Fort Negley

The other day I received notice from Greg Biggs about development plans for the vacant Greer Stadium that is next to Fort Negley in Nashville.  This is a site I’ve never been to but want to visit.  When I fist started visiting battlefields Fort Negley was not open to visitors.  I’d heard that it was amazing.  Had been redone by the CCC in the 1930s, and fallen into disrepair again, but was not open.  In the meantime it has opened with a visitor’s center and interpretive trails but I’ve never made it back.

There are links to stories about the prosed development here and here.  The official website is here, and the Battle of Nashville Preservation Society has a nice page as well.

I took this image from google maps showing the site today.
 

 

And this image is from one of the above stories showing how the site might look, now surrounded by development.

 This would be a sad event.  As the stories say there is much that we can learn from the site yet, even though the ballpark certainly erased some artifacts.  Plus there is also the experience as well.  Of course having the highways right next door already doesn't help but the experience would be further degraded with buildings hemming in the other sides.  Hopefully a better solution can be found for this parcel.

I'll leave you with Greg Biggs' appeal:

Ladies and gentlemen of the Civil War Roundtables of America - if you would like to come to Nashville and do something historical besides the antebellum homes, President Andrew Jackson's Hermitage or the nearby battlefields of Nashville, Franklin and Stones River, and would like to see America's only surviving limestone fort left uncluttered, PLEASE, take the time to send emails to the metro government of Nashville and the parks department.  Parks should know better than this as it is owned by them.  We NEED your help quickly so I am asking you to put this into your newsletters, send out to your membership, and PLEASE help us stop this development!!!  The clock is ticking and a lot of money is on the table with this.  Nashville has other blighted places that could be redeveloped other than Fort Negley so help us here in Middle Tennessee stop this nonsense!  Please let the people running Nashville hear loud and clear from America's great Civil War community!