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Archiver > NCBERTIE > 1999-06 > 0928465147


From: Molly Urquhart <>
Subject: Re: [NCBERTIE-L] Gilmer Maps
Date: Thu, 03 Jun 1999 22:59:07 -0400


This is excerpted from a description of the maps from the Va. Historical
Society:

The organization of military engineers evolved hastily during the fevered
climate of early 1861. In September of 1862 a West Point graduate and
engineer office in the prewar army, Lt. Col. Jeremy Francis Gilmer
(1818-1883) took command of the Confederate Engineer Bureau. By the time
of the surrender at Appomattox, Gilmer, then a major general, had
contributed greatly to the southern war effort. As chief of engineers he
was charged with administering a myriad of tasks in circumstances of
increasing adversity that would have overwhelmed a man of lesser skill.
He supervised construction of coastal fortifications, built bridges,
commandeered labor, and helped ensure a supply of iron for railroad
lines. He assisted in laying out the defenses of Atlanta and
Charleston. And he oversaw the making of maps. The need of the South's
armies for accurate intelligence of the terrain over which the war was
found was acute. From the outset, and increasingly as the war
progressed, that terrain embraced the land of the Commonwealth of
Virginia.

The names of more than a dozen Confederate engineer officers appear on
the Society's maps. The most frequent by far is that of Albert H.
Campbell, the captain who headed the topographical division of the Dept.
of Northern Virginia. Because all the maps were created under the
supervision of Gilmer and came into the Society's hands through the
general's daughter, they have long been known as the "Gilmer Maps".

Among all the charts of Virginia and eastern NC created by Gilmer's
draftsmen, 64 were rescued by Gilmer from the evacuation fire following
the fall of Richmond in April 1865. All but one of these maps came into
the possession of the Virginia Historical Society in 1911 through the
generosity of Gilmer's only child, Louisa Porter (Gilmer) Minis of
Savannah, Ga. The other chart rejoined them in 1988 as a gift of
Jonathan Bryan III of Richmond. Three other maps, one depicting the area
around Petersburg, one the south side of the James River, and the third
eastern NC, came to the Society in 1946 as part of the R.E.Lee
Headquarters Papers acquired as a result of the Society's merger with the
Confederate Memorial Association. The maps and charts were laminated in
the 1940s.

For nearly ninety years the Gilmer collection has been one of the most
important and frequently consulted resources at the VHS. No attempt has
been made to clean up the maps. They are printed with all the stray
marks, notations, tears, foxing, and mold damage that appear on the
originals.

Don Parks wrote:

> Would someone please tell me what the Gilmer Maps are? Thanks, Yvonne

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