The Battle of Nashville Monument was commissioned by the Ladies Battlefield Association under Mrs. James E. Caldwell and created by Giuseppe Moretti. Dedicated on Armistice Day in 1927 on Franklin Road near Woodmont Boulevard, it was conceived as a memorial to both Union and Confederate forces who clashed here on December 15-16, 1864. Moretti represented the North and South as two charging horses divided by a wall of antagonism, then halted and quieted into teamwork by a youth embodying the Spirit of Unity, with an angel of peace protecting the group at the summit. Nationally significant as the first memorial in the country erected in memory of the heroes of both North and South, it stood as a symbol of national unity. A 1974 tornado destroyed the statue's 30-foot carrara marble obelisk and angel at its original location, and in the 1980s construction of an interstate interchange left the surviving bronze figures isolated on a bluff behind a chain-link fence. In 1992 the Tennessee Commission selected a new site on Granny White Pike and secured support for complete restoration. Both Union and Confederate soldiers had fought over this ground during the Battle of Nashville. The restored monument includes a new carved stone and obelisk of white granite from Elberton, Georgia, preserved and refurbished bronze figures from Moretti's original work facing due east as he intended, and a six-foot angel carved by local sculptor Coley Coleman. The Tennessee Historical Commission officially rededicated it to peace on June 26, 1999.
