A roundup of all of our organization's achievements this past year and the announcement of the "Second Assault on Redoubt No. 1" fundraising effort, by BONPS President Jim Kay. Also news about the opening of the Fort Negley Visitors Center and Anniversary Events set for Sat. and Sun., Dec. 15-16, 2007.

Happy Holidays to all of our members and their families!
And thank you for your continued support. 2008 promises to be another great year.

Click Here for a Program (PDF) of the Event and more details.

Click Here to see Slideshow of Bob and Trouble and Their Travels (offsite)

Our advisory board member, Bob Brown, died Sunday after a long fight with cancer. He loved our group and Shys Hill. We will miss him.--BONPS President James Kay

By ANNE PAINE
Staff Writer

Bob Brown, remembered as a noble and gentle man who spread his interest in saving natural areas to others, died at his Nashville home Sunday night, May 13, 2007, of cancer at age 77.

Brown, who never married, worked before retirement as a trust official at what
was then Third National Bank.

He became best known, however, for his quiet pursuit of protecting the state's
hills, wildflowers and streams.

He is known for that and for his dog Trouble.

Trouble, who died in September of cancer, was by his side for 16 years — on hikes and in boardrooms.

The pair, icons in the local conservation movement, received the "Best Friend" award last year from the Friends of Warner Parks.

"Bob Brown was one of the most noble men I've ever known," said former Gov. Winfield Dunn.

"He had an inquiring mind and an appreciation of nature's gifts to all of us — in the fields and woods and flowers and natural areas.

"And he shared it. He took great joy in raising the level of appreciation of other people in this wonderful gift."

Brown co-founded the Tennessee Trails Association and helped inspire and plan the 300-mile Cumberland Trail that will stretch from the Tennessee River Gorge near Chattanooga to the Kentucky-Virginia border.

An "amateur" botanist who provided Latin names of plants with ease, Brown was honored recently by a 315-acre donation on Brady Mountain in his and a colleague's name. It is now part of the Cumberland Trail State Park.

"He was an unbelievably good man in so many ways …," said John Eddie Cain, a friend since first grade at Parmer School.

"He was a forerunner on just about every issue you could think of that's really worthwhile."

Boards on which he served included those of the Tennessee Parks and Greenways Foundation, the Tennessee Chapter of the Nature Conservancy and the Metro Greenways Commission.

Tennessee Environment and Conservation Deputy Commissioner Paul Sloan described him as "soft spoken, always courteous, always curious to learn more."

He was a "virtual encyclopedia" of the state's trails and historical and natural features, Sloan said.

"Bob wasn't a member of a political party," he said. "He never wavered from just a straight, honest love for conservation and he understood how important it was and gave his whole life for it."

A memorial service, not yet planned, is expected to be held.

By Lacy Broemel

On Saturday, April 7, 2007 many dedicated preservers of Shy’s Hill turned out to clear brush and improve the trail. This important battle site, the place where the Union troops broke through the Confederate line on December 16, 1864, is being preserved by a group of Battle of Nashville enthusiasts, the Battle of Nashville Preservation Society. This local group carried out “Park Day,” a national day of cleaning and restoring battlefields, in our community.

The summit of Shy’s Hill has previously been cleared, except for five large brush piles on the top. Starting at 8 a.m. Saturday morning, a group began to clear these piles and bring them to the side of the hill, creating a screen from the neighbors. The group successfully cleared three of the piles from the summit in four hours.

While one group was clearing brush, another group was improving the trail to the summit. A visible trail has already been made, but Mr. Bob Slaydon, a pioneer in making trails, led a group in flattening and improving the trail. These workers dug out roots and made the trail easier to walk on.

Prior to this workday, two supporters, The Parke Company and Vermeer, donated equipment to help this day go more smoothly.

Shy’s Hill, a key battlefield in the Battle of Nashville, is alive and well, thanks to dedicated workers. Improving the site is no easy job, but on Saturday everyone at the site felt the importance of the job at hand. All the workers made a huge improvement on the hill, clearing brush from the top and making the trail more accessible.

Waiting for Sounds, Metro proceeds with Fort Negley
By Bill Harless, Nashville City Paper, bharless@nashvillecitypaper.com
March 13, 2007
 
Despite some fretting in the city over the future of the proposed Nashville Sounds ballpark downtown, Metro is proceeding with plans to build a visitors center for the Fort Negley park atop a portion of Greer Stadium’s parking lot.

The Sounds play at Greer Stadium and have said they hope to open their new ballpark in time for the 2009 baseball season.

Metro Parks Department spokeswoman Jackie Jones said Tuesday that construction of the $2 million, 4,500-square-foot visitors center will likely begin in early spring and said the center is scheduled to open in September.

“I think the Parks Department will compensate for any impact it has on the parking,” said Metro Finance Director David Manning when asked what Metro would do with the visitors center if the new Sounds stadium does not materialize. Manning noted that construction of the center would not affect the stadium itself in any way. “I’m sure that in a construction situation, they will provide a reasonable solution for the Sounds to the extent that there’s any kind of overlap there.”

“… It’s something that will continue even if the Sounds do stay at Greer Stadium,” said Molly Sudderth, Mayor Bill Purcell’s spokeswoman, when asked the same question.

Jones said design of the visitors center, by Buchart-Horn, Inc, is complete. Meanwhile, the construction contract for the center was awarded in November to the Powell Building Group of Goodlettsville, according to Metro. The contract calls for the building to include exhibit space, a small theater, a meeting room, public restrooms and an outdoor plaza.

Metro in 2003, under Purcell’s leadership, undertook a $2 million preservation-restoration effort to re-open Fort Negley Park, the site of what was the largest inland stone fortification built during the Civil War. The park, opening in 2004, had been closed for 60 years. It sits between Greer Stadium and the Adventure Science Center.

The Sounds and Baltimore Developer Struever Bros., Eccles & Rouse have until mid-April to complete financing and design work for the new downtown ballpark and also the $200 million retail-hotel-office-residential development that would surround it, and they must submit any proposed amendments to their agreement with the city for developing the site — between the Gateway and Shelby Street bridges — to the Metro Council office by March 23.
 

The featured speakers for the symposium were, left to right, Eric J. Wittenburg, Brian Steel Wills, Myers Brown, and Greg Biggs.

Approximately 50 Civil War cavalry enthusiasts attended the Third Annual Civil War Symposium, Sat., March 10, 2007, at Travellers Rest Plantation and Museum, co-hosted by BONPS and the Tennessee Civil War National Heritage Area. In addition to tours of the Travellers Rest property and lively panel discussions, the four main speakers at the symposium were:

• Myers Brown, a curator at the Tennessee State Museum, who spoke on Fightin' Joe Wheeler, one of the major cavalry leaders in the Western Theater. A diminutive man, Wheeler performed in a variety of roles associated with the Army of Tennessee. Mr. Brown was well informed on Gen. Wheeler, being the former curator of Pond Spring, the Wheeler home in northern Alabama. Wheeler, who also fought in the Spanish-American War, is the only former Confederate general buried at Arlington Naitonal Cemetery. Mr. Brown also displayed an exhibit, "Hoofbeats in the Heartland: Civil War Cavalry in Tennessee," which is a traveling exhibition of the State Museum.
  
  
• Brian Steel Wills spoke on the exploits of famed cavalry leader Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest, having written one of the best biographies of the controversial general. Professor Wills teaches history at the University of Virginia's College at Wise. Forrest was a fearless warrior who personally killed 30 of the enemy but he was also satisfied with bloodless victories. He liked to win. He was also an expert at psychological warfare, a master at getting his enemies to doubt themselves. Forrest admitted defeat only once, to Gen. James H. Wilson at Selma, Ala. in April 1865, and stated that he was afraid of only one man--his brother William.
  
  
• Greg Biggs, the founder and president of the Clarksville Civil War Roundtable, spoke on the Union cavalry action at Shelbyville, Tenn. during the Tullahoma Campaign of Summer 1863. In about ten days of rainy weather and miserable mud, making full use of his cavalry, Union Gen. W.S. Rosecrans drove the Confederate Army of Tennessee from Middle Tennessee. The U.S. suffered only 569 casualties while capturing 1,600 Confederates. The first use of lightning cavalry was at Hoover's Gap by Col. John Wilder's mounted infantry armed with Spencer repeating rifles. Lincoln praised the campaign as one of the most successful strategic operations of the war but the campaign received little recognition, coming at the same time as Union victories at Vicksburg and Gettysburg and involving relatively little bloodshed.
  
  
• Eric Wittenburg of Columbus, Ohio, an attorney, publisher, and author of 13 books on Civil War cavalry, talked about a variety of Civil War cavalry commanders, many of whom served poorly in the East and were transferred to the West. He noted that JEB Stuart, for all his performances, represented the cavalry of the past using Napoleanic tactics, while Gen. James H. Wilson, US cavalry leader at the Battle of Nashville, represented the future of cavalry. Bested by Forrest at Spring Hill and the Nashville retreat, Wilson led his troopers in the spring of 1865 on a highly successful cavalry raid through Alabama and Georgia, overrunning Forrest's men at Selma and nearly capturing their leader.

An almost 150-year-old Oak Hill home that served as a field hospital during the Battle of Nashville will be preserved along with the 65 acres of open land surrounding it. The Glen Leven estate is the largest piece of Nashville's Civil War battlefield still intact,
said Civil War preservation expert Doug Jones.
Susan McConnell West, who died Nov. 26, left Glen Leven to The Land Trust for Tennessee in her will, officials said. The Greek Revival house, built in 1857, is on Franklin Road south of Thompson Lane.

Read the full article (PDF)

Video of "Tennessee's Black Heritage" can be viewed online at http://www.wkrn.com/node/78756

Hostess Anne Holt narrates feature on Fort Negley and U.S. Colored Troops during the Civil War. BONPS President Jim Kay is interviewed during this segment. Other segments on Tennessee's Black Heritage are also viewable.

Robert Hicks, author of the best-selling historical novel Widow of the South, autographed his book for attendees at the Battle of Nashville Preservation Society's Annual Banquet held Feb. 8, 2007 at the Travellers Rest auditorium.

Click Here for More Information and Photos

Read the Article in the Nashville Today newspaper (Feb. 15, 2007) (PDF format)

The Tennessean; Tuesday, 12/12/06
Vandals deface Civil War statue
Police suspect teens did graffiti

By KEVIN WALTERS
Staff Writer

Vandals struck the city's Battle of Nashville statue during the weekend, splashing graffiti on three sides of its base.

The spray-painted symbols were first found on the Civil War memorial Sunday morning. Other graffiti was discovered on a concrete wall near Granny White Pike as well.


The granite obelisk, which features a bronze statue depicting a young man as the "Spirit of Unity" flanked by two horses representing the North and the South, stands along Granny White Pike near Battlefield Drive.

Metro police believe the vandalism is the handiwork of local teenagers and not organized gangs, said Don Aaron, Metro police spokesman. They have no suspects.

"There are teens that are known to hang out in that area and at the park," Aaron said.

Perhaps coincidentally, the defacement comes on the week marking the 142nd anniversary of the Battle of Nashville, which was fought Dec. 15-16, 1864.

"I will personally offer a $1,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of these thugs," said Jim Kay, president elect of the private nonprofit Battle of Nashville Preservation Society Inc.

He said he was "disgusted" by the damage to a statue that is considered among the first in the nation to commemorate the unity of the country in the wake of the Civil War. Nashville preservationists worked for years to raise money for the statue's 1999 rededication.

The statue was created by Italian master sculptor Giuseppe Moretti, who also cast the city of Birmingham's Vulcan statue, and was dedicated on Armistice Day, 1927.

Its base and the angel atop the obelisk were replaced after a tornado destroyed them in 1974. The statue was later relocated from Franklin Road to its current site.

"It's a monument to preserve the memory of the men who fought and died at the Battle of Nashville," said Wes Shofner, a Battle of Nashville Preservation Society board member. "The entire city should be incensed."

Spray-painted graffiti has previously been removed from the statue, which is owned by the state Historical Commission, said Richard Tune, acting executive director.

Anyone with information is asked to call CrimeStoppers at 742-7463.

Accepting the House Joint Resolution are, left to right, Doug Jones, Immediate Past-President of BONPS; Ann Roberts, Director of the Metropolitan Historical Commission; Ann Toplovich, Executive Director of The Tennessee Historical Society; and BONPS President J.T. Thompson.

BONPS, Nashville Metropolitan Historical Commission, and the Tennessee Historical Society Receive State Honor for Preserving Shy’s Hill

(Nashville, Tenn.)—July 25, 2006---The Battle of Nashville Preservation Society (BONPS), Nashville Metropolitan Historical Commission and the Tennessee Historical Society recently received a House Joint Resolution No. 1373 from the State of Tennessee for their efforts in preserving Shy’s Hill.

The House Joint Resolution was issued by Representatives McDaniel, Harwell and Senator Henry.

President of the Battle of Nashville Preservation Society J.T. Thompson said, “While we are proud to be recognized by this distinguished resolution for the joint effort on the work on Shy’s Hill performed by BONPS, the Metro Historical Commission and the Tennessee Historical Society, we look forward to the work that continues to be important in preserving our battlefield sites.”

The Battle of Nashville Preservation Society was founded in 1993 to protect the remaining battlefield sites and promote an understanding of life in Davidson County during the American Civil War. The organization recently retired the debt on the Shy’s Hill property in order that future generations may appreciate its rich history. The Tennessee Historical Society owns the crest of the hill and leases that area to BONPS.

It was at Shy’s Hill on December 16, 1864, during the Battle of Nashville, that Federal troops finally broke the Confederate line on the left flank, resulting in a massive Rebel retreat and a decisive Union Victory.

Since its founding, the BONPS has been instrumental in the preservation of Shy's Hill, Redoubt No. 1, and Kelley's Point sites, as well as actively involved in the preservation of the Battle of Nashville Monument and the rehabilitation and interpretation of Fort Negley. The Battle of Nashville Preservation Society has played an integral role in the promotion, protection, and interpretation of the sites important to our city's role in the Civil War.