Library of Congress Holds Conference on Civil War Mapping, May 20
Re-Imagining the U.S. Civil War: Reconnaissance, Surveying and Cartography

Cartographers during the U.S. Civil War invented new techniques and
mapped the country—both Union and Confederate territories—more
accurately than ever before in the nation’s history. The reasons for
this improvement in mapping were complex, and the maps created ranged
from typical battlefield cartography to demographic and thematic maps
that were used for both policy and propaganda purposes.

A Library of Congress conference will take a fresh look at the
accomplishments of these cartographers and topographic engineers from a
multi-disciplinary perspective, and will provide new insight into how
their maps were used and how geographic space was conceived and measured
during one of the most difficult periods in U.S. history.

"Re-Imagining the U.S. Civil War: Reconnaissance, Surveying and
Cartography" will be held from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. on Friday, May 20,
in the Mumford Room on the sixth floor of the James Madison Building,
101 Independence Ave. S.E., Washington, D.C. The conference is free and
open to the public, but reservations are needed: contact
[log in to unmask] or call (202) 707-1616.

Speakers in the morning and afternoon sessions include historians,
conservators, engineers and a mapmaking reenactor. The schedule follows:

Coffee: 8:30 a.m. to 9:30 a.m.
Morning Session: 9:30 a.m. to noon

Edward Ayers, president of the University of Richmond, will present
"Hidden Patterns of the Civil War." Mapping, broadly understood, can
help reveal complex patterns that are otherwise invisible. In a context
as vast, varied and dynamic as the landscape of the American Civil War,
all the tools at one’s disposal would be used to gain a sense of
proportion and change. This presentation will demonstrate several such
tools, mapping not only military history but also language, politics and
the actions of enslaved people.

Susan Schulten, professor of history at the University of Colorado, will
present "Mapping the Strength of the Rebellion." The sectional crisis
prompted several uses of cartography, both on and off the battlefield.
Some of the most original of these maps attempted to measure the
strength of the rebellion. Maps of cotton production and the slave
population exemplify this new purpose of cartography, designed to assess
not just the landscape but the population and its resources. These maps
represent different moments of the secession crisis and the ensuing war,
and also the shifting uses of cartography in American life.

Richard Stephenson, a former map librarian at the Library of Congress,
will present "We Were Profoundly Ignorant of Our Country: The Struggle
to Provide Accurate Maps During the U.S. Civil War." At the start of the
Civil War, much of the United States had not been mapped with the
accuracy needed for successful military campaigns. Stephenson provides
an historical analysis of the struggle to acquire the new geographical
information necessary to provide maps to commanders in the field and the
innovations developed by cartographers in the post-1859 period.

Afternoon Session: 1:30 p.m. to 3:30 p.m.

John Cloud, historian at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration, will discuss "Mapping the New Coasts of War." The Civil
War was an entirely novel experience in American life and novel demands
on cartography were called for in order to capture the event. The staff
of the U.S. Coast Survey re-purposed many traditional aids to navigation
and created many new ones to assist mariners and to help determine
strategic aspects of locations. As the war progressed, they also
re-defined the coast in military-political terms, mapping the shifting
boundaries between Union and Rebel domains—in an exercise never
attempted before, or after, the war.

Adrienne Lundgren, senior photographic conservator at the Library of
Congress, will present "Shedding a Little Light: Early Photographic
Techniques Used to Reproduce Maps." This presentation will chronicle the
first paper photographic printing process and its use in the
reproduction of maps. During the Civil War, this technique became an
important method for distributing updated maps quickly and efficiently.
While often described in the period literature, the terminology
surrounding these processes can be confusing. Variations in the
technique will be described as well as methods to identify these unusual
artifacts. Maps from the Library of Congress collections will be featured.

Robert Mergel, a reenactor in the guise of a Union surveyor, will
explain and demonstrate the surveying and cartographic methods of the
period, using original equipment and describing experiences in the
field. He will review the mapmaking of a selected group of Union
Topographical Engineers (topogs) through their personal records,
examples of their work and observations by colleagues. The group
includes well-known topogs at the time, such as Gouverneur K. Warren and
George Gordon Meade, and lesser-known topogs, such as William Emory
Merrill, Orlando M. Poe and George A. Custer. Particular emphasis will
be placed on the Peninsula Campaign and the Siege of Chattanooga as
examples of early war-mapping attempts and the later field-mapping
techniques learned "under fire." Also, the strategic use of maps by W.T.
Sherman during his march to the sea will be examined. Selected examples
of the equipment will be available for viewing.

Reception: 3:30 p.m. to 4:30 p.m.