Nashville, Tennessee

June 6-12, 2022

One of our favorite discoveries in Nashville was a monument erected by the Ladies Battlefield Memorial Association in 1926. It’s almost hidden by vegetation between a major highway (Franklin Pike) and an apartment building. We walked a couple of hundred feet from a dead end street to get to the monument.

“Oh, valorous gray, in the grave of your fate,/ Oh, glorious blue, in the long dead years./ You were sown in sorrow and harrowed in hate/ for the message you left through the land/ Has from the lips of God to the heart of man: /Let the past be past. Let the dead be dead/ Now and forever American!”

The inscription on one side of the monument reads: The spirit of youth holds in check the contending forces that struggled here in the fierce Battle of Nashville December 16th 1864, sealing forever the bond of union by the blood of our heroic dead of the world war 1917-1918. We thought the combination of the Civil War and World War I was very unusual.

We completed geocaching tasks in two historic cemeteries.

Woodlawn Memorial Park was a hospital during the Civil War because of a spring with good quality water.

One of the oldest houses remaining from the early American era was moved, piece by piece, to the cemetery.

An identifying plaque indicates these domestic’s quarters [sic] were “Fired upon by federal troops from passing train, bullet narrowly missing head of sleeping child.”

This marker in Nashville’s Old City Cemetery is for William Driver. He sailed around the world twice flying a 17 by 10 foot American flag he nicknamed “Old Glory”. He sewed it into a quilt during the Civil War for safe keeping. On one of his voyages he helped rescue descendants of the HMS Bounty from Tahiti and moved them to Pitcairn Island.

Fort Negley was one of three forts built after the capture of Nashville by Union forces. It is the largest inland fort built by the United States during the Civil War. The fort was built mostly by free, enslaved and conscripted African Americans. The land reverted to forest after World War II and the fort is now being recreated although it never played a leading military role.

Fort Negley allowed visitors to hunt for fossils in material brought to the site for that purpose.

We drove about 30 miles southeast to Murfreesboro and visited Stones River National Battlefield where almost 24,000 Union and Confederate soldiers were killed, wounded or captured December 31, 1862.

A reenactor talked about how Union improvements in communication, weaponry, and supply systems gave it the edge in defeating the Confederacy.

Other reenactors fired cannons as well as muzzle-loaded and breech-loaded rifles.

The Hazen Brigade Monument was built in 1863 to honor Col. William Hazen’s Brigade who were the only Union soldiers who didn’t retreat during the first day of fighting at Stones River. It is the oldest intact Civil War monument in the nation.

Jane enjoys visiting places commemorated in song (Luckenbach, Texas, for example) or song-writing history so our excursions in the Nashville area took us to two places. The first was west Nashville in general. Jane expected, based on a Jimmy Buffet song called “West Nashville Grand Ballroom Gown” [lyrics https://genius.com/Jimmy-buffett-west-nashville-grand-ballroom-gown-lyrics ], to see large Southern homes with grand lawns. Instead we saw a mural, a diner, a marina, a state prison, and a non-profit cultural institution.

Australian Guido van Helton painted a portrait of local resident Lee Estes on an abandoned grain silo.

The sculptures on display at OZ Arts weren’t labeled, but we liked these.

We completed an Adventure Lab about Nashville Row. Jane thought it would be neat to find out where some of her favorite songwriters and performers worked. She didn’t learn where Boudleau Bryant had written “Rocky Top”, but she and Dave did tromp around past lots of music recording studios.

Dave with guitars representing Elvis Presley and Roy Orbison on Music Row.

Our campground in Nashville was around the corner from Gaylord Opryland Resort (Opryland the theme park closed in 1997). Room rates start at about $400 a night and parking, after the first 20 minutes, is $33. We dashed in, saw as much of the nine acres of atriums as we could, snapped a handful of pictures, and dashed back to the car and out of the lot before being charged to park. Whew!

Published by Jane Appel on June 19, 2022

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