The other side of the monument: memory, preservation, and the Battles of Franklin and Nashville

Abstract

The thriving areas of development around the cities of Franklin and Nashville in Tennessee bear little evidence of the large battles that took place there during November and December, 1864. Pointing to modern development to explain the failed preservation of those battlefields, however, radically oversimplifies how those battlefields became relatively obscure. Instead, the major factor contributing to the lack of preservation of the Franklin and Nashville battlefields was a fractured collective memory of the two events; there was no unified narrative of the battles. For an extended period after the war, there was little effort to remember the Tennessee Campaign. Local citizens and veterans of the battles simply wanted to forget the horrific battles that haunted their memories. Furthermore, the United States government was not interested in saving the battlefields at Franklin and Nashville. Federal authorities, including the War Department and Congress, had grown tired of funding battlefields as national parks and could not be convinced that the two battlefields were worthy of preservation. Moreover, Southerners and Northerners remembered Franklin and Nashville in different ways, and historians mainly stressed Eastern Theater battles, failing to assign much significance to Franklin and Nashville. Throughout the 20th century, infrastructure development encroached on the battlefields and they continued to fade from public memory. By the end of the century, the battlefields were all but gone. However, to support tourism in the 21st century, Franklin’s preservationists and local leaders largely succeeded in recapturing the memory of their battle by reclaiming much of the battlefield space. In contrast, at Nashville, memory of that battle remains obscure. The city continues to focus its efforts on the future, providing little opportunity to reclaim either the battlefield or memory of the Battle of Nashville.