Quick Details
This exhibit will cover the greater Nashville Campaign, tying in the leading figures of the campaign as well as the spillover of fighting taking place on the Belle Meade property. The battle of Nashville took place Dec 15th and 16th of 1864. Below is the 1st panel, which provides a good summary of the content
By July 1864, the American Civil War was locked in a bloody stalemate. Hundreds of thousands had perished, while billions of dollars in property and infrastructure had been destroyed. Few places bore the weight of war like Tennessee.
Tennessee’s divided geography—East, Middle, and West—reflected its fractured loyalties. Union forces had occupied the state early in 1862, yet Confederate raids, guerrilla warfare, and social unrest persisted. Even under Union control, slavery endured in many areas, creating a strange coexistence of bondage and freedom.
The Union occupation of Atlanta in September 1864 marked a turning point. As the Confederacy’s largest supply hub and rail center in the Western Theater, Atlanta was both a strategic and symbolic loss. With Union forces under Major General William T. Sherman occupying the city, Confederate General John Bell Hood, the newly appointed commander of the Army of Tennessee, sought redemption. Hood set his sights on reclaiming Middle Tennessee and drawing Union forces out of Georgia even though he was short on men, supplies, and morale.