American Battlefield Trust Saves 2.36 Acres Around Famed Fort Negley

Some preservation projects are so ambitious that they require cooperative effort from all levels of government – federal, state and local – alongside the nonprofit sector to come to fruition. And in the case of our recent project at Nashville’s Fort Negley, that’s on top of a past quest for public recognition and a pitched advocacy battle!

Nashville is a thriving city, with real estate prices to match. But when many partners came together to protect this remarkable 2.36-acre property, despite its $9.5 million purchase price! In addition to an approximately $4.1 million federal matching grant and $2.3 million from the Tennessee Civil War Battlefield Fund, Metro Nashville contributed $3 million for the acquisition – on top of some $12 million being put toward a master plan to stabilize the fort itself and upgrade existing park infrastructure. With such allies at the table, the Trust’s financial contribution was comparatively small, but our expertise was instrumental in facilitating such a complex and nuanced transaction. But preservation is not linear, and we here at the Trust jumped at the opportunity to work with the National Park Service, the Tennessee Civil War Sites Preservation Fund – administered by the Tennessee Wars Commision under the auspices of the Tennessee Historical Commission – and Metro Nashville to facilitate the protection of a further 2.36 acres at Fort Negley.

Today, we are happy to announce the completion of that transaction, as the pieces fall into place for an ambitious city-funded master plan that will significantly enhance the visitor experience at the park.

Fort Negley

Built by Union forces during the Civil War, Fort Negley may not have played a decisive role in combat for control of the city, but it has become a major Nashville touchpoint in the decades since.

After the city of Nashville fell to the Union in February 1862, Black men, women and children, dubbed “contrabands,” flocked to Nashville in hopes of freedom and fair wages.

With plans to construct defensive fortifications around the city, the military was desperate for a Black workforce to undertake the backbreaking labor. These same men and women then supporting Union hospitals, built and repaired railroads and were recruited or impressed into United States Colored Troop (USCT) regiments. After the war, many of those veterans chose to remain in the area, forming one of Nashville’s first post-emancipation free Black communities in the shadow of Fort Negley.

In the wake of 1950s Urban Renewal policy, the historic fort structure – all that remained of the Union defenses that once encircled the city – fell into disrepair. A baseball stadium for the minor league Nashville Sounds was built within Fort Negley’s historic boundaries in the 1970s.

U.S. flag at Fort Negley — U.S. flag flies at Fort Negley in Nashville, Tenn. Melissa A. Winn

By the early 2000s, a resurgence of interest in the fort led to major municipal investment, and the opening of Fort Negley Park. But in 2014 the Sounds’ stadium was demolished, the team having moved to a new area of the city and a massive mixed-use development proposal put the historic landscape in jeopardy. The plan drew the ire of council members and local and national nonprofits, including the American Battlefield Trust and the Cultural Landscape Foundation, to lend support to the historical site’s cause. Thankfully, that project was scrapped, with Fort Negley nominated as the first American site for the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Slave Route Project in 2019.

Today, Fort Negley faces a far brighter future, with more land preserved and work about to begin on the $12 million Phase One of an ambitions master plan for infrastructure improvements, new interpretation and visitor service upgrades. We can only fulfill our mission at the Trust through the stalwart support of our friends and donors and know that our victories are your victories.

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