The “Battle of Nashville Storymap” gives a unique, graphic, first-time look at multiple aspects of Nashville during the time of the Civil War like we’ve never seen it before — both above ground and below.
This new way of viewing Nashville’s Civil War history was created by Brandon Hulette and Stacy Curry-Johnson at Vanderbilt University. Hulette is a Vanderbilt professor and member of the Battle of Nashville Trust Board, and Curry-Johnson is Director of Research Strategies at Vanderbilt University Libraries and GIS Lecturer at Vanderbilt.
Click on the image above to open and view The Battle of Nashville Storymap
The Civil War in Nashville has never been seen through the lens of the sophisticated geospatial analysis and tools used in this study. “The Battle of Nashville Storymap is a first-of-its-king creation that combines traditional scholarship on the Battle with modern GIS [Geographic Information System] tools and cutting-edge ground-penetrating radar technology into one digital product to tell the whole story of the Battle of Nashville,” according to Hulette, adding, “This Storymap allows us to understand the Battle in an entirely new way and see how several aspects of Civil-War Nashville influences this pivotal event.”
To view the Storymap, click on the image of its introductory page above, or this link. To hear Hulette explain the Storymap and demonstrate how it works and its findings relating to the Fort Negley site, see the story immediately below, or click here for the link.
The Storymap enables viewers to visualize history in a new way, and its computers give us a new perspective on many aspects of Civil War Nashville, ranging from a description of the city in 1862 and the presence of landmarks such as forts and hospitals, to the battles of Fort Donelson , the naval skirmishes on the Cumberland River, the redoubts and earthworks to the south including Shy’s Hill, and numerous other never-before-seen aspects of the time.
The Storymap was created with support from a number of entities in addition to the Battle of Nashville Trust, including the Tennessee Wars Commission, the Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee, and others which are identified throughout the Storymap.
