supervised its construction between January and June 1863. The fort protected the junction of Stones River and the Nashville and Chattanooga Railroad, as well as the intersection of the Wilkinson Turnpike and the Old Nashville Turnpike. Fortress Rosecrans provided

City: Murfreesboro
County: Rutherford
Region: Middle Tennessee

Murfreesboro
Murfreesboro and Rutherford County, located in the center of Tennessee, became a major Civil War battleground from the summer of 1862 to late 1864. Union troops occupied the historic Rutherford County Courthouse on the Murfreesboro Square in the spring of 1862. That summer, Confederate Col. Nathan B. Forrest attacked and overwhelmed the garrison during the Battle of Murfreesboro, which helped to make Forrest’s reputation as a cavalry

City: Murfreesboro
County: Rutherford
Region: Middle Tennessee

Oaklands Mansion
On the morning of July 13, 1862, Union Gen. Thomas T. Crittenden’s force at Murfreesboro was separated into three detachments. Col. William Duffield and the 9th Michigan Infantry were camped here at Oaklands, Lewis and Rachel Adeline Maney’s house, around Maney’s Spring. An infantry company guarded the courthouse in town, while an infantry regiment, a cavalry unit, and an artillery battery were camped on Stones River more than a mile northwest of the town.

City: Murfreesboro
County: Rutherford
Region: Middle Tennessee

Baseball in Civil War Nashville
In the spring of 1862, Nashville became the first Confederate state capital to fall to Union forces. As the Union army took control, it established camps around the State Capitol building, including in this area, one of the most historic places in Nashville. It was called French Lick in the 1700s, Sulphur Spring Bottom in the 1800s, and Sulphur Dell in the 1900s. During the Civil War, it served as a recreational field for Union soldiers. These men, in turn, introduced the northern version of baseball to local residents as early as 1862. The sport was new to Nashville; the

City: Nashville
County: Davidson
Region: Middle Tennessee

Belle Meade Plantation, Marker 1
 The Battle of Nashville:  The family of William G. Harding, the owner of Belle Meade Plantation, had a front-row seat to the Battle of Nashville on December 15-16, 1864. Confederate Gen. James R. Chalmers, who served under Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest, had his headquarters inside the house. In September 1864, after Union Gen. William T. Sherman defeated Confederate Gen. John Bell Hood at Atlanta, Hood led the Army of Tennessee northwest against Sherman\'s supply lines. Rather than contest Sherman\'s \"March to the Sea,\" Hood moved north into Tennessee. Gen. John M. Schofield, detached from Sherman\'s army, delayed Hood at Columbia

City: Nashville
County: Davidson
Region: Middle Tennessee

Belle Meade Plantation, Marker 2
Change of Ownership:  Confederate Gen. William Hicks \"Billy\" Jackson (1835-1903), who acquired Belle Meade Plantation after the war, served with distinction throughout the Western Theater of the Civil War. He was an excellent horseman, a skill that served him well during the war and afterward. He graduated from West Point in 1856 and was sent to fight in the Indian wars in New Mexico territory. In May 1861, he resigned his commission and enrolled as a Confederate artillery captain. In November 1861 at the Battle of Belmont, Missouri, Jackson was aide-de-camp to Gen. Gideon J. Pillow and was wounded in

City: Nashville
County: Davidson
Region: Middle Tennessee

Belle meade Plantation, Marker 3
Belle Meade and Union Occupation:  William Giles Harding, the owner of Belle Meade Plantation, was an ardent Confederate supporter who provided thousands of dollars to help arm Tennessee\'s Confederate forces. He served on the state\'s Military Armaments Committee. In March 1862, he helped Col. Nathan B. Forrest during the evacuation of Nashville by sending 30 wagons of munitions south. After the evacuation, Union commanders soon took control and arrested leading Confederates, such as Harding, who was imprisoned at Fort Mackinaw, Michigan, from April to September 1862. His wife, Elizabeth McGavock Harding, ran the plantation in her husband\'s absence. That fall

City: Nashville
County: Davidson
Region: Middle Tennessee

Civil War Soldier’s Home, Marker 2
Residents of the Tennessee Confederate Soldiers\' Home gained admission by proving that they served in the Confederate army honorably and that they could no longer provide for themselves. For most, an approved pension application or military record satisfied the service requirement, while letters from physicians, concerned citizens, or commanders established the veteran\'s need. The Soldiers\' Home accepted most applicants but rejected several who could not prove honorable

City: Nashville
County: Davidson
Region: Middle Tennessee

Confederate Soldiers’ Home
After the Civil War, many soldiers struggled with poverty, mental health issues, and physical disabilities. The federal government, along with concerned citizens, provided pensions and group homes for Union soldiers, though care for Confederate soldiers fell on the impoverished state governments. The Jackson family sold 500 acres of The Hermitage to the state of Tennessee in 1856, including the

City: Nashville
County: Davidson
Region: Middle Tennessee

Confederate Soldiers’ Home Cemetery
Of the 700 veterans who lived in the Soldiers' Home almost 500 are buried in the Tennessee Confederate Soldiers' Home

City: Nashville
County: Davidson
Region: Middle Tennessee

Fort Negley
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

City: Nashville
County: Davidson
Region: Middle Tennessee

The Hermitage
Although no Civil War battles were fought here, the war touched Andrew Jackson\'s farm in other ways. Jackson had been a firm Unionist, putting down Nullification and its potential for civil war during his presidency. However, after his death, his adopted son Andrew Jackson Jr. and his wife, Sarah, supported the South. When Tennessee seceded, the president\'s grandsons joined the Confederate army, as did two of Sarah Jackson\'s nephews who also were reared here. Three of theyoung men died, and Andrew Jackson III was taken prisoner twice. Soldiers on the Lebanon Turnpike and others foraging for supplies took livestock and

City: Nashville
County: Davidson
Region: Middle Tennessee

Travellers' Rest Plantation
Part of this house dates to 1799 with additions made by the Overton family by the time of the Civil War. Hood made Travellers' Rest his headquarters during the weeks leading up to the battle. Some fighting occurred on the plantation grounds Dec. 16 (1864). Tours cover Civil War history and the house's role in the

City: Nashville
County: Davidson
Region: Middle Tennessee

Two Governors, Two Governments
Within the walls of this magnificent Greek Revival-style capitol, designed by famed American architect William Strickland, a Confederate governor and a Federal military governor each administered the state during the Civil War. Governor Isham G. Harris, of Memphis, supported Tennessee secession. From his office, he plotted strategy and planned a military alliance with the Confederacy. He told the legislature in January 1861, \"The systematic, wanton, and long continued agitation of the slavery question, with the actual and threatened aggressions of the Northern States and a portion of their people, upon the well-defined constitutional rights of the Southern citizen...have produced a

City: Nashville
County: Davidson
Region: Middle Tennessee

Battle of Johnsonville: Up in Smoke
Johnsonville was a major Federal supply depot on the Tennessee River at the western terminus of the Nashville and Northwestern Railroad, completed in May 1864. Col. Charles R. Thompson commanded the 2,000–man garrison here. The 12th, 13th, and 100th United States Colored Troops (USCT) regiments provided infantry support for the heavily fortified post. Early in November 1864, part of Confederate Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest’s 3,500–man command occupied the west bank of the Tennessee River opposite Johnsonville. On November 4, after capturing two Federal vessels as a diversion, Confederate gunners opened fire on three Union gunboats, eleven transports, and eighteen barges.

City: New Johnsonville
County: Humphreys
Region: Middle Tennessee