Nashville Blacks in the Civil War

About 20,133 Black Union soldiers served in United States Colored Troops units raised in Tennessee, and another 3,000 in the Home Guards militia. The Union began recruiting and organizing Black soldiers in the spring of 1863. Black men and women also served as teamsters, laborers, cooks and hospital workers. Nearly 13,000 USCT soldiers took part in the Battle of Nashville in December 1864. Nashville National Cemetery holds 1,909 graves marked USCT, while Memphis has 4,208, and the markers mean those men are remembered by their regiments.

What the plaque says

Nashville Blacks in the Civil War From October - December 1862, on this hill, black laborers helped the Union Army build Fort Negley. In November, blacks helped defend the unfinished fort against Confederate attack. During the Battle of Nashville (December 1864), nearly 13,000 black soldiers aided in the defeat of the Confederates. By 1865, blacks had assisted the Union Army in building 23 fortifications around Nashville.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Fort Negley — steps away
  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 — 1.1 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 — 1.1 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 — 1.2 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

• William Carroll — 0.4 mi
• City Cemetery — 0.5 mi
• Immaculate Mother Academy — 0.5 mi
• Frank Maxwell Andrews — 0.6 mi