how good are civil war maps

maxxkatt

Forum Supporter
Joined
Sep 20, 2015
Messages
3,484
Location
North Atlanta, GA
I have one compiled by Authority of the Hon. Secretary of War in the office of the Chief Engineers, USA 1975. I wonder how good and how accurate they are. This one shows confederate and union positions, major roads, river, creeks, mills and some named homes and locations of headquarters.

I am trying to square these CW locations with modern maps and historical markers.
 
civil war map

I have one compiled by Authority of the Hon. Secretary of War in the office of the Chief Engineers, USA 1975. I wonder how good and how accurate they are. This one shows confederate and union positions, major roads, river, creeks, mills and some named homes and locations of headquarters.

I am trying to square these CW locations with modern maps and historical markers.

Would be interesting to see if you are willing to post a picture of it. If you have some landmarks might be very helpful.
 
Some are good surveyed maps, some are made in the trail by the soldiers to the best of their ability. I have some for northern VA that completely miss align towns. Look for major landmarks and try to compare.
 
I have found good use of maps available online from the Library of Congress. However, I've notice they're often not to scale [in line with what EmuDetector said], so in terms of finding a place to hunt, it merely gives me a general vicinity. That said, when I do find CW relics in a chosen place based on an LOC map, I know 1) I've hit the X, and 2) I have an idea of what units were there and who that relic belonged to.

Another thing I have found helpful is old aerial photos, some going back to the 1930s. In Fairfax County VA, for example, I compare LOC maps with the aerial maps made long before mass production of urban housing when Fairfax was still a farming community. There you see the open fields likely used for army camps just 70 years prior.
 
I would trust the maps more than historical markers. The CW markers in my area seem to be the closest place they had public land to place the marker rather than the exact spot.
 
I agree with Scooterjim , over the last 20 plus yrs. of hunting nothing but CW relics markers of that history just puts you in the general area not excacitly the location. I once quite a few yrs. back hunted a site for two yrs. and found a few bullets , camp lead and such . And buy chance four miles down the road myself and a hunting buddy have dug over 1400 dropped minies ,buttons , rivets . buckles, and so on. not to mention buckets of camp lead and fired rounds, and personal items. So for sure hunt outside what you think are the boundries. The best thing is to get permission to hunt any location near the markers. Remember the historical societies, even though I apprieciate what they do, most of the time they would rather see history left in the ground. Myself I enjoy finding it and sharing it with grandchildren and others. After all it was a brutal time, but it is a major part of our history that we should all know about and never forget.
 
I agree with Scooterjim , over the last 20 plus yrs. of hunting nothing but CW relics markers of that history just puts you in the general area not excacitly the location. I once quite a few yrs. back hunted a site for two yrs. and found a few bullets , camp lead and such . And buy chance four miles down the road myself and a hunting buddy have dug over 1400 dropped minies ,buttons , rivets . buckles, and so on. not to mention buckets of camp lead and fired rounds, and personal items. So for sure hunt outside what you think are the boundries. The best thing is to get permission to hunt any location near the markers. Remember the historical societies, even though I apprieciate what they do, most of the time they would rather see history left in the ground. Myself I enjoy finding it and sharing it with grandchildren and others. After all it was a brutal time, but it is a major part of our history that we should all know about and never forget.

I found four historical markers near a major CW battle site and later found that them moved them a couple of miles so more people could view them.
But you are right, they give you some clues and the rest is up to you.
 
Back
Top Bottom