Booknotes: Fortress Nashville

New Arrival:
• Fortress Nashville: Pioneers, Engineers, Mechanics, Contrabands & U.S. Colored Troops by Mark Zimmerman (Author-Zimco Pub, 2022).

Books often refer to Civil War Washington as being the most fortified city in the western hemisphere during that period of time, but Nashville wasn't far behind in hosting a massive complex of forts that served as both protection and major deterrent. Secured from attack, the Tennessee state capital was the primary forward base of the Army of the Cumberland, but the city's role also expanded into becoming a critical supply and logistical center for the Union Army's entire western theater war effort.

Mark Zimmerman's Fortress Nashville: Pioneers, Engineers, Mechanics, Contrabands & U.S. Colored Troops "explores every facet of the Federal infrastructure built in Nashville and Middle Tennessee so that armies under Grant, Thomas, and Sherman could capture Chattanooga and Atlanta and march to the sea. Topics explored include the Pioneer Brigade, the First Michigan Engineers, U.S. Military Railroads, fortification technology and design, military hospitals, army depots and garrison towns, and the Confederate river forts and fortifications associated with the epic Battle of Nashville. A 40-page section explores the building and design of Fort Negley, an iconic stone fortress that survived periods of neglect only to become one of the major Civil War and Civil Rights attractions of the South."

Like many other administrative centers across the occupied South, Nashville also became a locus of emancipation and army enlistment. More from the description: "A unique fort of star-bastion design, Fort Negley became the symbol of hope for enslaved persons as it provided protection, opportunity, and freedom. As the war progressed, African-American men became laborers and then soldiers for the Federal Army, which transformed pro-Confederate Nashville into a massive military base."

Jam packed with maps, line drawings, charts, photographs (both period and modern), and artwork to go along with Zimmerman's detailed text, I don't know of any other single volume that includes this much information about the Nashville fortifications and their role in the war. The material isn't annotated, but the author does include a source discussion and bibliography. The volume looks like a promising addition to the home reference library that might be placed alongside something like B.F. Cooling's Mr. Lincoln's Forts.