Military Occupation of Nashville: Ecological Effects in ... · Poquosin: A Study of Rural Landscape & Society, and Mart A. Stewart’s "What Nature Suffers to Groe": Life, Labor,

Research Prospectus

Military Occupation of Nashville: Ecological Effects in Middle Tennessee (working title)

Prepared for:

History 7104: Seminar: Topics in American History (American Environmental History) Professor Lynn Nelson, Ph.D.

Middle Tennessee State University

Prepared by:

Zada Law May 6, 2010

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Military Occupation of Nashville: Ecological Effects in Middle Tennessee (working title)

As I write this introduction, my husband is relaying a status report on the floodwater

rising on the section of our property that sits above the one hundred year floodplain of the

Cumberland River, eighteen miles downstream from Nashville, Tennessee. The water is knee-

deep and has an obvious oil slick. The outside air smells of gasoline from the storage tank that

has burst at the county’s garage a quarter-mile upstream. And the fast-moving Cumberland

current is accompanied by the urgent chop-chop-chop of helicopters overhead. While our

personal impact is slight, the cumulative impacts of this epic environmental event will have a

variety of ecological effects in Middle Tennessee, changing both land use patterns and plant and

animal communities for years to come. The Flood of 2010 will also shape the prospects of

Tennessee’s economic, social, and political domains.

If environmental events can have consequences in the non-environmental realms, is the

reverse true? Are economic, social, or political events reflected in the natural environment or on

the landscape? Of course. And one hundred and fifty years ago, one such epic event put its

mark on the American landscape as well as on politics and society. The Civil War left lines of

open entrenchments through fields and explosion craters pocking the ground surfaces.

Woodlots were either cut down or blown into splinters. Horse and mule populations were

decimated in the line of military service; and fences and fields were destroyed by troop

movements, fighting, or scavenging. Books such as Charles Royster’s The Destructive War:

William Tecumseh Sherman, Stonewall Jackson, and the Americans describe the intentionally

devastating tactics of Union leaders.1 But standard historical treatments of the War emphasize

1 Charles Royster, The Destructive War: William Tecumseh Sherman, Stonewall Jackson, and the Americans, 1st ed. (New York: Knopf : Random House [distributor], 1991).

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the social consequences of destruction over consideration of detailed environmental aftermaths.

Although a vast amount of board feet in libraries is dedicated to Civil War history, the young

field of environmental history has yet to embrace the subject.2 Even when an explicitly

environmental approach is applied to the Civil War, these works have either looked at the War

as a whole or examined its consequences in larger, longitudinal ecological histories of specific

places.3 Or, the lens has been reversed to examine how the natural terrain and nineteenth

century views of nature affected strategic planning and the outcome of particular conflicts in

specific regional campaigns.4

If nature shaped military strategy and outcomes in specific areas, the corollary is that

military tactics also affected the environmental trajectory of a region in ways that may be

unique to that area. But this scope of inquiry has not been addressed by either military or

environmental history. I propose to begin to fill this lacuna through a research study that

examines the regional ecological effects of the military strategy used by the Union Army in the

Western Theater. Specifically, this research would assess the environmental changes in Middle

Tennessee from resulting from the occupation of Nashville as a military headquarters

2 Jack Temple Kirby, "The American Civil War: An Environmental View", National Humanities Center http://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/tserve/nattrans/ntuseland/essays/amcwar.htm (accessed Feb. 5, 2010).

3 For example, environmental historians Lisa M. Brady and Jack Temple Kirby have written eloquent descriptions of the overall ravages of the Civil War on the environment. Lisa M. Brady, "The Wilderness of War: Nature and Strategy in the American Civil War," Environmental History 10, no. 3 (2005); Kirby, "The American Civil War: An Environmental View"; Jack Temple Kirby, Mockingbird Song: Ecological Landscapes of the South (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2006), 128-132. Albert Cowdrey’s This Land, This South: An Environmental History, Kirby’s Poquosin: A Study of Rural Landscape & Society, and Mart A. Stewart’s "What Nature Suffers to Groe": Life, Labor, and Landscape on the Georgia Coast, 1680-1920 approach the environmental effects of the Civil War as one slice of the environmental history of a specific area. Albert E. Cowdrey, This Land, This South: An Environmental History, New Perspectives on the South (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1983); Jack Temple Kirby, Poquosin: A Study of Rural Landscape & Society, Studies in Rural Culture (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1995); Mart A. Stewart, "What Nature Suffers to Groe": Life, Labor, and Landscape on the Georgia Coast, 1680-1920., Wormsloe Foundation Publications (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1996).

4 Lisa M. Brady, “War Upon the Land: Nature and Warfare in the American Civil War” (Dissertation, University of Kansas, 2003); Brady, "The Wilderness of War."

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throughout most of the Civil War. I propose to limit the temporal and areal boundaries of this

research to the same decade, 1860 to 1870, and the same thirteen counties examined by Stephen

V. Ash in Middle Tennessee Society Transformed, 1860-1870: War and Peace in the Upper South.5 An

environmental history of the effects of the occupation in Middle Tennessee is designed to

augment Ash’s social history of the same region. The counties in the proposed study also fall

within the boundaries of Middle Tennessee examined by Kristofer Ray in Middle Tennessee,

1775-1825: Progress and Popular Democracy on the Southwestern Frontier. The use of comparable

study areas may contribute to a comprehensive, longitudinal environmental history of Middle

Tennessee.6 An annotated bibliography for this research accompanies this proposal, and the

specific research questions and methods are addressed below.

Established in 1843 as the state capital, Nashville had become a thriving cultural,

political, mercantile, and manufacturing city by the time of Tennessee’s secession in 1861 and

the onset of the Civil War.7 Situated on the Cumberland River in Middle Tennessee, Nashville’s

manufacturing capacity, river trade, and overland transportation network of turnpikes and rail

lines made the city a logical location in the Western Theater for a Confederate arsenal, armory,

and military hospital center.8 Recognizing the strategic importance of Nashville and believing it

to be inadequately defended, the Union Army quickly moved on the city after the fall of Fort

5 Ash defined the counties of the “Middle Tennessee Heartland” as Bedford, Cheatham, Davidson, Giles, Lincoln, Marshall, Maury, Montgomery, Robertson, Rutherford, Sumner, Wilson, and Williamson. Stephen V. Ash, Middle Tennessee Society Transformed, 1860-1870: War and Peace in the Upper South (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1988), 3.

6 Kristofer Ray, Middle Tennessee, 1775-1825: Progress and Popular Democracy on the Southwestern Frontier, 1st ed. (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2007), xxv-xxvii.

7 Walter T. Durham, Nashville, the Occupied City: 1862-1863, 1st ed. (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2008), 3-6.

8 Durham, Nashville, the Occupied City, 4.

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Donelson.9 On the morning of February 25, 1862, the mayor of Nashville, R. B. Cheatham,

peacefully surrendered the city of Nashville to Union General Don Carlos Buell rather than

have the city be burned or destroyed. By that evening, an estimated ten thousand Union

soldiers were encamped in Nashville. 10 They did not leave Nashville until after the War’s end,

giving Middle Tennessee the distinction of the being the longest-occupied Southern region with

the exception of northern Virginia.11

In March 1862, Senator Andrew Johnson was appointed Military Governor of Tennessee

and almost immediately began to pressure Secretary of War Edward Stanton to fortify

Nashville. Johnson’s request was answered in the late summer of 1862 as General Buell pulled

out of Nashville to go to Shiloh.12 Buell realized that the city would be undermanned and on

August 6, 1862 ordered Captain James St. Clair Morton, “go at once to Nashville and select sites

and give plans and instructions for redoubts to protect the city.”13 Morton commanded the

Pioneer Brigade, which moved in advance of the army preparing or repairing bridges, railroads,

roads, and fortifications.14 Buell’s communiqué to Morton also included the instructions that the

fortifications in Nashville “be practical and as simple as possible in the beginning, so that they

can be constructed with the greatest promptness and occupied immediately by a small force.”15

9 Walter T. Durham, Reluctant Partners: Nashville and the Union, 1863-1865, 1st ed. (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2008), xxi.

10 Durham, Nashville, the Occupied City, 1-3.

11 Ash, Middle Tennessee Society Transformed, 85.

12 Bobby L. Lovett, "Nashville's Fort Negley: A Symbol of Blacks' Involvement with the Union Army," Tennessee Historical Quarterly 41, no. 1 (1982): 3-4; Allan Reed Millett and Peter Maslowski, For the Common Defense: A Military History of the United States of America (New York, London: Free Press; Collier Macmillan, 1984), 177.

13 United States War Department and Robert N. Scott, The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, Series 1, Vol. 16, Pt. 2 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1884), 268.

14 Lovett, "Nashville's Fort Negley," 7.

15 United States War Department and Scott, The War of the Rebellion, 268.

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Morton’s defensive system for Nashville included three large forts: Negley, Morton, and

Houston. Supporting the fortifications were defensive lines including earthworks and “an

intrenched and stockaded capital.”16 From 1862 until he was reassigned to Washington in

January 1864, Morton supervised construction of defensive works in Nashville totaling over

$365,000.17 With Morton’s reassignment, General Z. B. Tower was put in charge of Nashville’s

defensive construction and observed, “For so important a place, held so long by our troops, the

Nashville defenses certainly were not pushed forward as much as they should have been.18

General Tower reasoned, “the forts planned were entirely too large to be speedily built.” 19 By

the time Tower wrote this report in October 1864, the construction of Fort Negley was

essentially finished, so Tower attempted to expedite the completion of Nashville’s defensive

system by scaling down Forts Morton and Houston and pushing to complete them.20 Yet even

prior to completion, the fortifications must have been an impressive and even daunting sight

with their dry stacked limestone facades visible for miles. George W. Squier, a volunteer in the

44th Indiana, wrote a letter in late November 1862 describing how he could see the three newly

constructed forts atop the hills ringing the downtown while camping two miles southeast of

Nashville. 21 Not only were the forts situated high enough to be visible from that distance,

Squier’s observation suggests that visual obstructions such as trees had been removed.






21 George W. Squier and others, This Wilderness of War: The Civil War Letters of George W. Squier, Hoosier Volunteer, 1st ed., Voices of the Civil War (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1998), 23.

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Research Question 1

Civil War enthusiasts often comment that the physiographic features of Nashville

factored into the selection of Nashville as the Union’s military headquarters in the Western

Theater. Scholars have addressed the theme of nature influencing military strategies and tactics

through terrain and weather analyses at both the general and case study levels.22 These studies

show that while war has effects on nature, nature also affects how warfare is waged. An

environmental history of Middle Tennessee’s occupation by the Union Army must address the

importance of Nashville’s terrain in the city’s selection as a military center. Did engineers note

that the ring of hills around the downtown offered numerous defensive opportunities? How

did Nashville’s land, water, and rail transportation network figure into the choice? Or was the

choice guided by the writings of West Point fortification instructor, Dennis Hart Mahan?23 The

primary evidence to document Nashville’s selection may be written in the Official Records,

residing in military map annotations, or detected through a nuanced reading of the physical

features that surveyors spotlighted on topographic maps.

Tied into the previous question is whether the physiographic features that characterize

Nashville affected how well the Union Army maintained control of the city throughout the war.

A wartime photograph of Fort Negley on display at the Fort Negley Historical Park shows guns

22 For example, Brady, “War Upon the Land”; Brady, "The Wilderness of War."; Richard P. Tucker and Edmund Russell, Natural Enemy, Natural Ally: Toward an Environmental History of Warfare, 1st ed. (Corvallis: Oregon State University Press, 2004); Harold A. Winters, Battling the Elements: Weather and Terrain in the Conduct of War (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998).

23 Mahan wrote a number of instruction manuals on positioning and constructing field fortifications including D. H. Mahan and Confederate States of America Collection (Library of Congress), An Elementary Treatise on Advanced-Guard, out-Post, and Detachment Service of Troops, and the Manner of Posting and Handling Them in Presence of an Enemy. Intended as a Supplement to the System of Tactics, Adopted for the Military Service of the United States and Especially for the Use of Officers of Militia and Volunteers (New Orleans,: Bloomfield & Steel, 1861); Dennis Hart Mahan, A Treatise on Field Fortification, Containing Instructions on the Methods of Laying out, Constructing, Defending, and Attacking Intrenchments, with the General Outlines Also of the Arrangement, the Attack and Defence of Permanent Fortifications, 3d ed. (New York,: J. Wiley, 1852).

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trained northward into the downtown. Was this due diligence, or did the army consider the

townspeople a threat? In Nashville, the Occupied City: 1862-1863, State Historian Walter Durham

comments that the local populace did not welcome the invaders with open arms, nor did their

hearts soften as local secessionist leaders were rounded up and carted off to jail.24 Even the

Protestant clergy remained loyal to the Confederacy.25 The large fortifications ringing the city

were an overbearing and ever-present reminder of the Federal government’s might and will.

Were they situated for the best defensive view of the countryside around Nashville or did local

intimidation and control factor into their locations?

Again, military records may provide answers to these questions, but twenty-first

century technology may also shed light on the matter. Specifically, Geographic Information

Science (GIS) software can create three-dimensional elevation models of Nashville’s terrain.

These models could be used to compare Nashville’s topography and physical features with

other cities in the Western Theater that might have been chosen as the military headquarters.

Another use of the technology would be to construct view sheds from each fortification to

analyze what could be seen from the forts, and to understand how visible the forts were to

Nashvillians. The primary maps sources for a view shed analysis are the topographic maps

surveyed and drawn by the military engineers. A small sidebar analysis would use GIS to

calculate accuracy metric for how well the military surveys and topographic maps of Nashville

represented the area’s physiography.26 Similar research has been undertaken for the Stone’s

24 Durham, Nashville, the Occupied City, 54, 72.

25 Durham, Nashville, the Occupied City, 74.

26 For example, local military historians feel that Col. William E. Merrill’s map of the Battle of Nashville is more accurate than the map drawn under the direction of Gen. Z. B. Tower, but they do not have a metric for the degree of difference. Col. William E. Merrill, "Topographical Map of the Battle-Field of Nashville, Tenn. 15th and 16th Dec. 1865," in Atlas to Accompany the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, 1861-1865(Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1880); M. Peseux and C.S. Mergell, "Battle-Fields in Front of Nashville, Tenn., Where the United States Forces, Commanded by Major-General Geo. H. Tomas Defeated and Routed the Rebel Army under

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River Battlefield in Murfreesboro, Tennessee but has not been done elsewhere in Middle

Tennessee.27

Primary Research Theme

The questions pertaining to nature’s influence on the positioning of Nashville’s defenses

and their psychological impacts are important and should be systematically addressed. But, the

guiding theme of this proposed research is to understand the character and scope of ecological

impacts in Middle Tennessee stemming from the Union Army’s multi-year presence in

Nashville and the surrounding region. In Middle Tennessee Society Transformed, 1860-1870: War

and Peace in the Upper South, Stephen V. Ash describes some of the environmental effects of war

in Middle Tennessee, but his purpose was a social analysis of the war’s effects rather than a

systematic examination of its ecological impacts. Likewise, histories of the occupation of

Nashville including Peter Maslowski’s Treason Must Be Made Odious: Military Occupation and

Wartime Reconstruction in Nashville, Tennessee, 1862-65, Walter Durham’s Nashville, the Occupied

City: 1862-1863, and Durham’s Reluctant Partners: Nashville and the Union, 1863-1865 describe the

environmental effects of occupation only in passing. Even a military history of the Middle

Tennessee region is missing from the literature despite its pivotal role in the Western Theater.28

An environmental approach to the history of Middle Tennessee’s Union occupation is

appropriate because the military engagements in this region left their scars on the landscape.

On Jan 5, 1863, George W. Squier of the 44th Indiana described the aftermath of military

General Hood, December 15th and 16th, 1864. Surveyed under the Direction of Gen. Tower," in Atlas to Accompany the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, 1861-1865(Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1880).

27 A. Giordano and T. Nolan, "Civil War Maps of the Battle of Stones River: History and the Modern Landscape," Cartographic Journal 44, no. 1 (2007).

28 Ash also notes this omission .Ash, Middle Tennessee Society Transformed, 283.

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engagement near Murfreesboro. “Trees torn asunder, houses destroyed, dead horses, and little

mounds of Earth that mark the spot where some brave fellow sleeps the ‘sleep that knows no

waking.’”29 Ash comments, “The most conspicuous consequence of three years and more of

war and occupation in the heartland was the region’s physical devastation. Wartime travelers

bemoaned the stark ruination and sterility of the land as their antebellum counterparts had

marveled at its lush beauty and fecundity.”30 But Ash goes on to note, “the principal agent of

destruction in Middle Tennessee was not armed conflict per se but the Union Army.”31

Once Middle Tennessee became the Union Army’s foothold in the door of the Western

Theater, multitudes of troops flowed into and through the region to break the Confederacy’s

grip on the Deep South. Thousands of troops were also garrisoned in Nashville as well as in

other towns in Middle Tennessee. To feed their legions in Nashville and surrounding towns,

troops commandeered farm crops and livestock across Middle Tennessee. Army foraging

parties treated the farms as ready sources of supplies, plundering their crops and livestock for

food and commandeering horses and mules for draft service.32 In 1863, Squier wrote about his

experience guarding a foraging train that was going on the Nashville to Murfreesboro Road

taking “40 or 50 waggons.”33 Guerillas, bandits, and Confederate troops were also ravaging the

countryside.34

29 Squier and others, The Wilderness of War, 34.



32 Ash, Middle Tennessee Society Transformed, 86-87.



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Before the war, Middle Tennessee had a thriving agricultural economy with livestock,

corn, and tobacco (in some counties) being the staple products.35 But the influx of soldiers

swelled the region’s population beyond its carrying capacity. In the end, the land could not

support the wartime population, and food shortages were common. The diary entries of John

Hill Ferguson, a soldier from Illinois who was stationed in Nashville and other areas of Middle

Tennessee during 1862-1863, often commented on how little the troops were given to eat.36

The physical presence of thousands of soldiers flowing into and through the region had

other consequences for the landscape. Squier observed that from where he stood looking at the

devastation near Murfreesboro, he could see soldiers’ campfires burning in every direction.37

Where did their firewood come from? Historian Jack Temple Kirby suggests that field fences

with their pre-cut lengths of wood were expedient sources of firewood for the soldiers’ heating

and cooking needs. But the soldiers did not spare the forests, either. Military personnel cut

down thousands of trees for breastworks, bridges, roads, chevaux-de-frise, winter quarters, and

even firewood. And forests that were not scavenged were destroyed by artillery fire or

deliberately or unintentionally burned.38

Refining the Questions

As previously noted, the major theme of this proposed research study is a systematic

account of the ecological transformations that occurred between 1860 and 1870 in Middle

Tennessee as a result of Nashville’s occupation early in the War and its function as a Union


36 John Hill Ferguson, "John Hill Ferguson Civil War Diaries, 1862-1865, 1862-1865," Microfilm, Nashville.


38 Kirby, "The American Civil War: An Environmental View"; Kirby, Mockingbird Song: Ecological Landscapes of the South, 132-133.

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Army headquarters. The temporal parameters for the research topic were chosen to mesh with

Ash’s social history of the same era and because the pertinent historical data will be accessed in

the 1860 and 1870 U.S. Agricultural Censuses. Microfilm for these censuses is available at the

Tennessee State Library and Archives, and digital scans of the returns are available at

Ancestry.com, a fee-for-use database, and free at the U.S.D.A. historical census publications

website.39 The University of Virginia, Geospatial and Statistical Data Center Historical Census

Browser has a searchable database of the historical census returns that is useful for exploring

the variables and categories of questions at a general level.

The first step in this research is to parse the question of ecological effects into smaller

research questions that can be used to query primary documents such as the U.S. Agricultural

Census for specific data. The Census schedules were not designed to answer specific questions

such as, “How many acres of land were burned by the Yanks?” But, the census categories can be

used to infer the answers to similar types of questions at the county level. For example, one of

the categories is “Acres of Improved Land in Farms.” In 1860, Davidson County had 132,763

acres in improved land in farms. In 1870, that total had dropped to 126,481 acres. In Williamson

County as well, the number of improved acres in farms decreased from 1860 to 1870. In 1860,

Williamson had 172,246 acres of improved land in farms and in 1870, the county had 155,471

improved acres in farms.40 What do these numbers mean? Since they have not been normalized

by county size, population, or number of farms, they are simply a gross representation that the

numbers of improved acres in farms in these two Middle Tennessee counties decreased during

the decade that included the War years. The decrease may be an effect of the War, but to

39 Ancestry .com, www.ancestry.com; U.S.D.A. Historical Census Publications, http://www.agcensus.usda.gov/Publications/Historical_Publications/index.asp

40Historical Census Browser, in the University of Virginia, Geospatial and Statistical Data Center, http://fisher.lib.virginia.edu/collections/stats/histcensus/index.html.

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interpret the meaning of these numbers, a deeper understanding is needed of the census. What

does the census consider “improved” and “unimproved” land? Did that classification change

through time? Are there differences between census takers?

In the Appendix to Middle Tennessee Society Transformed, Ash describes how he queried

the manuscript census returns and interpreted the categories.41 Ash’s methods and insights into

the Tennessee census returns may prove to be helpful guidance in how to approach, use, and

interpret the census data. Another book that has useful guidance on working with Agricultural

Census Data is Terry G. Sharrer’s A Kind of Fate: Agricultural Change in Virginia, 1861-1920.42

Sharrer examines the Civil War's effects on the agricultural economy of Virginia to answer the

question of how modern agriculture in Virginia developed. Sharrer’s approach to the period of

1860-1890 suggests the range of issues of ecological issues to address in Middle Tennessee

consider including animal and plant disease, property destruction, and the effects of

sharecropping.43 Robert T. McKenzie’s use of federal census returns to examine the effects of the

Civil War and reconstruction on Tennessee's agricultural elites may also be applicable for to a

smaller region and broader social spectrum.44

Other categories on the Agricultural Censuses of 1860 and 1870 that may reflect effects

of the war are “Acres of Unimproved Land in Farms,” “Cash Value of Farms,” “Total Farms,”

“Value of Animals Slaughtered,” “Value of Farming Implements and Machinery,” “Value of


42 G. Terry Sharrer, A Kind of Fate: Agricultural Change in Virginia, 1861-1920, 1st ed. (Ames: Iowa State University, 2000).

43 Sharrer, A Kind of Fate.

44 Robert Tracy McKenzie, "Civil War and Socioeconomic Change in the Upper South: The Survival of Local Agricultural Elites in Tennessee, 1850-1870," in Tennessee History: The Land, the People, and the Culture, ed. Carroll Van West (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1998).

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Livestock,” “Value of Orchard Products,” and “Value of Produce of Market Gardens.”45 The

raw counts of livestock such as horses and swine are also available in the census records.46

Changes in the livestock categories, especially for draft animals, milk cows, and swine, may

track the depleting effects of the Union foraging raids during the years of occupation.

Although the Historical Census Browser allows the data from the census to be displayed

and mapped by category, their default groupings they provide are puzzling. In general, this site

divides the results into five continuous groups. The site does not allow the user to modify the

number of groups nor does it explain whether it is using a natural breaks (Jenks) method of

classification, defined intervals, or some other algorithm. Since there are only thirteen counties

in the Middle Tennessee study area, constructing a geodatabase of census data for these

counties to analyze and display with a desktop GIS is preferable to using the “one-size-fits-all”

approach of the Historical Census Browser. A valuable primary source for interpreting the 1870

agricultural census is J. B. Killebrew’s First and Second Reports of the Bureau of Agriculture for the

State of Tennessee. Introduction to the Resources of Tennessee. This 1200-page tome was published in

1874 and contains summary descriptions of and statistics on every plant, animal, mineral,

transportation feature, and waterway in Tennessee followed by detailed descriptions of the

natural environment, population, and civic characteristics for every county. Of particular

interest is “Chapter XIX. Condition of Agriculture.”47 This chapter begins with a commentary

45 Categories are taken from the Historical Census Browser.

46 U.S. Census and Joseph C.G. Kennedy, Agriculture of the United States in 1860; Compiled from the Original Returns of the Eighth Census, under the Direction of the Secretary of the Interior1864; U.S. Census and Francis A. Walker, The Statistics of the Wealth and Industry of the Agriculture of the United States from the Original Returns of the Ninth Census (June 1, 1870) under the Direction of the Secretary of the Interior1872. Vol. III.

47 J. B. Killebrew, First and Second Reports of the Bureau of Agriculture for the State of Tennessee. Introduction to the Resources of Tennessee (Nashville: Tavel, Eastman & Howell, 1874), 350-369.

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on the effects of the “great civil convulsion” on agriculture and moves into a discussion of soil

fertility and comparisons between the three grand divisions of Tennessee.

Other primary sources that may augment the census data are the environmental

information contained in letters and diaries and in paintings, Relying on the sources alone or as

first-line data is more problematic than variances between census takers. There is no “quality

control” with firsthand accounts or artwork to ensure that environmental features are recorded

accurately and completely without embellishment or alteration. If, for example, an artist wants

to emphasize a signal tree at a fortification, the tree may be drawn out of scale with the

surrounding elements. Although I am not dismissing diaries and letters as primary sources,

they should be considered as anecdotal accounts and not representative. Better sources for

tracing the physical effects of war are the topographic maps created by the Corps of Engineers

that show troop locations, movement, tree lines, streams, roads, and other features.48 Some of

the maps also show the names of residents.49 The names of these households could be cross-

referenced to census records. Agricultural census data connected to these households could be

mapped and analyzed using GIS. GIS allows diachronic changes to be represented visually and

spatially. Moreover, GIS allows various types of environmental information to be layered with

each other, providing opportunities for multivariate observations and connections. Another

small side bar to this proposal is to demonstrate how environmental history can use GIS while

remembering that GIS should not control the questions.50

48 For example, G. H. Blakeslee, "Franklin--Tenn. Profield [Sic] June 1863," (1863).

49 J. E. Weyss, "Sketch of the Environs of Shelbyville, Wartrace & Normandy, Tennessee Compiled from the Best Information under the Direction of Capt. N. Michler, Corps of Topographical Engrs. U.S.A., by John E. Weyss, Maj. Ky. Vols., Chief Asst. Drawn by C. S. Mergell," (S.l.,: 1863).s

50 J. B. Owens, "Toward a Geographically-Integrated, Connected World History: Employing Geographic Information Systems (GIS)," History Compass 5, no. 6 (2007).

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Theoretical Approach

In Nature's Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West, William Cronon framed Chicago’s

development into an economic metropolis as both influenced by the landscape of its environs

and an actor in shaping the landscape outside the city. Cronon described the agents behind the

modifications as those of “consuming” and “producing,” and explained, “Most of the labor that

goes into ‘producing’ grain, lumber, and meat involves consuming part of the natural world and

setting aside some portion of the resulting wealth as ‘capital.’” 51 The city reached out to the

frontier to find natural resources for building, and found them in abundance. Thus, the natural

setting and resources in the region were actors in Chicago’s development as a major

metropolitan center. Conversely, the city's needs for food and resources also had pronounced

effects on the landscape far from the metropolitan area itself.

Cronon’s approach to framing the relationship of Chicago to the surrounding region is

the inspiration studying the regional effects of Nashville's occupation. I am proposing to apply

Cronon’s notion of the inseparability of the countryside and city to interpreting the ecological

transformations resulting from Nashville’s multi-year occupation and function as a military

headquarters. Like Chicago, Nashville’s relationship to the surrounding Middle Tennessee

region was based on the economy of “exchange.” In Chicago, the economy of exchange

increasingly led to the city gaining more power and influence over the hinterlands. But did this

happen in Middle Tennessee? Were the ecological costs of occupation that I expect to see

reflected in the agricultural census data a result of Nashville’s power and influence of

occupation? And how far did that influence reach?

The notion that a place has a “sphere of influence” is drawn from the geographic

location theory known as “Central Place Theory.” Central Place Theory has been a part of the 51 William Cronon, Nature's Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West, 1st ed. (New York: W. W. Norton, 1991), 150.

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geography lexicon since Walter Christaller introduced the concept in the 1930s.52 Central place

theory seeks to explain the locational patterning of settlements on the landscape by examining

the spatial relationships between cities and outlying areas. In Central Place Theory, the city’s

(the central place) influence is derived from its function as a distribution center of goods and

services to the hinterlands. As a military headquarters and as a center of commerce, Nashville

functioned as a central place, distributing goods and information through its rail, road, and

water transportation networks. The question is whether occupied Nashville, the city that had

thousands of garrisoned soldiers and multiple lines of defenses, could be interpreted as a

central place? Although this is a slightly different reading of Christaller’s notion of Central

Place, the foraging expeditions out of Nashville could be characterized as a form of influence

and, ultimately, power. The catchment area or range of foraging is logically different from the

spatial bounds of the information sphere of influence. Brings It also differs from the size of the

sphere of influence of perceived power. How far did Nashville’s occupation intimidate the

countryside, and if so, what was the spatial range of that perception? Could the spread of

diseases that accompany population density and unsanitary conditions be considered a function

of Nashville as a central place?

Although Central place theory has used by archaeologists for historical studies and

settlement pattern analysis, the concept is a little musty.53 Geographer Allan Pred took issue

with Central Place Theory in the 1970s, arguing that standard location theories such as central

place theory only consider the landscape in economic terms and optimal solutions, do not take

52 Walter Christaller, Central Places in Southern Germany, trans., Carlisle W. Baskin (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.,: Prentice-Hall, 1966).

53 Eric G. Grant, Central Places, Archaeology and History (Sheffield: Dept. of Archaeology and Prehistory, University of Sheffield, 1986); Jeffrey R. Parsons, "Archaeological Settlement Patterns," Annual Review of Anthropology 1, no. (1972).

17

into account behavioral variables, and do not reflect what is on the ground.54 Nevertheless, the

notion of “central place” is an intriguing way to consider the effects that occupied Nashville had

on the Middle Tennessee region.

Environmental Description of Middle Tennessee

The last component of this proposed research project is where I propose to begin to

develop a detailed picture of the scope of ecological impacts of the Union Army’s presence in

Middle Tennessee. Understanding the effects requires a baseline understanding Middle

Tennessee’s natural environment in the antebellum period and how humans fit into that

landscape. A large body of scientific literature exists that can be used to characterize the

antebellum Middle Tennessee landscape including geological descriptions, vegetation maps,

and physiographic descriptions.55 Eight of the thirteen counties to be considered by this

proposal are situated in a distinct physiographic region known as Nashville’s Central Basin,

54 Allan Pred, Behavior and Location. Foundations for a Geographic and Dynamic Location Theory, Lund Studies in Geography. Ser. B: Human Geography, No. 27-28. (Lund, Sweden: Gleerup, 1967); John A. Shimer, Field Guide to Landforms in the United States (New York: Macmillan, 1971).

55 For example, Jerry M. Baskin and Carol C. Baskin, "History of the Use of "Cedar Glades" and Other Descriptive Terms for Vegetation on Rocky Limestone Soils in the Central Basin of Tennessee," Botanical Review 70, no. 4 (2004); E. Lucy Braun, Deciduous Forests of Eastern North America (Philadelphia: Blakiston, 1950); James X Corgan and Emanuel Breitburg, Tennessee's Prehistoric Vertebrates, Division of Geology Bulletin 84 (Nashville: Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation, 1996); Hazel R. Delcourt, "Late Quaternary Vegetation History of the Eastern Highland Rim and Adjacent Cumberland Plateau of Tennessee," Ecological Monographs 49, no. (1979); Hazel R. Delcourt and Paul A. Delcourt, Quaternary Ecology: A Paleoecological Perspective, 1st ed. (London; New York: Chapman & Hall, 1991); Hazel R. Delcourt and Paul A. Delcourt, "Eastern Deciduous Forests," in North American Terrestrial Vegetation, ed. Michael Barbour and William Dwight Billings (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2000); Hazel R. Delcourt, Darrell C. West, and Paul A. Delcourt, "Forests of the Southeastern United States: Quantitative Maps for Abovegound Woody Biomass, Carbon, and Dominance of Major Tree Taxa," Ecology 62, no. 4 (1981); Paul A. Delcourt and Hazel R. Delcourt, "Vegetation Maps of Eastern North America: 40,000 Yr. B.P. To the Present," in Geobotany II, ed. Robert C. Romans (New York ; London: Plenum, 1981); H. R. DeSelm, "Vegetation Results from an 1807 Land Survey of Southern Middle Tennessee," Castanea 59, no. 1 (1994); H.R. DeSelm, "A New Map of the Central Basin of Tennessee," Journal of the Tennessee Academy of Science 34, no. 1 (1959); R.P. Dickson, "Climate of Tennessee," in Climates of the States, ed. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency (Detroit: Gale Research, 1978); Edward T. Luther, Our Restless Earth: The Geologic Regions of Tennessee, 1st ed., Tennessee Three Star Books (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1977); Robert A. Miller, The Geologic History of Tennessee, Division of Geology Bulletin 74 (Nashville: Tennessee Department of Conservation, 1974); Shimer, Field Guide to Landforms.

18

and five of the counties are either entirely or partially on the Western Highland Rim. The

Central Basin is a generally elliptical depression extending for approximately 60 miles east-west

and 120 miles north-south, surrounded by the higher in facing escarpment of the Highland Rim.

The eve of the Civil War’s Sesquicentennial seems appropriate timing for systematically

examining the effects of the war on the landscape, especially since many traces of the actions

can be seen in the form of earthworks and fortifications. This study proposes to use as its main

source of data the 1860 and 1870 Agricultural Census for thirteen counties in Middle Tennessee.

This region includes the city of Nashville, the strategic headquarters of the Union Army in the

Western Theater. The purpose of this study is to assess whether Nashville’s roles of military

headquarters and occupied city influenced the natural environment in the surrounding region,

and if so, what was affected? The proposed theoretical framework guiding interpretation of the

result is Central Place Theory, a geographic location theory positing that a place’s influence is

derived from its function as an economic functions and regional connections. This study will

also examine the role that natural physiographic features played in the selection of Nashville as

military headquarters.

1

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Documents

Military Occupation of Nashville: Ecological Effects in ... · Poquosin: A Study of Rural Landscape & Society, and Mart A. Stewart’s "What Nature Suffers to Groe": Life, Labor,