Civil War News
18
April 2020
Digitized Civil War Maps at the National Archives
NARA RG77 Maps screenshot.
Roads the Army of the Tennessee took while approaching Atlanta. In January this year, the National Archives announced release of digitized maps from US File Unit RG 77: Civil Works Map Files. Many of the over 1,900 maps, currently in the database, pertain to the American Civil War. This writer consulted with the staff at the National Archives to offer the following tips to help researchers quickly search for the maps they seek. Use this link to begin your search: https://catalog. archives.gov/search?q=*:*&f. parentNaId=7491452&f. level=item&sort=naIdSort%20 asc. Once at the landing page, click ‘Advanced Search’ near the top center of the page. When at the ‘Advanced Search’ page, enter your search terms in the first box. For this demonstration, the writer selected ‘Georgia’ as the keyword. After entering the keyword, scroll down to the ‘Type of Archival Materials’ box and select ‘Maps and Charts.’ Next, continue to scroll down to the ‘Location of Archival Materials’ box and select ‘National Archives at College Park – Cartographic.’ Finally, scroll to the very bottom of the page and select search. Following the ‘Georgia’ keyword example, researchers will see 665 results. To narrow the search to the Civil War period, scroll down the page while looking at the left column. First, select ‘Record Group 77,’ which narrows the results to 105 hits.
Continue to scroll down, again looking at the left column, and in the ‘Refine By: Date’ section, select ‘1860-1869.’ Now, the researcher can view 37 wartime maps of Georgia! See the screenshot above. As mentioned in previous editions of this column, if the researcher does not already have a National Archives online account, create one (free), and save findings through the ‘Add to My Lists’ function. The large image above, ‘Map Showing the Roads followed by the Army of the Tennessee in its March from Chattanooga Tennessee to Atlanta Georgia,’ serves as the sample exercise. While online, users can zoom in and out on the map, move in any direction, and download the map. Spend some time on this site and see what your research uncovers, as the National Archives continues to add to the collection. Next month, we will explore additional primary sources. Until then, good luck in researching the Civil War! Michael K. Shaffer is a Civil War historian, author, lecturer, instructor, and a member of the Society of Civil War Historians, the Historians of the Civil War Western Theater, and the Georgia Association of Historians. Readers may contact him at mkscdr11@gmail.com, or to request speaking engagements,
via his website www.civilwarhistorian.net. Follow Michael on Facebook www.facebook.com/ michael.k.shaffer and Twitter @ michaelkshaffer.
Deadlines for Advertising or Editorial Submissions is the 20th of each month. Email to:
ads@civilwarnews.com