Assault on Montgomery Hill

Hood meant his line to run along Montgomery Hill, north of Brown's Creek, but the hill was exposed to fire from Nashville's forts, so the Confederates drew back to stronger ground south of the creek and left only a thin skirmish line on it. On December 15, 1864, the Union IV Corps climbed the hill deliberately, found little opposition and stopped to reorganize before moving on the main Confederate line. Colonel Sylvester Hill's brigade of the XVI Corps was also fighting for the hill when artillery fire killed him.

What the plaque says

Assault on Montgomery Hill 500 yards east of here, Maj. Gen. T. J. Wood led an assault by his IV Corps against the Confederate skirmish line on the hill, eventually carrying it. Attacking the main line about 600 yards south, Wood was unable to take it by direct assault, the divisions of Loring and Walthall holding fast until the XVI Corps, moving past their left, forced withdrawal.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Fort Negley — 2.3 mi
  The largest inland stone fort of the Civil War, built in 1862 on St. Cloud Hill by more than 2,700 conscripted Black laborers, hundreds of whom died.
• National Museum of African American Music — 2.9 mi
  A downtown Nashville museum, opened in 2021, tracing gospel, blues, jazz, rhythm and blues and hip-hop through Black history from 1619 to 2016.
• Civil Rights Room at the Nashville Public Library — 2.9 mi
  A room in the downtown library with a circular lunch counter, a timeline and oral histories of the 1960 Nashville sit-ins, a few blocks from the stores where they began.
• Ryman Auditorium — 3.0 mi
  The 1892 brick tabernacle in downtown Nashville that was the Grand Ole Opry's home from 1943 to 1974, now a National Historic Landmark and working concert hall.

More markers nearby

• Battle of Nashville: 21st Avenue South — 0.6 mi
• Hillsboro Theatre — 0.9 mi
• Belcourt Theatre Est. 1925 — 0.9 mi
• Ward- Belmont College — 1.0 mi