Battle of Nashville & Beyond

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Shy’s Hill Pano

Shy’s Hill 360° Panorama Virtual Tour

Revised: 12 Feb 2019

painting
Painting by Howard Pyle | Oil on Canvas, 1906, Minnesota Historical Society Collections

4615 Benton Smith Road, Nashville, TN

The trail is a very steep ascent up a mulched trail. 200 Yards (180m)

Battle of Nashville: Day 2

“At about 3:30 p.m. he sent a message to Thomas and XVI Corps commander Gen. Andrew Smith that unless he were given orders to the contrary in the next five minutes, his division was going to attack Compton’s Hill and the Confederate line immediately to its east”… read more

Minnesota lost more men in this action than any other. Shy’s Hill Park is open all year long from sun-up to sundown. It requires a steep 10 minute hike to the top from Benton Smith Road off Harding Place. The tour has links to other expanded tours of the Battle of Nashville and the Nashville National Cemetery as noted by the small white floating globe icons in the panorama.

There are links in the virtual reality tour to others, including:

  • the grave site of Colonel William M. Shy.
  • the Minnesota State Capitol
  • expanded tour of The Battle of Nashville

Note: get the full screen experience by clicking the icon in the lower left of the video frame. A zoom option is available also for reading the historical signage. Some markers are embedded in the floating icons.

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Suggested Reading:

#battleofnashville #shyshill #360

© Bob Henderson | Athens-South

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Minnesota State Capitol

Civil War Paintings

shy's hill

Minnesota has one of the most magnificent governmental headquarters in the country. It is also home to the most iconic image of the Battle of Nashville, along with 3 other key American Civil War battles:

  • The Battle of Gettysburg
  • The Second Minnesota Regiment at Missionary Ridge
  • Fourth Minnesota Regiment Entering Vicksburg
  • The Battle of Nashville at Shy’s Hill (5th, 7th, 9th and 10th MN)

The Battle of Nashville cost Minnesota when 87 died in Tennessee. The day is remembered in Howard Pyle’s painting “Battle of Nashville” at the Minnesota Capitol.  Shy’s Hill was the site of the deadliest day for Minnesotans fighting in the Civil War, and the heaviest losses in the Battle of Nashville.

The four paintings were almost permanently relocated after a massive renovation in 2016. “The Capitol Area Architectural and Planning Board voted 5-3 to recommend that the four historic paintings not be returned to the building’s most ornate room when the $310 million Capitol renovation is completed in January.” …read more

Take a virtual reality tour of the Capitol building and the Governor’s Reception Room:

 

Click here: Take a virtual reality tour of Shy’s Hill in Nashville, Tennessee

Click here: Battle of Nashville painting by Howard Pyle

Click here: Minnesota Statue at the Nashville National Cemetery

Imagery and tour by Bob Henderson

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Col. Shy’s Grave Robing

Colonel William Mabry Shy robed 114 later

flag
Save the 20th TN Flag

I was attended a wedding party last weekend near Franklin, TN and was surprised to find a most unexpected historical site in the back yard: the previously 1977 vandalized grave of Colonel William Shy, 20th Tennessee Infantry CSA.

I discovered the grave robbery had been finally traced back to a young man from Franklin.  According to the current property owner, the culprit had been on a construction team renovating the home. He was never prosecuted, and died years ago in a motor cycle accident.

The publication referenced below is dated from 1985. Sometime later, the artifacts stollen were unanimously turned over to the Carter House Museum, where the coffin had been donated by the family after the incident.

‘THE PILLAGED GRAVE OF A CIVIL WAR HERO’

“Occasionally unusual circumstances arise that call for the excavation of a historic burial. In 1977 the grave of Civil War hero Colonel W.M. Shy was disturbed. Upon examination a body was discovered that was thought to have been a recent murder victim. After a thorough examination, the body was identified as that of Colonel Shy.”

skull
114 years later

Colonel William M. Shy (1838-1864)

“After the battle, Compton’s (Shy’s) Hill was covered with the dead and wounded from both sides. Among them was Colonel Shy; handsome in life, heroic in death. Dead at the age of 26, a minnie ball in his brain. He had been shot at close range, [his head being powder-burned around the hole made by the shot] (Marshall 1912:522).”

“Vandalism of the Grave The grave of Colonel Shy lay peacefully behind the beautiful antebellum home on Del Rio Pike with little notoriety for over a hundred years. Then, on Christmas Eve of 1977, local police officers were called to investigate a report that the grave had been disturbed.

Upon arriving, the deputies discovered a head­less body on top of the casket and thought someone had placed a murdered man in Colonel Shy’s burial plot. Local authorities could not match the headless corpse with any of their missing persons reports. Wild theories abounded, some even specu­lated that the head might have been removed to hamper identi­fication of the body.

Dr. William M. Bass, Forensic Anthro­pologist and Head of the Anthropology Department, Univer­sity of Tennessee, Knoxville, was called in to aid with the removal and identification of this unknown body. If one had followed the story in the newspapers it would have read much like a condensed version of a Damon Runyon murder mystery.”

– excerpts from ‘THE PILLAGED GRAVE OF A CIVIL WAR HERO’ Col.-Shy-Grave-Robing.pdf

See a 360 degree panorama of Col. Shy’s grave. The tour has a link to Shy’s Hill in Nashville.

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NOTE: this grave is on private property

 

Suggested Reading:

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Fort Negley Park Saved

St. Cloud Hill development backs off the Fort Negley Park Plan

Updated: 08 Feb 2018

Act Four:

Saint Cloud Hill abandons controversial proposal for Nashville’s Greer Stadium – The Tennessean

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Noblit-Lytle Home

1840’s Home Dismantled

UPDATE: 9 April 2018
Dismantled by Barnwood Builders for it’s log cabin core.  See the schedule of the programs here.

Sometime between last spring and last week, this historic Noblit-Lytle home was dismantled. Historical markers have vanished in the area in the last decade as well. This is the site of the Battle of Sugar Creek, the last stand of the Confederate Army of Tennessee, in the Volunteer State.

Inscription. “Thomas H. Noblit (1812-1899), who served the community as justice of the peace, doctor, merchant, and farmer, built this log dogtrot farmhouse in the 1840s. The Civil War battle at Sugar Creek occurred nearby in December 1864. In the 1890s, his son-in-law, William Franklin “Will” Lytle (1858-1942), renovated the house in the Queen Anne style. Will’s daughter, Mary Will Lytle (1897-1990), was among Tennessee’s first women dentists.” …read more

by Lee Hattabaugh, October 19, 2013
By Lee Hattabaugh, October 19, 2013