Building Fort Negley / African American Labor

Building Fort Negley, also, African American Labor. .

"Start the works at once, the most important first. They should be in the edge of the city, to command the principal thoroughfares and other prominent points". , Union Major General Don Carlos Buell

Building Fort Negley , The centerpiece of the Federal fortification effort in Nashville was Fort Negley, named for Brigadier General James S. Negley, the Union Post Commander. Captain James S. Morton, chief engineer, began work in August 1862. The primary construction of the stone, iron, wood, and earthen fortification took more than four months at a cost of over $90,000. When initially completed in December of 1862, Fort Negley covered 180,000 square feet, over four acres, of St. Cloud Hill and was recognized as the largest inland masonry fortification in North America. Modifications and improvements continued until the end of the war at a total cost of over $110,000.,

"You are authorized, whenever and wherever it may be necessary, to call upon the inhabitants of the country in the vicinity of the works to furnish for the time as many laborers [Negroes] as may be necessary." , Union Major General Don Carlos Buell

African American Labor , To build Fort Negley, Captain Morton found little success requisitioning Negroes from local pro-Union slaveholders. Instead, the army was forced to impress black laborers both free and slave. As one Union soldier remembered, men were apprehended in "barber shops, kitchens and even churches,” and made to work on St. Cloud Hill. They felled trees, hauled rock and earth, and cut and laid the fort's limestone foundation. Eventually, 2,768 men were officially enrolled as laborers at Fort Negley., The living conditions of these workers were hard. According to one Union officer, they "had no tents, and slept in the open air” along the Fort Negley hillside. By the time the fortifications around Nashville were completed, between 600 and 800 of Morton's Negro laborers had died. Of those who remained, only 310 received pay for their work.,

"…we find the condition of the colored refugee camp at Nashville to have been most decidedly bad; … " , Report of the Special Commissioners

Captions (top to bottom) , . Captain James S. Morton , . 1862 Harper's lithograph of completed fort , . Contraband workers at Fort Negley , . Federal troops impressing workers