Development of grounds next to Nashville Fort opposed

By Gregory L. Wade · Originally published August 2017 · p. 25

Development of grounds next to Nashville Fort opposed By Gregory L. Wade NASHVILLE, Tenn.—A scaled down proposal to build a multi-use development along the perimeter of Nashville’s Fort Negley is meeting stiff resistance from green space proponents, historians, and Civil War preservationists. The ground is currently the site of Greer Stadium, the former home of the Nashville Sounds baseball team, a Triple AAA affiliate of the Oakland Athletics. In 2015, the Sounds moved to a new facility downtown leaving the old stadium venue to rapidly fall into disrepair. The site is owned and considered surplus by the City of Nashville. Nashville is one of the fastest growing cities in the nation with open space rising in value making the old stadiums urban acreage even more desirable. Critics responded with angst to the first proposals by developer, Sevinder Sandhu, who submitted an earlier plan for the site. The first development would have been called the Nashville Adventure Park with a variety of housing, hotels, and a farmers market. John Allyn, president of the Battle of Nashville Preservation Society (BONPS), called the plan an “abomination,” noting the fort’s “viewscapes to the south” would be destroyed by high rise buildings. BONPS is a local nonprofit dedicated to the interpretation and preservation of Nashville’s Civil War resources. The most recent proposal the city has conditionally accepted will be known as Cloud Hill, featuring housing and retail but not the originally submitted high rise structures. It is subject to several more approval steps before any construction begins. Most Nashville Civil War era sites have been lost to development, says Allyn, with Fort Negley being a “major exception.” Nashville Mayor Megan Berry says the city has made certain they obtained full input from the community. Her press secretary, Sean Braisted, said in response to inquiries from the Civil War News, “The RFP (requests for proposal) was written based on feedback from community meetings and input from various community members.” Colby Sledge, a member of the city’s governing council, responded to media allegations that some proposals were being vetted in secret. Names of a seven council committee chosen to make the final determination of the property are not being released. In a letter to Vice Mayor David Briley, Sledge said, “Metro (Nashville government) is precluded from allowing members of the public, or public officials for that matter, who are not evaluation committee members from having any participation in the process until the intent to award is made.” He added that he is “heartened to hear the support for Fort Negley and the interest in the potential archaeological value of parts of the Greer Stadium property.” Local historians point to Fort Negley’s significant role in the history of Nashville during and since the Civil War. One of the largest war time structures in the nation, the star shaped fort served as the anchor of the Union defensive lines built to protect the city after it fell to Federal forces in early 1862. At one time Nashville was one of the most heavily fortified cities in the United States and Negley was the dominant component. Much of the construction labor was supplied by “impressed” freed African Americans who historians estimate numbered around 3,000 workers. Referring to the former cemeteries and camps actually on the stadium site, Greg Biggs, founder of the Nashville and Clarksville Civil War Round Tables, says there has never been an “archaeological survey of the grounds of Fort Negley or remaining nearby earthworks.” He added other resources in the area, including a Freedman’s Camp and additional burial grounds, have never been adequately researched and surveyed. After the Civil War, the fort was mostly neglected until purchased by the city’s parks department in the late 1920’s, where it fell into further disrepair. During the depression years of the 1930’s, it was given new life when the Federal government’s Works Progress Administration rebuilt much of the massive stone and earth facility. In the years after World War II, it again was covered by foliage and suffered from neglect, eventually becoming a favorite site for the homeless. In the 1990’s, as Nashville steadily grew, the city allocated over one million dollars for the fort’s second restoration as a unique addition to the town’s park and greenway system. On the 140th anniversary of the Battle of Nashville, Negley was reopened to great fanfare with facilities that include a state of the art visitor’s center. Since that time, it has become a favorite of historians, reenactors, and green space advocates. The property to be developed consists of about twenty acres with the new plan revealing some small buffer areas from the actual hill top works of the fort. Tina Cahalan Jones, a Middle Tennessee historian who has researched the plight of African American families in greater Nashville during the Civil War and post war years, says, “there were an estimated 750 impressed workers who died during construction of the fort.” Some of the dead are interred in the nearby Nashville National Cemetery. This Federal cemetery is the site of one of the nation’s largest groups of United States Colored Troops (USCT) who rest in ground that was once part of the Fort Negley complex. Jones cited one man who later served in the USCT after laboring at Negley, Freeman Thomas. Thomas was a seventeen-year-old refugee from fighting in the Franklin area who found himself at Fort Negley. Jones noted his post war pension application in which Freeman writes, “The authorities had me and a good many others (colored men) at work on the forts on Fort Negley and they took us and put us in the regiment and made solders out of us.” Jones adds that if development of this part of the original fort’s grounds occurs “any chance of further historical or archaeological research” into the lives of these “contraband camps” will be lost forever.” In response to that general concern, Councilman Sledge says that “the process” of selecting the type project and developer “provides a critical opportunity for such a survey.

A Friends of Fort Negley 2016 report maintains there are several reasons to preserve the area as green space. The report notes it was once the burial site of 11,000 Federal soldiers with likely unknown remains still present. It references the site’s proximity to local museums, and the nearby historic Nashville City Cemetery. It also calls for more open space connected by trails as well as the ground being an important site for coral fossils found in the area’s limestone cliffs. Friends of Fort Negley is a nonprofit that “supports preservation, education and green space efforts” at the park, according to their web site. Also condemning these proposals is Sam Gant, Past Department Commander of the Sons of Union Veterans. He believes the space should be kept as much needed green space while “commemorating the Battle of Nashville and honoring the African American ex-slaves who built the fort.” Like others have suggested, Gant worries there may still be bodies of slaves on the premises. Biggs also points out his concern about what may still be on the grounds and adds, “Civil War trenches remain behind the stadium as does a historic cemetery.” The current Cloud Hill proposal faces more vetting and scrutiny from various government agencies before the final project is approved. Proponents say it will not adversely impact Fort Negley’s view to the south but Allyn disagrees saying the fort’s views will be “ruined.” Biggs, puts it more bluntly, “the city’s administration doesn’t give a damn about (Civil War) preservation.”