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| During the Battle of Knob Gap on Dec. 26, 1862, United States troops advanced toward the gap between the nobs on Nolensville Pike. (CLICK ON IMAGES TO ENLARGE.) |
Across busy Nolensville Pike, a lonely historical marker tells any visitors who dare view it that “foraging and skirmishing took place here during the Civil War.”
Today, though, Nolensville — which sprouted along Mill Creek late in the 18th century — is morphing into Anywhere, USA. Here, along the pike roughly 12 miles south of Nashville, you’ll find a mishmash of suburban schlock — an excellent BBQ restaurant, service stations, apartment complexes and a joint that makes honey golden wings to die for. An ancient cabin that somehow staggered into the 21st century still stands along the pike, but I imagine few pay it notice.
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| A historical marker in Nolensville briefly mentions the town's Civil War connection, but the battlefield nearby is unmarked. |
Judging from the look on her face, it’s probably the first time anyone has asked about the Battle of Knob Gap, fought two miles from town on Dec. 26, 1862. It’s one of those 10,000 battle sites historian David McCullough referenced in Ken Burns’ epic Civil War doc — as obscure as Sacramento, Ky. , and Hartsville, Tenn., hallowed ground I’ve recently visited.
“Have you tried the museum?” she tells me.
Damn, the museum — housed in an old schoolhouse up the pike — closed an hour earlier. It looks like I’m on my own. So I push down the road — a muddy, mucky mess for U.S Army soldiers in late winter 1862, a two-lane drag strip in 2024.
Beyond town and the schlock, the ground opens up. To my right, amid the rolling fields, is a horse farm and a field of yellow daffodils beyond a gleaming, white fence. In the distance, smoke from a fire wafts into a deep-blue sky.
“In front and to our left was an open plain for some distance in which is located the little Southern town of Nolensville,” a U.S Army officer described this scene in 1862. “Surrounding this plain, or rather basin, is a continuous chain of hills, high and precipitous.”
The pike, bordered by farmland during the war, splits the knobs. On the high ground, a small Confederate force and artillery awaited.
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| The Rebels positioned cannon on this hill. |
I swerve into a driveway, park and take in this unmarked, forgotten battlefield. To my left is a steep hill — that’s where soldiers from the 15th Wisconsin captured a cannon from Georgians, who had captured it at Shiloh months earlier. I wonder if the folks who live in the one-story house on the hill know what happened here long ago.
Few casualties resulted at the Battle of Knob Gap — perhaps several dozen or so — but it left an impression on those who fought here.
"A gang of cattle got between the lines during the fight and ran wildly from line to line. One of them had its leg broken by a Rebel shell and was devoured by the heroes of the day,” an Illinois private wrote.
A Wisconsin soldier, though, remembered the sounds of battle.
“The air resounded with the hideous noise of the shells whizzing and bursting before us, behind us, above us, and among us,” he recalled about Knob Gap.
Minutes after stopping, I return to my vehicle and swerve back into traffic. In a flash, the 19th century and crackle of gunfire and whizzing and bursting of shells are left behind.
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| U.S. troops advanced through this field, now a haven for daffodils. |
For more stories like this, read my book, A Civil War Road Trip Of A Lifetime. Email me at jbankstx@comcast.net for details on how to get an autographed copy.
SOURCE
HAT TIP: Dan Masters’ excellent blog — the source for the soldiers’ quotes.
Hoovers Gap engagement, not far from here, was the first time repeating carbines were used against the Confederates.
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