Military
18
Atop St. Cloud Hill, Fort Negley was built in late 1862 as part of a complex system of defensive fortifications designed to protect the Union garrison in Nashville from Confederate attack during the Civil War. Using the labor of slaves and free blacks, the army built the largest inland masonry fortification in North America, comprised of more than 60,000 cubic feet of stone. Fort Negley was never directly challenged throughout the war, including during the 1864 Battle of Nashville. In the 1930s, the Works Progress Administration, a New Deal program, recreated the fort. The stone arch entrance in the plaza and the decaying dry-stack limestone walls atop the hill are all Works Progress Administration construction. Today, the ruins of Fort Negley remain as an open-air museum and are recognized in the National Register of Historic Places for their significance as both a Civil War fort and a Works Progress Administration project.
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Nashville-Davidson metropolitan government (balance), Tennessee · United States
