A Symposium of Lectures and Articles on Military Mapping Section Six: Make Straight His Path: Maps and Topography in the Civil War & Military Mapping: Robert E. Lee Moves to Gettysburg

By Earl B. McElfresh

Military maps are not like civilian road maps which merely outline a transportation network. Military maps encompass a complete inventory of the topography of the geographic areas an army might march through or fight over. An army without detailed accurate maps is like a person walking blindfolded over particularly rugged terrain and in danger of starving—especially in the mid-19th century America, which was sparsely settled and often wilderness. Maps were critical to the success and well-being of armies.

The two articles in this symposium describe in great detail how maps were prepared, used and what effect maps, or lack of maps, had on Civil War campaigns and battles. Of special interest is the negative effects the lack of maps had on Robert E. Lee’s campaign.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Earl B. McElfresh
• Release date: Sep 11, 2013
• ISBN: 9781885294487

Earl B. McElfresh

Earl B. McElfresh (St. Lawrence University) is the author of Sidereal Days, The History of Rock & Roll, A Romance (Tammy Norie Press e-book 2012,) Maps and Mapmakers of the Civil War (Abrams, 1999) and contributing editor to Company Commander by Charles B. MacDonald (History Book Club, 2007.) He is a regular contributor of Civil War articles to Civil War Times Magazine. He has spoken on Civil War mapping at The Smithsonian, The National Archives, The Library of Congress, The New York Public Library, The Boston Public Library, The Newberry Library, The Harvard Map Collection, The Warburg Institute in London, National Geographic and on C-Span Book TV. His plays Marvels of Modern Man and Amid Planetary Music were performed at St. Lawrence University. His play Honor Luck received a reading at the New Phoenix Theater in Buffalo. His screenplay Lazy Eye was filmed and premiered at the New School in New York. Cartographer for McElfresh Map Company LLC, he has prepared twenty-three maps. Twenty of the maps have been main or featured selections of History Book Club. He is currently preparing endpaper maps for the four volume Civil War set being being published by Library of America and entitled The Civil War: Told by Those Who Lived It. He served two years in Olean (NY) city government on the Common Council—a great experience—and he played rhythm guitar with the band The Fabtones. The cabaret laws of New York City pretty much restricted their playing to the wonderfully hospitable streets of New York City. He and his wife Michiko have three children and a cat. Like Roger Miller’s King of the Road, they have no pool.

Book preview

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