Soon thereafter, city leaders, clergy and businessmen were told they had to sign an Oath of Allegiance to the US government. Many refused and spent time in the local penitentiary.
Later, soldiers from both sides were sent to Nashville with injuries that were treated in makeshift hospitals that sprang up all over the town. Supplies were constantly coming in and leaving Nashville on the Cumberland River, railroads and roads. It was definitely a center of activity.
Then came the big one. On April 16, 1863, Union officials informed the populace that every white person over the age of eighteen had to take the hated Oath of Allegiance in ten days are they would be exiled South. Many more signed it and from then on, the Union considered the city as loyal.
The Union forces occupied Nashville until the end of the war despite a late attempt by a Confederate Army under John Bell Hood to take it.
And that Was That. --Old Secesh
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