History of Fort Granger

After the Federal occupation of Nashville in February 1862 attention quickly moved to Franklin, 20 miles south of Nashville, as an important location for to make the Union hold on Middle Tennessee even stronger. Major General Gordon Granger, commander of the Army of Kentucky, ordered Brigadier General C.C. Gilbert into Franklin on February 12, 1862 with orders coming three days later to begin entrenching for fear of an attack from General Forrest, who was stationed in and around Spring Hill, roughly 12 miles south of Franklin. When General Granger and his army moved into Franklin during the first week of March, Captain W.E. Merrill of the United States Corps of Engineers, whom would be responsible for the supervision of the building the Fortifications around the town, came with him.

The plan was to fortify several locations around the town of Franklin with the center piece of this ring being located on the natural defensive position of Figuers’ Bluff, located next to the Harpeth River and with viewing access to Columbia Pike, Lewisburg Pike and Murfreesboro Road as well as a location next to the bridge for the Tennessee and Alabama Railroad, a very important supply line for the Federal Army. Years before the war there stood a house on Figuers’ Bluff which had burned down, leaving a basement and a cistern that could hold nine thousand gallons of water. These two were repaired, the basement of the house being used for a powder magazine and store house for the commissary, and the cistern being refurbished and used for water to the garrison. Work on Fort Granger was believed to have ended sometime around April 29,1863

During the Fort’s lifetime it saw action on several occasions, including the attack of General Forrest and Van Dorn on April 10, 1863 and one General Forrest personally lead in June of 1863 as well as the bloodiest conflict the town had seen and is most noted for, the Battle of Franklin on November 30, 1864

Now the Fort is a city park and is in need of some attention. One of the major aspects of this event will be rebuilding a section of the earthen wall. This section has eroded over the last 140 plus years. The pictures below illustrate how bad the damage has become.