Confederate Defenses

Granny White Pike became the road that closed the battle. On the afternoon of December 16, 1864, Union infantry rolled up the Confederate left from west to east, and Wilson's cavalry blocked this pike behind it. One Union brigade entered the Confederate lines east of the pike with a large body of skirmishers. Hood's army escaped south by the Franklin Pike and a gap in the Overton Hills, while Rucker's Confederate cavalry covered the Granny White Pike that night in a rainy melee in the dark.

What the plaque says

Confederate Defenses After being outflanked by the advance of the Federal XVI Corps (Smith), Loring and Walthall put their divisions in a defensive line west of this road, facing westward. Here, their determined defense brought Federal advances against the Confederate left to a close for the day.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Fort Negley — 3.4 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 — 4.3 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 — 4.3 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 — 4.3 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 — 0.4 mi
• Battle of Nashville: Redoubt No. 3 — 0.9 mi
• Battle of Nashville: Redoubt No. 4 — 1.0 mi
• Battle of Nashville: Redoubt No. 5 — 1.5 mi