-------- Original Message --------
Subject: re: NOAA Marks Civil War's 150th with Historical Collection
Date: Tue, 19 Oct 2010 10:19:39 -0500
From: Angie Cope <[log in to unmask]>
Organization: American Geographical Society Library
To: Maps-L <[log in to unmask]>
It is a rural legend that Union cannoneers found U.S. Coast Survey
benchmarks marked "CS" and, thinking they were abbreviations for
"Confederate States", threw them away. The major Coast Survey monuments
were truncated stone obelisks half-buried in the ground, not easy to
toss aside in any case. And they were marked "U S Coast Survey" and
often also marked "A D Bache Supt." along with the year they monument
was sighted in and installed. Bache was the great grandson of Benjamin
Franklin, founding member of the National Academy of Sciences, Vice
President of the US Sanitary Commission, as well as the Superintendent
of the US Coast Survey from 1843 through the Civil War. Union forces
would not have mistaken a monument so marked for the geodetic work of
the Confederacy! And any smaller, more laconic monuments would be
marked "USCS", never "CS". Further, often when Union forces established
a new high position they did so with Survey geodesists working right
there with the troops. Survey personnel served with Army and Navy units
in most of the major campaigns of the war. They even developed a method
for firing Navy mortars geodetically, aiming them across bends in the
Mississippi River to attack unseen Confederate redoubts with geodetic
accuracy.
--
_ _
(o) (o)
oOOO----(_)----OOOo---
John Cloud
Geographer/Writer/Editor
NOAA Central Library
1315 East-West Highway
SSMC-3, 2nd Floor, E/OC4
Silver Spring, MD 20910
301-713-2607, ext. 126
[log in to unmask]
aussi:
Chez Cloud Urbanique
1915 Kalorama Rd. NW
Apt. 603
Washington, DC 20009
202-277-4931
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: RE: MAPS-L Digest - 13 Oct 2010 to 15 Oct 2010 (#2010-200)
Date: Tue, 19 Oct 2010 10:18:09 -0500
From: Hadden, Robert L AGC<[log in to unmask]>
To: Maps, Air Photo, GIS Forum - Map Librarianship
<[log in to unmask]>
Hi Linda!
When I was a young man tramping around the Civil War battlefields
with my Grandfather during the Centennial (hard to believe that was almost
fifty years ago!), I was told that Union cannoneers found US Coast Survey
benchmarks near their lines in Fredericksburg, VA, placed there as part of
their ante-bellum rivers survey. The benchmarks were forthwith dug up and
tossed away, because they were thought to have recently been placed there by
the sneaky southerners as range indicators, since they were marked "CS" for
"Coastal Survey," and they were thought to really mean "Confederate States"
by the Union artillerymen.
Has anyone else on the MAPS-L ever heard this story, and have a
reference to cite? I don't know if this is simply folklore, a rural myth or
is perhaps even true.
Lee Hadden
R. Lee Hadden, BA, BS, MLS
Geospatial Information Library (Map Library)
Army Geospatial Center
7701 Telegraph Road
Alexandria, VA 22315
(703) 428-9206
[log in to unmask]
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: NOAA Marks Civil War's 150th with Historical Collection
Date: Fri, 15 Oct 2010 13:20:31 -0500 (CDT)
From: Linda R Zellmer<[log in to unmask]>
To: Map& Air Photo Discussion List<[log in to unmask]>
This is from today's Live Science:
"In honor of the 150th anniversary of the Civil War in 2011, the National
Atmospheric and Oceanic Administration (NOAA) has put together a historical
collection of maps and documents prepared by the U.S. Coast Survey during the
war.
The almost 400-piece collection, called "Charting a More Perfect Union," will
be available free online through NOAA's Office of Coast Survey to researchers
and those who may want to visit famous Civil War battlegrounds and areas in
national parks."
The full article is at:
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Livesciencecom/~3/khwY0a0IQ-Y/Civil-War-Map-10
1015.html
The maps are available at:
http://www.nauticalcharts.noaa.gov/history/CivilWar.
Linda Zellmer
--
Linda Zellmer
Government Information& Data Services Librarian
415 Malpass Library
Macomb, IL 61455
[log in to unmask]
Phone: 309-298-2723
Fax: 309-298-2791
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