On 8 December, Tennessee was assigned to the Philadelphia Group of the Sixteenth Fleet, an inactive formation. Immediately after the war, the Navy began a major reduction in force to adjust back to a peacetime footing. Tennessee was by then nearing thirty years in age, but the Navy decided that she was still useful and so she was assigned to the reserve fleet in 1946. Accordingly, the ship needed to be preserved to remain in good condition while in reserve, and the large number of vessels that needed such work slowed the process, so Tennessee was not ready to be formally decommissioned until 14 February 1947. She remained laid up in reserve for twelve years, by which time the Navy decided that she no longer held value as a warship, and so on 1 March 1959, she was stricken from the Naval Vessel Register. She was sold for scrap to Bethlehem Steel on 10 July, was towed to Baltimore, Maryland on 26 July, and was thereafter broken up. Her bell is preserved and on display on Huntsville at the Museum of Scott County.
