Welcome to the Fort Negley Park Archive page!

 

We hope you enjoy this online showcase of some of the park's physical archive located inside the Fort Negley Visitors Center in Nashville, Tennessee. The Fort Negley Park Archive holds the research of author and Civil War historian Dr. Benjamin Franklin Cooling, The Cammack Collection of family papers, documents related to park history, and more.

 

What is Fort Negley Park?

 

Fort Negley Park, established in 1928, is a municipal park operated by the Board of Parks and Recreation of the Metropolitan Government of Nashville and Davidson County.

 

In February 1862, the Federal Army took possession of Confederate-held Nashville, Tennessee. Over the spring and summer, military officials, recognizing the possibility of enemy invasion, initiated an ambitious defensive strategy and the army seized private property for the purpose of constructing fortifications. In southeast Nashville, Captain James St. Clair Morton selected St. Cloud Hill due to its proximity to the southern approaches to the city via the Louisville/Nashville rail line and the Franklin and Nolensville Pikes.

 

Thousands of African American men, women, and children fleeing slavery sought freedom, opportunity, and protection in the occupied city and soon makeshift camps grew around the hills designated for fortifications. Unprepared for the massive influx of refugees and the challenges of hiring enough laborers to complete the defenses, military officials formulated a system for employing former slaves. Although this system of impressment promoted a view of people as property and allowed the Federal Army to exploit former slave labor, it also deprived the Confederacy of its main labor force while granting African Americans a sense of freedom and personal investment in undermining the rebellion. Far from passive recipients of freedoms won by others, enslaved African Americans understood the perils of venturing into the unknown and made calculated decisions in regards to their futures as individuals and as a race. Plagued by internal disputes, corruption, prejudice, and indifference, the army rarely fulfilled promises of pay, rations, and shelter. As a result, hundreds perished from exposure, disease, and hunger in the camps. In 1863, United States Colored Regiments formed giving African Americans even more involvement in reuniting the country and, eventually, emancipation of all enslaved people.

 

Between the summer of 1862 and September 1867, thousands of Federal troops, including United States Colored Troops, occupied St. Cloud Hill defending the city from several minor attacks and General John Bell Hood’s advance on December 15 and 16, 1864. Taken shortly before the Battle of Nashville, Jacob Coonley’s panoramic image reveals soldiers peering over the eastern slope to the rail yard and the remains of more than 11,500 Federal soldiers and an unknown number of civilians contained in three Federal cemetery lots on and around St. Cloud Hill, including the City Cemetery.

 

When the Federal Army abandoned Fort Negley’s stone skeleton in 1867, many African Americans, permanently displaced by the war and the end of the slave system, remained in the refugee camps established on St. Cloud Hill. Over time, these residents settled into comfortable neighborhoods surrounding Fort Negley. Children growing up in the segregated neighborhoods separated by St. Cloud Hill found freedom from society’s strict racial codes within the old fort’s protective walls.

 

Of the five major fortifications constructed in Nashville during the Civil War, only Fort Negley survived past the 1870s. Throughout the late 19th century and the early 20th century, Nashvillians struggled with the site’s future. Some envisioned a grand manicured boulevard stretching from an elaborate public park on St. Cloud Hill to the Capitol Building. Although attempts in 1913, 1926, and 1929 to establish a National Park at Fort Negley in honor of the Battle of Nashville were unsuccessful, newspaper reports from across the country reveal the significance of the battle and the fort in American cultural memory.

 

In 1928, the Nashville Park Board purchased the 50-acre parcel from Judge Overton’s heirs for the purpose of establishing a public park. Between 1934 and 1941, funding and labor provided by the Works Progress Administration made restoration of the fort and enhancement of the park possible. The WPA Project Proposal dated May 1, 1935 stated, “The park will be a decided addition to the park system of the City of Nashville besides adding an excellent historical point of interest for tourists.” Fort Negley Park boasted four softball diamonds, a hard ball diamond, a lighting system, stone bleachers, a stone comfort station, and a multi-level stone retaining wall constructed along the park’s eastern boundary. Decorative boundary walls along Chestnut Street and encircling the fort structure and the large stone entrance, key components of WPA design and construction, emphasized the city’s desire for creating a large multi-use park in south Nashville. These decorative walls, the retaining wall, and large portions of the bleachers remain on the property today.

 

Although the surrounding African American neighborhood developed from the Civil War-era conscripted labor camps, the eastern portion of Fort Negley Park catered to thousands of white ball players and spectators throughout the 1940s and the early 1970s. In 1946 and 1953, the Park Board rejected requests from the African American community to designate Fort Negley as a “Negro” park. During the mid-1960s, the construction of I-65 and I-40 displaced the neighborhoods located the west, north, and south of St. Cloud Hill forever altering the character of the area. Later, the Edgehill Urban Renewal Program allowed for the leasing of portions of the park to the Children’s Museum (now Adventure Science Center) and the Nashville Baseball Club, Inc., at nominal rates.

 

While Metro sought to revitalize the area through new construction, others worked toward national recognition of Fort Negley Park as a historic site. In 1975, the site was recognized by the National Register of Historic Places. Five years later, Metro Historical Commission funded a study for the purposes of acknowledging “a growing awareness of the uniqueness of Fort Negley in the region” and for developing “a concept for the ultimate use of the historic resources to the advantage of the community at large.” In conclusion, the study recommended eliminating unauthorized use of the site, clearing the hilltop of uncontrolled vegetation, interpreting the fort structure, promoting tourism, and providing basic amenities such as picnic tables and restrooms.

 

The Fort Negley Master Plan released in 1996 expanded on these recommendations, calling for an interpretative center and dedicated professional staff. Fort Negley Park, including the stabilized and interpreted fort structure, opened in 2004. Three years later, the city constructed the Fort Negley Visitors Center. Over the past decade, efforts have expanded beyond the park’s static interpretation focusing on the occupation and the Battle of Nashville. Educational programming recognizes Fort Negley's impact on African American heritage and Middle Tennessee's ancient past as tropical sea. In addition to boasting some of the region’s most impressive fossil-rich limestone outcroppings deposited around 400 million years ago, Fort Negley Park’s 2500 square foot milkweed garden also provides much need Monarch butterfly habitat.

 

In March 2018, Mayor David Briley announced the city’s intention of reclaiming the sixteen acres previously leased to the Nashville Sounds for Fort Negley Park stating, “We have a unique opportunity to bring the community together to design a park that will honor the sacrifice of the slaves who died building this fort while providing active park space in a growing neighborhood that will be enjoyed by residents for generations to come.” On May 21, 2019, UNESCO announced Fort Negley Park’s designation as a Site of Memory as part of the Slave Route Project. Founded in 1994, the project recognizes sites around the world that contribute to a better understanding of the global slave trade and its effects on history and culture. www.unesco.org/new/en/social-and-human-sciences/themes/sl...

 

It is the mission of the Fort Negley Park to promote a greater understanding of the social, political, and military forces central to Nashville and Middle Tennessee during the era of sectional conflict in American History.

 

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Explore the Fort Negley Park website at fortnegley.nashville.gov.