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Nashville collage 2009-1-

Nashville is the capital of the state of Tennessee and the county seat of Davidson County. It is the second most populous city in the state after Memphis. It is located on the Cumberland River in the north-central part of the state.

Founded in 1779, the city was named after deceased American Revolutionary General Francis Nash, as was Nashville, North Carolina. Nashville was chosen as Tennessee's fourth and final capital in 1843. During the American Civil War, Nashville became the first Confederate state capital to be occupied by Union troops, surrendering to Don Carlos Buell's Army of the Ohio in February 1862. It then became the seat of power for the Military Governor of Tennessee, an office which Andrew Johnson held from March 12, 1862 to March 4, 1865, before normal state government was resumed in April.

Nashville in Southern Victory[]

Nashville, Tennessee, was occupied three times within a century: in 1862, a Union army occupied the city briefly before the British and French forced the USA to hand it back to the CSA; by George A. Custer's First Army in the wake of the Barrel Roll Offensive in the summer of 1917; and once more in 1943 when Irving Morrell's army raced through Tennessee on its way to Chattanooga and Atlanta, Georgia.

In 1933, the Freedom Party held its presidential convention in Nashville at Jake Featherston's insistence. He returned to the city ten years later, during the war, to deliver a morale-boosting speech in the aftermath of the Pittsburgh catastrophe.

In 1917, then Colonel Morrell developed a plan for General Custer to take Nashville after the successful Barrel Roll Offensive brought US forces to the north bank of the Cumberland River.[1] Initially, the US staged a week long artillery barrage directly opposite the city along with aeroplane bombing. This led the CS to believe Custer intended a direct assault across the river so they reinforced their lines with troops from their flanks. Instead, the US secretly moved artillery and barrels to the east of the city. At the appointed hour the artillery began their bombardment and combat engineers built six pontoon bridges across the river. On completion, Morrell led his barrels down three bridges with infantry quick-marching down the other three. Morrell succeeded in smashing through the thinned CS lines and captured Nashville through encircling it.[2]

In 1943, Morrell forced a crossing of the Cumberland River near Nashville. After nightfall, his army engineers began building a pontoon bridge over the river. As a diversion, Morrell began an artillery duel a few miles to the west. The Confederates fired star flare shells to light up the scene but saw nothing untoward and so relaxed, allowing the U.S. forces to cross the river.

In 1944, the Armored Bear reported that the C.S. was launching rockets into the city, disregarding the fact that the city had once been Confederate.

See also[]

References[]

  1. Breakthroughs, pgs. 203-205, mpb.
  2. Ibid., pgs. 280-285.
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