Richly illustrated with hundreds of maps, photos, and diagrams, Fortress Nashville tells the fascinating story of how Tennessee’s capital became one of the heaviest fortified cities during the Civil War. How engineers actually fought valiantly in battle. How mechanics and laborers kept vital supplies flowing to the Federal armies at the front, both on rail and riverway. How fugitive slaves and freedmen built the forts, enlisted in the newly created U.S. Colored Troops, and eventually fought bravely for their freedom. Fort Negley is the major focus of these profound stories, but also covered are depots, railroads, garrison towns, and pioneer forts.
By Mark Zimmerman
Zimco Publications LLC, Nashville, Tennessee
Publication Date: March 1, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-578-37936-4
Retail Price: $29.95
338 Pages, Paperback, Perfect Bound, 8.5 x 11
200 Photos, 76 Maps, and original artwork
by John Paul Strain, Andy Thomas, Rick Reeves, David Meagher, Philip Duer
Retail Outlets: Available at Ingram, full 55% discount/returnable
Praise for “Fortress Nashville:”
“Fortress Nashville” superbly documents both Federal and Confederate plans to fortify Nashville and surrounding locations in the attempt to secure or destroy the South’s natural resources. Thoroughly researched and masterfully informative, Zimmerman’s book is an in-depth read for all students of the Western Theater of war, and the defenses of Nashville and surrounding area.
--Fred Prouty, Former Director of Programs for the Tennessee Wars Commission and Military Sites Preservation Specialist
BOOK CONTENTS
Introduction
Frontier Stations
Cumberland Settlements, Fort Nashborough, Buchanan’s Station, Mansker’s Station, Rock Castle, Cragfont, Sevier Station.
The River Forts
The Federal Gunboat Flotilla
Building the River Forts
Capture of Fort Henry
Battle of Fort Donelson
Capture of Clarksville and Nashville
Defenses of Nashville
Nashville 1864
Fort Andrew Johnson
Fortified Railroad Bridge
Pontoon Bridges
Fort Negley
Fort Morton
Blockhouse Casino
Fort Houston
Redoubt for Hill 210
Fort Gillem
Fort Whipple
Fort Garesché
Railroad Redoubt
Magazine Granger
Brentwood Stockade
Middle Tennessee Infrastructure
US Army Corps of Engineers
US Signal Corps
U.S. Military Hospitals
Fort Granger and Triune Works
The Pioneer Brigade
Fortress Rosecrans
U.S. Military Railroads and River Freighters
First Michigan Engineers & Mechanics
Guerrillas, Gunboats & Convoys
Johnsonville & Nashville & Northwestern RR
Federal Garrison Towns
Columbia, Gallatin, Sumner Co., Tullahoma, Shelbyville,
Bridgeport, Stevenson, Paducah, Decatur, Bowling Green, Pulaski.
Federal General/Engineer Also Spymaster
The Battle of Nashville
The Confederate Redoubts
U.S. Colored Troops
Granbury’s Lunette
Peach Orchard Hill
Battle of Nashville Trust
Addendum A: Glossary of Fortification Terms
Addendum B: Timeline of Events
Addendum C: Reports on Defenses
Acknowledgements & Notes on Sources
Bibliography and Suggested Reading
About the Author and Zimco Publications LLC
Melissa Barker of the Middle Tennessee Journal of Genealogy & History:
“Fortress Nashville is a title that anyone researching the Civil War in Middle Tennessee must have in their reference library.”
“The photos, maps, drawings, documents and other visuals are worth the price of the book alone. Some of these can even be described as beautiful.”
“Be prepared to be amazed by the research he has done…”
Did you know?
Slaves who worked on an estate south of Nashville in 1860 ended up fighting and dying as Union soldiers during the Battle of Nashville in 1864?
The father of the brilliant engineer who built Union Fort Negley (a major refuge for fugitive slaves during the war) was a renown Philadelphia physician who founded the theory of scientific racism, the theory that mankind is divided into different species based on cranial capacity?
General James S. Negley of Pennsylvania was a brilliant horticulturalist who conducted staff rides during military marches to examine native flowers and plants?
Capt. James St. Clair Morton, designer of Fort Negley and leader of the Pioneer Brigade, was a hero of the Battle of Stones River, his engineers holding off successive Confederate attacks to protect the main turnpike there?
The fortifications at Nashvillle, the second heaviest defended city in the nation during the Civil War, were not nearly completed until scant weeks before Hood’s invasion in December 1864?
Fort Negley was built so rapidly and stoutly, and armed so well, that the enemy dared not attack it? Same goes for Fortress Rosecrans in Murfreesboro.
Fort Negley, the masterpiece of Nashville fortifications, was allowed to deteriorate for 80 years until stone masons rebuilt it during the Great Depression, then allowed to literally fall to pieces once again?
That for several decades Fort Negley shared land with a minor-league baseball stadium and a children’s museum?
William T. Sherman never would have captured Atlanta without his supply and logistics base at Nashville?
During the war, the U.S. Army built a railroad from Nashville to the Tennessee River in order to process more war materiel?
Confederate gunners defeated the ironclad gunboats of the U.S. Navy at Fort Donelson only to have their generals surrender the fort to the U.S. Army?
Nashville, the first Confederate state capital to fall to the Federal army, was captured without firing a shot?