USA > Tennessee > Davidson County > Nashville > Polk's Nashville (Davidson county, Tenn.) city directory 1865 > Part 9
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The Nashville and North-western, the last of those four roads to which the $1,000,000 subscription of 1853 was made, was commeneed in that year; but its construction, like all others mentioned, was delayed partly by the opposition of the County Court, who refused, until ordered by the Supreme Court, to issue the bonds of the county, and by the money revulsion of 1857. Until the summer of 1859 its finances were in a collapsed condition. In June of that year a propo- sition was made that the city subscribe for $270,000 of stock in this company, and it was put to the vote of the city, and triumphantly carried. During 1864 the military authorities finished this road as far as the Tennessee river.
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NASHVILLE DURING THE WAR.
During the war Nashville has become one of the most prominent military posts in the country, more especially since its occupation by the National troops, and has consequently attracted a large share of attention. During the time the rebels held the city, it became a great depot for supplies for their armies, and large amounts of Quarter- master's supplies, as well as munitions of war, were manufactured here. But during this time there were very few soldiers stationed in the vicinity of the city, and we had but little practical experience of war until after the capture of Fort Donelson, which induced the rebels to evacuate Bowling Green and Nashville.
The great panic in Nashville, which succeeded the capture of Fort Donelson, forms a memorable epoch in the history of the city. Before ten o'clock Sunday morning, the 16th of February, 1862, a rumor-vague and indefinite, it is true-that Fort Donelson had sur- rendered, and that the entire rebel force had been taken prisoners, had found its way into the streets of the city, and was spreading with a rapidity which only such rumors can spread. It was the rebound which was least expected by the great mass, and it assumed the most terrible proportions as it traveled. For instance, it was accompanied with the statement that General Buell, with 35,000 men, was then at Springfield, only 25 miles distant, and that a fleet of Federal gunboats had passed Clarksville and would reach here by three o'clock in the afternoon, by which time Buell's army would arrive in Edgefield, when the city would be shelled, without notice, and laid in ashes. These rumors created a consternation which it would be impossible to portray. A reign of terror and confusion ensued, the like of which was never witnessed in Nashville, and not a man was there in all the goodly city, who stepped forth to tell the people that there was no eause for the alarm to which they had given way. It was understood that the intelligence of the fall of Fort Donelson had been communi- eated to Governor Harris by General Johnston, and that it was from the former the rumor proceeded. His office at the Capitol was besieged by anxious inquirers, and he was appealed to, through one of his aids, to issue a proclamation, setting forth the facts as far as they were in his possession, which, of itself, would quiet the people; that, if left the victims of conjecture, the most wild and improbable stories would obtain, causing a panie without a parallel, because without a sufficient cause, while a simple statement of the facts as they really existed,
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without any attempt at explanation, would have a tendency to allay the excitement that then existed. The Governor, however, declined to issue a proclamation. Some thought that General A. S. Johnston should issue a proclamation, others that the Mayor should, and still others that the editors of the respective papers, who were quite profi- cient in "making the worse appear the better part," should issue extras assuring the people that matters were not half so bad as they appeared. Nothing, however, was done to quiet the people, who were almost deranged with excitement, and hundreds were seen hurrying to and fro, preparing to flee, as for dear life, before the approach of an "enemy " they feared but little less than if they had been semi- barbarians.
The services at the churches were generally discontinued, in conse- quence of the excited state of the public mind, and, unfortunately, some of the pastors, in dismissing their congregations, added to the intensity of the excitement instead of allaying it. Many of those who attended one of the churches, misapprehending, perhaps, the purport of what the pastor said, returned home and reported that he had advised his hearers to quietly retire from the city for fear of an insurrection. We can not think that such advice was given, but he was so understood by a number of his congregation, and it produced the most painful apprehensions in the minds of those who heard him, as well as those to whom they communicated their impression of what he said. A moment's reflection, however, should have satisfied every one that there was no danger to be apprehended on this score from the servile or any other portion of our population.
About this time (say eleven o'clock) a report was put in circulation, as coming from Governor Harris, that the women and children must be removed from the city within three hours, as at the expiration of that time the enemy would shell the place and destroy us. This outrage- ous story created the most terrible alarm wherever it went, and it spread like wildfire. It was denied that Governor Harris had made such a 'statement, but there is little doubt that this rumor hurried hundreds from the city, as the contradiction traveled much slower than the original story. Men and women were to be seen running to and fro in every portion of the city, and large numbers were hasten- ing with their valuables to the several railroad depots, or escaping in private conveyances to some place of fancied security in the country. The hire of private conveyances was put up to fabulous prices, and it was only the wealthy who could enjoy the luxury of a ride on that
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day. Large numbers, in their eagerness to escape from the city, left on foot, carrying with them such articles as they wished to preserve, either as mementoes or for their comfort, and, of course, these must necessarily have been few.
The archives of the State were hastily paeked up and shipped in a special train, during the afternoon, to Memphis, whither they were accompanied by the Governor and heads of departments. The Legis- lature met at an early hour of the morning, and went through the for- mality of adjourning to meet upon the call of the Governor, who noti- fied them to meet at Memphis on the 20th of the month. It is said the members of the Legislature presented rather a ludicrous appear- ance as they trudged off toward the depot of one or the other of the railroads, each one with his trunk on his baek, or carpet sack and bundle in hand. As it was next to impossible to procure a vehicle to convey one even to the depot, those who chose not to witness the promised exhibition of fire-works by General Buell and Commodore Foote, " stood not on the order of their going."
These movements of the Governor and Legislature had a tendency to increase the excitement, while the passage through the eity at an early hour in the day of a large portion of General Johnston's army from Bowling Green, was another incentive to the growth of the panic, which continued to spread until it seemed to have seized upon almost every one. Go where a person would, the question met him at almost every other step, "What are you going to do?" or, " What shall I do ?" To the former, the most frequent reply was, "I don't know," with here and there an exception, " I shall stay and take care of my family." Very few appeared inclined to give advice in the midst of such a panic, even to their most intimate friends, so that the second question was rarely answered, and each man was left to decide for himself whether he should leave the eity, and go, he knew not where, nor for why, or remain and take his chances with those who had pru- dence enough to stay quietly at home.
Every available vehicle was chartered, and even drays were called into requisition, to remove people and their plunder, either to the country or to the depots, and the trains went off crowded to their utmost capacity, even the tops of the ears being literally covered with human beings. It was a lamentable sight to see hundreds of families thus fleeing from their homes, leaving nearly every thing behind, to seek protection and the comforts and luxuries they had abandoned among strangers.
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A large number of citizens left the city from fear of fire. They had been led to believe that the town would be shelled during the afternoon or night at furthest, and reduced to a heap of ruins. These went only a short distance into the country, and returned as soon as they felt they could do so with safety.
Early in the day the yellow flag was hoisted over a number of buildings occupied as hospitals. Over one business house we noticed the British flag floating. The Bank of Tennessee, with its effects, was removed to Columbia, and several of our bankers gathered up their specie and other valuables, and carried them to some point which they regarded as more secure than Nashville. The Planters', Union, and City Banks were the only ones that remained.
Three o'clock came, and still time sped on, but neither General Buell's army nor the gunboats had arrived. By this time the people began to understand that General Buell's army could not, by any possibility, have got to Springfield, so that the fears of danger from that source were quieted. It was given out, as coming from a high official, that the gunboats would reach here about twelve o'clock that night, and this was used to keep up the panic.
Great fears were entertained that the torch would be applied to the city during the night, and an urgent appeal was made to General Johnston for protection against ineendiaries. A regiment of Mis- souri troops was detailed to guard the city, and faithfully did they perform the duty assigned them. The night was passed in a degree of quiet which was surprising as well as gratifying.
Thus passed the most exciting Sunday we ever witnessed in Nashville.
Monday morning, the 17th, came, but it brought no gunboats or Federal troops. It had rained considerably the previous night, and the streets were full of mud, yet the Confederate troops continued to pour in in a continuous stream, and the city was soon filled with sol- diers, wet, hungry, and worn out by long and continuous marches. As the day wore away, they gradually fell back southward, so that comparatively few remained in the city over night.
The post-office was closed at an early hour in the morning, the establishment having been removed to Murfreesboro'. For more than two weeks, Nashville was entirely isolated, no mails having been received from or sent off to any point. Notwithstanding the Federals did not take possession of Nashville for more than a week after the
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grand stampede, no mails were received from the South after that of the morning of the 16th, having all been stopped at Murfreesboro'.
All the newspapers in the city were suspended, the stores and busi- ness houses were closed, and a melancholy gloom hung over the city. For fully ten days, it seemed one continuous Sabbath, the silence of which was broken only when there was a distribution of provisions, or an effort made to ship them off. It has been truly said that half the people one met during this period looked as though they had lost their next best friend.
During the night of Monday, the 17th, the two boats that were being converted into gunboats, were burned at the wharf, by order of the military authorities.
Tuesday night, of the 18th, the torch was applied to the railroad bridge, and in a short time all that remained of that splendid strue- ture were the naked pillars and abutments, and a few smoking frag- ments of timber. The precaution had been taken in this instance to prevent the fire- bells giving the alarm, so that the burning of the bridge was witnessed by comparatively few persons, and the event did not arouse the fears of those who had expected a general conflagra- tion. This bridge was one of the finest draw-bridges in the country, and was built for the joint use of the Louisville and Nashville and Edgefield and Kentucky railroads, at a cost of about $250,000. The funds to build it were loaned to the two companies by the State of Tennessee, under the general internal improvement laws. The bridge was built under the supervision and direction of Mr. A. Anderson, Chief Engineer of the Edgefield and Kentucky Railroad Company, and the trains passed over it the first time the 28th of October, 1859. The City Directory for 1860-61 contains the following interesting facts in regard to this bridge :
"Its length is 700 feet, in four spans; two fixed spans, one on cach side, and two draw spans. Each fixed span is 200 feet in the clear, between the supports, and the clear opening of each draw span is 120 feet, making it the longest railroad draw in the world; that at Rock Island, Illinois, being 120 feet on one side, and 116 on the other. The total length of draw, from one extremity to the other of the movable portion, is 280 feet, and its entire weight is computed at 285 tuns. It can readily be turned into position by one man in four and a half minutes. The bridge superstructure is of the kind known as McCallum's Truss, and was erected by Messrs. Gray, Whiton & Co., contractors. The mas. ter builder was Mr. N. K. Waring.
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" The masonry supporting the bridge was built by Messrs. Maxwell, Saulpaw & Co., contractors, and consists of two abutments, two main piers, one center pier, and two rest piers. The center pier, on which the immense draw is turned, is circular, 30 feet in diameter at the top, and 343 feet at the bottom, and 683 feet high, and contains 2,295} perches of masonry. The eastern main pier is 75} feet high, and contains 1,2082 perches of masonry. The western main pier is 70} feet high, and con- tains 1,0723 perches masonry. The foundations of all the piers are laid upon the solid rock, in water about 12 feet deep at ordinary low stages. The extreme rise of water at the bridge is 47 feet.
" The total quantity of masonry in the bridge is 6,8002 perches. In the superstructure are 454,000 feet of timber, and 160,000 pounds of iron. A heavy frame work is built between the rest piers, designed to prevent steamboats from being thrown against the piers while passing the draw, either by wind or the force of the current. In its construc- tion, 387,288 feet of timber were used, and 49,117 pounds of iron."
The bridge was rebuilt by the Union authorities in the following May.
The wires of the Suspension Bridge were cut about the same time that the Railroad Bridge was fired, and the morning revealed a com- plete wreck of this magnificent structure. This fine bridge was about 700 feet long, and its hight 110 feet above low-water mark. It was built during the year 1850. The architect was the late Colonel A. IIeiman, of this city. The contractor was Mr. M. D. Field, brother of Mr. Cyrus W. Field, who superintended the laying down of the Atlantic telegraph cable. This bridge was owned by a joint stock company, chartered by the State Legislature under the name of the Broad Street Bridge Company, and it paid handsome dividends to the stockholders. It has not been rebuilt.
A bright and beautiful morning was that of Sunday, the 23d The eity was remarkably quiet, and only here and there could be seen a Confederate cavalryman-the infantry, all who were able to travel, having left. About nine o'clock it was announced that the Federal pickets had made their appearance in Edgfield, on the opposite side of the river. Mayor Cheatham was sent for, and notwithstanding the river was considerably swollen and the surface almost covered with "drift wood," he crossed over in a small skiff, to meet the avant courriers of the grand army that was to take orphaned Nashville under its protecting ægis. After a brief interview, the Mayor returned and addressed the people assembled upon the Public Square, informing them that he had just had an inverview with the Captain of an Ohio
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cavalry company, who had authorized him to say that the property and rights of the people would be scrupulously protected. This assurance was very gratifying to the people, but still they were griev- ously disappointed. They had expected that, when they should be turned over to the Federals, a General, attended by "all the pomp and circumstance of glorious war," would come to receive them. Instead, however, half a dozen cavalrymen had come to take the Capital of the great State of Tennessee !
Monday, the 24th, the steamer C. E. Hillman, which had been sent down to Dover on Friday, under a flag of truce, by order of General Johnston, with a number of surgeons of this city, to render such services as were needed by the wounded at Fort Donelson, returned with the surgeons, whose kind offices were not needed, as the post was already supplied. They reported having passed a gunboat that morning, some thirty or forty miles below the city, and as it made only about four miles an hour and would " lie up" during the night, they supposed it would reach here about nine o'clock Tuesday morn- ing, the 25th. That was the first reliable intelligence we had that a gunboat was coming to Nashville.
At an early hour of the morning of Tuesday, the 25th, the gunboat, accompanied by a number of transports, was descried from the Capitol, making headway around the bend below Nashville, and the news of the approach of the Federals spread through the city with almost telegraphic rapidity. Curiosity was on tiptoe, and hundreds hastened to the Lower Landing to see the monster, for a gunboat was a greater curiosity than an elephant, as well as witness the debarkation of the Federal troops. The fleet continued to approach nearer the city, and when opposite the Gas-works, the gunboat was made fast to the oppo- site shore. The "Diana" steamed up to the Landing with the Sixth Regiment of Ohio Volunteers, the United States flag flying, and the band playing Huil Columbia. A few, among whom were some who had professed devotion to the Southern Confederacy, greeted the "in- vaders" with a few huzzahs. How much of sincerity or of devotion to the Union was in this demonstration, the action of the Federals shows they were competent to judge. The Sixth Ohio debarked, pre- ceded by their band, who struck up The Star Spangled Banner, fol- lowed by Yankee Doodle, and the Regiment immediately formed into line, marched to and partially around the Public Square, and then up Cedar street to the Capitol, where General Nelson, in the name of the United States, took formal military possession of the Capital of Ten-
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nessee, at forty-five minutes past eight o'clock ; and at fifteen minutes past nine, the United States flag, after three attempts to run it up, was seen floating from the flag-staff on the Capitol, the flag of the Guthrie Greys having, meantime, been displayed from the cupola. As it was the first flag displayed from the Capitol, and its color dark blue, those who viewed it from a distance regarded it as "warnings, and portents, and evils ominous," not knowing it was a mark of distinguished con- sideration accorded the Guthrie Greys by General Nelson. The flag that floated from the flag-staff on the Capitol was a Nashville flag, and although it can not be said of it,
"Of six preceding ancestors, that gem Conferr'd by testament to the sequent issue, Hath it been owned and worn,"
it hath an unwritten history, which runneth, that for six months it had been carefully hid away by a citizen who almost idolizes that flag-sewed in a comfort, we believe the story is, under which the old man rested his weary limbs, when "civil night, the sober-suited matron, all in black, fills the wide vessel of the universe." At his request, his was the first flag to float over the Capitol under the re-establish- ment of Federal rule.
While this was going on, the transports, to the number of 12 or 15, laden with infantry, cavalry, artillery, baggage, wagons, provisions, ammunition, and the et ceteras of an army, had taken position at the wharf, and at various points along the river. The troops having de- barked, marched to the Public Square, where the Twenty fourth, Forty-first and Fifty-first Ohio and the Thirty-sixth Indiana remained nearly the whole of the day. Late in the afternoon they moved to the camping ground selected for them on the southern confines of the city. Transports continued to arrive during the day, bringing addi- tional troops, so that the number that had reached the city was com- puted at from 10,000 to 12,000.
The high tide in the river-the highest we have had since 1847- enabled the largest class boats that navigate the Ohio to come up here in safety, and the water continued high for a considerable time. The high rise in the river caused some of our old citizens to refer to former freshets in the Cumberland at this point.
A great freshet occurred here in the year 1808, and again in 1826, both of which caused a great deal of suffering, and submerged many houses. A vast amount of wood, fencing and produce was swept away by the latter freshet, as well as a number of framed dwelling- 8
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houses. In 1842 another freshet occurred; and in March, 1847, there was another, which was two feet higher than the rise in 1842, and five feet three inches lower than that of 1826. In December, 1847, there was still another freshet, which was the greatest that had occurred here since the settlement of the country by white men. The river rose that time fifty feet above low-water mark, and was twenty inches higher than in the freshet of 1826. The water commenced rising on Thursday, the 17th of December, 1847, and continued to rise for upward of a week, the weather being cold, and snow falling alter- nately with rain. The water extended up Broad street, to Messrs. Pilcher & Porterfield's store, and covered the lower floor of that building. The front lower floor of Messrs. Johnson & Smith's ware- house, corner of Broad and Market streets, was ten inches under water, while two steamboats were afloat within twenty feet of Messrs. Yeatman & Armstead's (now Gordon's) warehouse. It was during this freshet that a steamboat, in ascending the river, passed over the Gallatin pike beyond the old bridge. After the river commenced fall- ing, three men, in attempting to pass over to what is now Edgefield, were washed on the pike fully a hundred yards from the bridge, and two of them were drowned. A large amount of corn eribbed in the Cumberland bottoms for exportation, was shipped without bills of lading, being swept off without stock, fences and out-houses. The damage done by this freshet was immense. All the roads and ap- proaches to Nashville were submerged except two. A good deal of distress among the poor of this city followed this freshet, and the Mayor (Alex. Allison) and Aldermen were kept busy alleviating the suffering and homeless people. When it is stated that more than 100 families were compelled to leave their homes, and to seek refuge wherever they could, the reader can form some idea of the suffering that resulted from this memorable freshet. Several high rises in the Cumberland have occurred at different periods since, but none that would at all compare with that of December, 1847. The recent freshet, although the bridges in Front, Market and Cherry streets were submerged, was not near so disastrous as that of 1847. The destruc- tion of property during the recent rise was comparatively small.
Generals Buell and Mitchell arrived in Edgefield Monday evening, when the former notified the Mayor that he would be pleased to receive a call from him Tuesday morning at eleven o'clock. It had been previously arranged by the City Council that Mayor Cheatham and a committee of citizens, consisting of Messrs. James Woods, R. C.
S. B. AVERY, Carpet Dealer, 64 West Fourth Street, Cincinnati, O. See Advertisement.
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