The Civil War and Its Aftermath

The Civil War and Its Aftermath. . , With the outbreak of the Civil War, Tennessee allied with the South in June 1861, making Nashville a Confederate capital. Unable to defend the city after the fall of Ft. Donelson, Nashville was surrendered to the Federal army in February 1862. Union occupation lasted till the end of the war, and Federal soldiers remained garrisoned at Ft. Nelly, just above the City Cemetery, until 1867., The City Cemetery was used as a burial ground for both Federal and Confederate soldiers. W.R. Cornelius, who spent the first months of the war burying the Southern dead, was hired by the Federal army in March 1862 to serve as undertaker., A native of Pennsylvania, Cornelius came to Nashville in 1847 where he worked as a foreman and cabinet maker for a local funeral company, McCombs and Carson. At the age of twenty-six he became a partner in the business after the death of Carson in 1849. Seven years later Cornelius delivered the first bronze casket to Nashville., Captain Alvin Gillem, Army of the Ohio Quartermaster and a native Tennessean who remained loyal to the Union, instructed W.R. Cornelius to utilize a five acre portion of the cemetery previously used for Confederate burials for the Federal dead. Once the area was filled, Cornelius was ordered by Captain R. N. Lamb, barracks and hospital quartermaster, to bury troops in the three acre tract between the Tennessee and Alabama and Nashville and Chattanooga railroads. In April 1865, Cornelius petitioned for additional ground. An area south of the Nashville and Chattanooga railroad was selected., By 1865, Cornelius, now a pioneer in modern embalming practices, had offices in Chattanooga, Murfreesboro, Huntsville, and Stevenson, AL, and Rome, GA. He claimed that during the war, he buried or returned home more than 33,000 soldiers. In Nashville alone, over 3,000 were interred in the City Cemetery. Federal soldiers, including United States Colored Troops originally buried on the 1864 Nashville battlefield below Peach Orchard Hill near Glen Leven, were removed to the National Cemetery just outside Nashville beginning in 1867. Many of the Confederate dead were removed from the City Cemetery and reinterred in Confederate Circle at Mt. Olivet Cemetery, Nashville., Felix Zollicoffer , Born in Maury County, Tennessee, Zollicoffer was a young journalist when he volunteered for the United States Army in 1836 to fight in the Second Seminole War in Florida. He returned to Tennessee a year later and became the editor of the Columbia Observer and the Republican Banner, the state's pro-Whig newspaper. In the 1850's, Zollicoffer had served three terms in the United States Congress and retired to Nashville., With tension rising over the impending Civil War, Zollicoffer served as a delegate to the Peace Convention held in Washington in early 1861. Though a supporter of state's rights, he opposed secession. When war broke out, Zollicoffer remained loyal to Tennessee and was appointed Brigadier General. In January of 1862 he was killed at the battle of Fishing Creek (Mill Springs) in Kentucky, the first Confederate general to die in the Western Theater. His body was embalmed in Louisville and returned to Nashville. At his funeral, Zollicoffer's uniform and sword were placed on his casket and the wagon carrying his body was followed by his horse., Zollicoffer is buried next to his wife, Louisa Pochantas Gordon and their children in Section 20. Louisa, who died July 15, 1857, was the granddaughter of Richard Cross, the local landowner who sold the original cemetery property to the city in 1820., William Driver , A native of Salem, Massachusetts, William Driver settled in Nashville in 1837 after a career as a captain on a whaling ship. Several years earlier Driver was given an American flag by his family to fly onboard his vessel. He famously named the flag "Old Glory.", When the Civil War broke out Driver, a staunch Unionist, had the flag sewn inside a quilt to escape confiscation by Nashville's pro-Confederate sympathizers. Ironically, both of his sons joined the Confederate army. When Nashville was captured ivy Federal forces in late February 1862, Driver retrieved the flag and it was flown the first day of occupation over the state capitol. After his death in 1886, Driver's daughter took possession of the flag, and in 1922 the family donated Old Glory to the Smithsonian where it has been preserved as one of the nation's most valuable symbols. Willam Driver is buried in Section 20., Lieutenant General Richard Ewell (CSA) , West Point graduate and Mexican War veteran, Richard Stoddert Ewell resigned his commission in 1861 to serve in the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia. He fought effectively in the Seven Days Campaign and at Cedar Mountain before losing a leg at Second Manassas in August 1862. His cousin and fiancee, Lizinka Campbell Brown of Nashville, nursed him back to health in Richmond. Brown, the daughter of George W. Campbell, had fled to Virginia as Federal troops advanced on Nashville in February 1862. She and Ewell married in late May 1863. In the same month, Ewell became a Corps Commander after the death of Stonewall Jackson. He led elements of Jackson's old corps at Gettysburg a little over a month later., After the war, the Ewells moved to Lizinka's Spring Hill, Tennessee plantation where they successfully raised Alderney cattle and horses for harness racing. The stay was short-lived. In January 1872, the Ewells became ill with pneumonia. Lizinka died on the 24th , followed by Richard on the 25th. The Ewells are buried in Section 11., Other prominent Civil War veterans buried in the City Cemetery include Major General Bushrod Johnson (CSA), an Ohio native, West Point Graduate, and superintendent of Nashville's Western Military Institute before the war. Upon the death of his wife, Mary, in 1858, he purchased two cemetery lots for $20., During the war he commanded Confederate troops at Ft. Donelson, Shiloh, Stones River, Chickamauga, Knoxville, and Petersburg before surrendering at Appomattox Court House with the Army of Northern Virginia in April 1865. After the war he moved to Macon County, Illinois, where he died in 1880. In 1975, his body was exhumed and reinterred in the Nashville City Cemetery next to his wife in Section 12., Admiral Paul Shirley (USA), a Kentucky native, was commander of the USS Suwanee during the Civil War. Afterward, he was promoted to fleet Captain of the North Pacific squadron where he commanded the flag-ship USS Pensacola from 1867 to 1868. Shirley was also in charge of the USS Independence in California, from 1869 to 1870. He died in 1876 in Ohio and is buried in Section 28.52., Twenty-two-year-old White Turpin (CSA), a sergeant in Darden's Battery, Army of Tennessee, was mortally wounded at the Battle of Nashville in December 1864. He was originally buried by W.R. Cornelius in the soldier's section of the cemetery before being reinterred by his mother in his present location in Section 24.