Fort Design

Fort Negley was a complex multi-tiered defensive fortification built to protect the southeastern approach to the city and to withstand lengthy sieges and massive assaults on all four fronts. Its historical design followed fortification principles traced to the seventeenth-century French military engineer Sebastien le Prestre de Vauban. The first line of defense was the outer works, made up of eight V-shaped redans and a double bastion front, from which Union artillery and rifles delivered direct and cross fire. The second line of defense, the inner main works, stood elevated above the outer works and held heavier artillery such as siege guns and howitzers, while bombproof casemates protected the ground along the eastern and southern slopes. At the center stood a twelve-foot-high wooden stockade, the last line of defense if the outer and main works were overrun, with elevated rifle turrets at each corner, salient angles on all four exterior sides for enfilade fire, two cisterns for water, and trees used as signal stations and observation towers. Reinforced artillery positions, wooden platforms for heavy cannon, bombproof bastions with protected tunnels, and a casemate armed with a 30-pound Parrott rifle added to the fort's strength. This formidable design was never seriously challenged during the war.

Nashville-Davidson metropolitan government (balance), Tennessee · United States