Archaeological Investigations of Civil War Activity in an Urban Setting: Franklin, Tennessee

Summary

Since 2003, the Nashville office of TRC Environmental Corporation has carried out a variety of archaeological investigations linked to the U.S. Civil War in Franklin, Tennessee. Located near Nashville, Franklin saw extensive action during the war, capped by the bloody Battle of Franklin in late 1864. The TRC archaeological efforts have ranged from work on city parks on the outer edge of the town to recovery of an isolated soldier’’s burial to a search for remnants of Federal defensive lines in residential yards. The latter effort discovered a well preserved section of a defensive ditch containing hundreds of rounds of dropped and fired ammunition sealed in place soon after the Battle of Franklin. One challenge has been to bring together these small and unconnected archaeological projects into a cohesive whole, a task made easier by linking the work to the efforts of Franklin’’s very active preservation community.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Blood, Sweat and Tears: New Research in Military Archaeology   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2014

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

Record Identifiers

PaperId(s): SYM-15,02