RARE – Civil War wooden tent rope adjusters recovered at Nashville

A while back I was able to acquire several artifacts directly from the digger which was from the famous “Nashville Dig” that occurred during the 1990s in downtown Nashville, Tennessee. These are rare surviving wooden tent rope adjusters, measuring 5 ½” each. When fed through the holes, they would tighten up the slack of the rope that was staked into the ground.

In the 1990s during the construction of the Titan’s Nissan Stadium in downtown Nashville, a very large area was discovered as part of the Union occupation trash dump. The amount of the artifacts found was immense, with boots, brass Union buckles, eating utensils, eating plates, brogans, pistol holsters, cartridge boxes, and even part of a Confederate coat with KMI buttons still on it.

On February 23, 1862, the Confederate army surrendered Nashville to Union forces, the first Southern state capital to fall to the enemy. Stunned civilians watched from the banks of the Cumberland River as Union soldiers marched into Nashville and began setting up camp on the grounds of the State Capitol Building.

Quite often the brass or iron adjusters are found at Civil War sites, however, I really don’t recall seeing any of the wooden examples, they just didn’t survive, and when worn out or broke, they would just be thrown into the fire pit and purchasing more from the camp sutler.

As you can see in the pictures, they amazingly still remain solid. There is one shown in “The Civil War Collector’s Encyclopedia”, by Francis Lord (see pictures). There is another one recovered from the shipwreck of the Maple Leaf. On April 1, 1864, it was sunk by a Confederate torpedo just off Mandarin Point, Florida (see pictures). Stowed in her cargo holds were the baggage and camp equipage of three Union Army infantry regiments.

Items such as this would be considered irrelevant with no purpose of saving. This is what makes them so rare. I would guess there are very few (if any) in Civil War collections today. I would also say the same for many museums. They come in the glass top display case pictured.