Fort Defiance began as Fort Sevier, built in late 1861 by Confederate troops with the forced labor of more than 300 African Americans, to guard the Red and Cumberland Rivers at Clarksville. The Confederates abandoned it in February 1862 after Union victories at nearby Forts Henry and Donelson. The Union army then enlarged the earthwork, held it for the rest of the war and renamed it Fort Defiance; for a time it was also called Fort Bruce, a name that did not last.
Under Union control the fort became a refuge for Black people from across Tennessee and the South. It served as a contraband camp where people who had escaped slavery found protection, and as a recruiting center for Black soldiers, although Confederate guerrillas worked to stop enlistment. The 101st U.S. Colored Infantry guarded the camp's community. Descendants of that camp still live in Clarksville, and a monument to the U.S. Colored Troops, unveiled in 2022 through the fundraising of the Mt. Olive Cemetery Historical Preservation Society, stands in the park.
The fort sits atop a bluff about 200 feet above the two rivers, one of the few intact earthwork forts in the country, with a view of downtown Clarksville. The city dedicated an interpretive center in 2011 on land donated in the 1980s by retired Judge Sam Boaz. Sevier Station, Montgomery County's oldest standing structure, is around the corner.
The closest stops worth working into your route
Roadside plaques and monuments within a short detour