Nashville: The Occupied City, 1862-1863
Illustrated, index, maps, 307 pp., 2008 reprint with new preface. The University of Tennessee Press, 110 Conference Center, 600 Henley St., Knoxville, TN 37996-4108, $45 plus shipping. In April 1863, Nashville resident and Confederate sympathizer Rachel Carter Craighead confided to her diary that she was less than pleased with the Yankee soldiers who had occupied her city for more than a year: “I pray to God that all the sin may rest on the heads of our enemies. . . I beseech you to deliver us from the hand of a cruel, unjust and wicked enemy.” Such fascinating details abound in Walter T. Durham’s fine study of Nashville during the Civil War. Durham’s book is a splendid example of how local history can be incorporated into larger themes to produce a highly readable and interesting narrative. In order to update the original edition of his work, Durham has included a new preface examining the related scholarship that has been published since 1985. Nashville’s ordeal began in February 1862. After the surrender of Fort Donelson, Confederate commanders opted not to defend the city, and Nashville became the first Southern capital to fall to Union forces. The city became vitally important to the Federals as a supply base from which to support further drives into the South, and, to Tennessee Unionists like Governor Andrew Johnson, a symbolic place to begin the process of “reconstructing” the state. This first volume of a two-volume set covers practically every imaginable topic: the city’s vast hospital network for treatment of the sick and wounded; spying and smuggling by rebel sympathizers, and the efforts of the Union detective police to stop them; the plight of refugees, slaves and freedmen; relations between loyal and secessionist civilians, Union commanders and ordinary soldiers in the city; and Governor Johnson’s constant efforts to “persuade” the disloyal to return to the fold. To this reviewer, the most interesting sections concern the tenuous hold the Federals enjoyed on Nashville through much of 1862 and into early 1863. Although the Confederate siege of the city was more psychological than actual, Southern troops under Nathan Bedford Forrest, Joseph Wheeler and John Hunt Morgan made frequent forays near the city, cut Union supply lines and generally raised havoc, buoying the hopes of Southern sympathizers and making Federal officers more than a little nervous. By the middle of 1863, weary Federal soldiers, Tennessee Unionists and Confederate civilians looked forward to the return of peace and the end of “poor old” Nashville’s troubles. That long-awaited event was still nearly two years in the future, however — only after more hardships and a desperate and costly attempt by the Confederacy to reclaim Tennessee’s capital. If the concluding volume is anything like this one, I look forward to another very satisfying read and worthy addition to my library. Revewer: Jeff Patrick is an interpretive specialist with the National Park Service at Wilson’s Creek National Battlefield in Republic, Mo. He holds B.A. and M.A. degrees in American history from Purdue University.
|
