City Cemetery and Rail Lines

Looking to your right at the bottom of the hill you can see the edge of the Nashville City Cemetery. The city purchased the land in 1820 and the cemetery opened in 1822 in what was then a "suburban" area outside of downtown. By the 1850s, however, City Cemetery was no longer “suburban,” rather, it was surrounded by train tracks, depots, and homes in the sprawling city. As Nashville grew so did the City Cemetery, which expanded from four acres to twenty-seven acres by the 1850s. By the 1850s, over 11,000 people were buried there. 

As a key city in the South for the Union Army, Nashville was a hospital hub for injured soldiers. For example, after the Battle of Shiloh in 1862, Nashville’s hospitals cared for over 14,000 soldiers, with 60 to 100 dying each day. Such carnage placed additional pressures on City Cemetery. Due to a lack of space, many were buried outside of the cemetery and many of the soldiers were temporarily buried in shallow graves south and west of Fort Negley between the St. Cloud Hill and the City Cemetery. Some of these graves were near the railroad tracks and possibly under Greer Stadium and the surrounding parking lots. Over the course of the Civil War, it is estimated that over 30,000 Union and Confederate soldiers, as well as white civilians and African Americans were buried around the City Cemetery.

Though Nashville was overwhelmed with the sheer number of deaths during the 1860s, officials attempted to properly bury the deceased. However, their efforts often did not extend to African Americans who died during this era. James Redpath, an abolitionist and correspondent for the New York Tribune, wrote to Governor Andrew Johnson on August 3, 1864: “[T]he corpses of Loyal Southern soldiers are — it seems deliberately — treated with disrespect in being refused a decent and equal burial with their comrades there…. These soldiers, who are now buried apart, at the foot of the hill, in the wet and slimy soil, were of African descent.” Visit the City Cemetery to learn about the nearly 21,000 people still buried there. 

Continue along the path about one hundred feet. Stop at the next large informational panel on your right.