On Saturday, I went over to Fort Negley to hear Dr. Thavolia Glymph speak about what freedom meant for Black people in Nashville during the Civil War. I’m oversimplifying some with that description, but it was fascinating. And exciting! Dr. Glymph is legendary. For historians, this is the equivalent of a home renovator having Bob Villa stop by to tell him he’s doing a good job. Or Babe Ruth showing up to your baseball game to give you some pointers and tell you you’ve got a nice swing. Or if you’re massively defrauding your state and harming the poor people in it and Brett Favre stops by to give you an attaboy.
The incoming president of the American Historical Association came by our little ol' fort to talk about the experiences of the people at Fort Negley during the Civil War? Holy shit! The fact that this is just a thing that can happen on a Saturday afternoon in Nashville, and it’s just one of many interesting things, delights me so much.
One of the points Dr. Glymph made was that, while whites dithered and continue to dither about why the Civil War was fought, Black people made it about slavery. They changed the discourse and the focus of the war for whites in the North. In other words, in 1861 President Lincoln was all: “I declare that ‘I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I beheve I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so.’” And some number of white people were like “See? We’re not fighting about slavery.” Meanwhile, South Carolina is throwing up deuces and hollering, “A geographical line has been drawn across the Union, and all the States north of that line have united in the election of a man to the high office of President of the United States, whose opinions and purposes are hostile to slavery” as they walk out of the Union.
But a lot of white people were still like “We’re fighting to keep the Union together” until hundreds of thousands of Black refugees started pouring into Union-held territory. Dr. Glymph talked about how this made plain what was at stake. And when some refugees joined the Union Army, they were doing so to ensure their freedom and freedom for their families. When you think of it this way, any arguments about why the war was fought that disregard slavery are disregarding the testimony and experiences of the Black people who fought in the war.
Dr. Glymph spoke a long time about how difficult life was for the refugees here in Nashville, and how precarious. This is something I’m glad to see Fort Negley trying to reckon with — that leaving enslavement and coming to Nashville was trading one set of impossible circumstances for another. And that all along the way, the people whose job it was to protect the refugees exploited them for their own gain. There were far fewer good people in positions of power than we would've wished. That may still be the case.
It put me in mind of local scoundrel Leander Woods again. When I wrote about him for the Post back in the day, I didn’t really know what to make of his behavior after the Civil War. A man who fought for freedom, who organized a militia to protect his neighborhood, and who may have been a preacher running around stealing people’s pensions?
But hearing Dr. Glymph recount all the ways the Union officers who were supposed to be aiding the refugees instead stole from them and left them unable to fend for themselves — it makes me wonder if Leander's experience showed him that federal money dedicated to Black people rarely ever actually made it to Black people. And therefore, if he could get that money for himself, at least it was going to a Black person, if not the right one.
If a con man says he’s going to give you $50 that he never actually intends to give you if you, and a pickpocket comes by and steals the $50 from the con man, did the pickpocket actually deprive you of $50? Or did the pickpocket actually deal out a little cosmic justice, since the conman is now $50 lighter? I don’t know, but I feel like I have a little better understanding of Leander Woods now thanks to the context Dr. Glymph provided. Which is another lovely thing about being interested in history — there's always going to be something new that casts what you know in a different light.
It’s really gratifying to see that play out in real time at Fort Negley too. When I think back about what we thought we knew about the fort and the people who built it back when the city was trying to put a neighborhood on top of it, it was so little compared to what we have now. I mean, the maps that show clearly where the Catholic Cemetery was weren’t available back then. Like, just a basic fact about the landscape wasn’t yet known.
And now we know the names of the people who worked on fortifying Nashville. In some cases, we know how they tie into the rest of Nashville history — like William Edmondson’s dad having been at Fort Negley. And there’s more to unearth. What an exciting time to be a history buff in Nashville!
