For as long as Jim Kay can remember, the historic Civil War site of Fort Negley has been in ruins — just a pile of rocks and honeysuckle overgrowth on top of a hill.
“When I was growing up in the 1960s, that's where all the homeless men and railroad bums would stay. That's just where they lived,” Kay said. “It had a padlock on it, and it wasn't open to the public because it was impassable.”
Until now.
Through the 15-year-long efforts by people like Kay, who is the president of the Battle of Nashville Preservation Society; the administrations of former mayors Phil Bredesen and Bill Purcell; historians; Civil War hobbyists and descendants of Civil War soldiers, Fort Negley is now honored and marked by the new Fort Negley Visitors Center.
"To have that fort, which was totally ruined and an eye sore to Nashville all fixed up and opened to the public and for the government to have funded the improvements is just incredible," Kay said. "The visitors center is well done and blends into the hill. It's a first-class place for tourists or a Nashvillian to visit."
Seated atop St. Cloud Hill roughly two miles from downtown, Fort Negley was the largest and most important fortification built by Union troops after their occupation of Nashville in 1862.
The fort, seated at the center of the Union defensive line, was monumental in the Union's ability to hold control of Nashville — an important river and rail supply distribution hub — and ultimately win the war.
But, after the Civil War ended in 1865, Union forces withdrew from Nashville and the fort fell to disrepair.
In the 1930s, new life was breathed into Fort Negley when the Works Progress Administration reconstructed parts of the fort and added a road, stone entrance gates and recreation facilities, but over time these efforts also became neglected.
Thus, for the last half-century, few knew Fort Negley existed or of its significance — even with its location saddled between Greer Stadium and the Adventure Science Center.
The new visitors’ center was designed by David Curry, the executive director of Travellers Rest Plantation and Museum, and features interactive exhibits with photos, audio recordings by descendants and artifacts that explain the design and construction of the fort; the role of conscript laborers, the United States Colored Troops, and ordinary citizens in building the fort; the effects of sudden occupation on Nashville; the importance of the occupation and the activities of the Union Army; the Battle of Nashville; and more.
The $1 million facility has a small multipurpose theater to play the documentary, The Fall of Nashville, which is an introduction to the occupation of Nashville, the need for fortifications and Fort Negley's demise.
The film is narrated by country music star and Civil War buff, Kix Brooks, of Brooks & Dunn fame.
Relatives will be able to search the national Soldier and Sailor Database to look up their Civil War ancestor and find out which army and company they fought for and where.
The Fort Negley Visitors Center not only preserves a historical legacy from natural decay and development, but is key in helping Nashvillians understand their city's past, Curry said.
"It's part of a quality of life issue. [The story of Fort Negley] is a very important past, and I think it's important for Nashvillians to continue to learn about that period of our history and a great place to do that is at the historic places that still remain," Curry said. "Talk is that Nashville is becoming the next Atlanta. Atlanta completely wiped out almost all of its historical landscape — the historical places are gone — so in many ways that historical past is gone. In Nashville, it's not lost, just forgotten, and Fort Negley helps us reclaim that past."
Curry said people might be surprised by what they learn, especially with two little understood facts.
The first is the importance of Nashville to the Union Army and its operations in the Western theater.
"Tens of thousands of Union troops went through this city during the war, and using Nashville as the base of operations allowed them to really control much of the state and eventually led to the end of the war," Curry said. "Without Nashville, it would have been much more difficult for them to win the war."
The second, is that almost all of the fortification city was built by the labor of slaves, black refugees and free blacks.
"I think that people today believe that when the war began and with the Emancipation Proclamation, all slaves were freed, but Tennessee was exempt, so blacks' legal status did not change. When the Union Army occupied Nashville, African Americans moved from one master to another — they went from a Southern master to a Northern master. They were still slaves because the war did not begin to free slaves, it began to preserve the Union, so the Union Army was much less interested in freeing slaves and they used them to build the fortifications around the city," Curry said.
Fort Negley Visitors Center
1100 Fort Negley Blvd. (off Chestnut Street)
Hours: 9 a.m. – 4:30 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday
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