Battle of Nashville: Franklin Pike

When the Confederate left broke on December 16, 1864, Stephen D. Lee pulled his corps back to the Overton Hills and held off encirclement. Hood's army retreated south by the Franklin Pike and a gap in the hills through the Otter Creek bottom, with Lee's men covering the withdrawal. On December 17 and 18 Union cavalry led the pursuit down the pike, and Wilson hurt a rearguard division before stopping for lack of supplies. The army's retreat did not end until it reached Tupelo, Mississippi.

What the plaque says

Battle of Nashville Here, Stephen D. Lee's Corps, Army of Tennessee, bestrode the highway and railroad. Cheatham's Corps held the right of the line, which ran northeast about 2 miles to Rain's Hill. After the Confederate left was broken in the afternoon's fighting, Lee's Corps fell back to high ground about 1 1/2 miles south.

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 — 3.4 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.
• Ryman Auditorium — 3.4 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.
• Civil Rights Room at the Nashville Public Library — 3.5 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.

More markers nearby

• Homes of David Lipscomb — 1.3 mi
• Cheatham's Line — 1.5 mi
• Confederate Defenses — 1.7 mi
• Ward- Belmont College — 2.0 mi