Tennessee Timeline and Baseball in the Civil War

Bicentennial Capitol Mall State Park is located below the Tennessee State Capitol building on the northwest side. It was opened on June 1, 1996, to commemorate the 200th anniversary of Tennessee’s statehood and was designed by Tuck Hinton Architects. This 19-acre plaza tells the story of the state's history through a timeline, gardens, and water features. We encourage you to check out the entire park, but for this tour’s purposes we will focus on key events in the state’s history during the Civil War and the rise of baseball in the 1860s.

As you walk along the timeline, carved in granite along the left side promenade, take note of early events in Tennessee history. Approximately halfway down the mall, you will see events in the timeline associated with the Civil War. For example, one panel reads,“Governor Isham Harris issued a proclamation dissolving all connection with the Federal Union on June 24, 1861, and Tennessee, the last state to join the Confederacy, entered the Civil War which began on April 12.” You will notice several breaks in the otherwise contiguous wall. This symbolizes the divisions within the state and the nation during the Civil War. More white Tennesseans in Memphis favored the war because of a larger slave population, while many in Nashville and Knoxville were neutral or opposed.

Pass the marker that reads “North and South,” turn RIGHT, and follow the sidewalk to the middle of the park. On your right, there is a panel that talks about something not often associated with the Civil War—baseball. Baseball was introduced in Nashville through exhibition games by teams from the North in 1857 and again in 1860, according to sports historian Bill Traughber. But in a strange twist, it was the Civil War that popularized “America’s past time” as Union soldiers used baseball as a leisurely distraction from the boredom of camp and the horror of battle.

After the Union’s occupation of Nashville in 1862, Union soldiers, Confederate prisoners, and local civilians used a local public sports field located very near here and fashioned it into a baseball diamond with stands for spectators. The field was located beside a sulphur spring in this low-lying area on the edge of downtown. The spring, called French Lick and later Sulphur Dell, had long attracted people to gather and drink the water—believing it to hold natural medicinal purposes.

In 1870, the baseball diamond was enlarged and renamed Athletic Park. In 1885, the park became the home of Nashville's first professional baseball team. Just twenty years after the end of the Civil War,notably the team was not named the Yankees or the Rebels but rather the Americans. Two other interesting facts: The stadium at Sulphur Dell was torn down in 1969, but baseball returned to downtown Nashville when the Nashville Sounds moved to First Tennessee Park in 2015. Also, what happened to the sulphur springs? They still run underground but have been capped and buried. 

Walk back to Seventh Avenue and turn RIGHT. Feel free to stop in at the Farmer’s Market for a quick bite to eat or drink before continuing on to the final stop, the State Museum, on your left.