Battle of Nashville: 21st Avenue South

The Union army was ready to fight weeks before it did. An ice storm struck Nashville on December 8, 1864, and freezing weather lasted through December 12. When Thomas still had not moved by December 13, Grant told Maj. Gen. John A. Logan to take command if Thomas had not begun when Logan arrived; Logan reached Louisville on December 15, the day the battle opened. Grant himself left Petersburg on December 14 and got as far as Washington. Lincoln reportedly compared the delay to the do-nothing strategy of McClellan and Rosecrans.

What the plaque says

Battle of Nashville Here the outer Federal Defensive line, which stretched 7 mi. around the city, crossed Hillsboro Pike. It was used at the commencement of the battle on Dec. 15 by Wood's IV Corps as a line of departure for the main attack. Faint traces of the old entrenchments are visible a few yards west.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Fort Negley — 1.8 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 — 2.4 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 — 2.4 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 — 2.4 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

• Hillsboro Theatre — 0.4 mi
• Belcourt Theatre Est. 1925 — 0.4 mi
• Ward- Belmont College — 0.5 mi
• Assault on Montgomery Hill — 0.6 mi