Old Harpeth River Bridge

Authorized on July 5, 1819, the Harpeth River bridge at Franklin was a large enclosed double covered bridge with a partition along its middle course and two open windows on each side. For the next 42 years, it linked Franklin with residents to the north and with Nashville. In early 1862, Confederate soldiers retreating south after the fall of Fort Donelson crossed it, and later Gen. Don Carlos Buell’s 20,000 troops marched across on their way to the Battle of Shiloh. Late in 1862, just before Federal forces occupied Franklin and built Fort Granger, Confederate cavalry burned the bridge. During the Federal occupation, soldiers used a pontoon bridge and another temporary bridge built on piles. On Nov. 30, 1864, the remains of the demolished bridge and a burned temporary bridge blocked Gen. John Schofield’s Federal army, forcing it to lay planks across the railroad bridge and build another bridge a few inches above the water on the piles of the burned temporary bridge before moving toward Nashville. During the Confederate retreat after the Battle of Nashville in Dec. 1864, troops forded the river near the empty bridge abutments while trying to escape pursuing Federals, and the frantic crossing trampled at least one soldier into the mud as Bledsoe’s Confederate Artillery Battery fired from along 1st Ave. near the old bridge entrance ramp into the advancing Federal cavalry.

Franklin, Tennessee · United States