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 THE LOST WAR MAPS OP THE CONFEDERATES 
 By Albert H. Campbell 
 
 Century 
 Jan. 1888 
 
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 ,rr " m o i *rn a nAT TffR C.TVII. WAR. 479 
 
 The Lost War Maps of the Confederates 
 
 In several published articles, and in several books 
 by Confederate generals and civilians, there have 
 been severe criticisms (some just and some unjust) in 
 regard to the want of suitable maps for the guidance of 
 our commanders. General D. H. Hill in The Cen- 
 tury, and General Dick Taylor and Mr. Jefferson 
 Davis in their books, have made special mention of 
 this want, and General Long in his recent " Memoirs 
 of Robert E. Lee " comes to the defense of that dis- 
 tinguished general from- this im'gjied blame, and remarks 
 that " the want of maps should be placed where it 
 properly belongs, — with the war-directing authority at 
 Richmond," and he further states that "the blunders 
 complained of were morejhe result of inattention to 
 orders and want of proper energy on the part of a few 
 subordinate commanders than any lack of knowledge 
 of the country." These remarks of General Long are 
 substantially true. The writer has the best of reasons 
 from personal knowledge and observation, and from 
 an interview with General Lee a little after daybreak 
 on Sunday morning, June 29th, 1862, for confirming 
 the truth of the latter remarks as to "inattention to 
 orders and want of proper energy," in this particular 
 campaign up to that date. The escape of McCIellan's 
 army from White Oak Swamp w T as undoubtedly due 
 to these short-comings, and I am persuaded that Gen- 
 eral Long and others have proved conclusively that the 
 same cause prevented the concentration of Lee's army 
 at the proper time before Gettysburg and occasioned 
 its defeat there. It is one of the many failings of hu- 
 manity to shift blame from one shoulder to another, as 
 it is also to claim the merit of success where it is not 
 due. Any simpleton can now untie a Gordian knot, 
 knowing how Alexander did it. 
 
 * Several trees were cut down. — See foot-note, page 306, of 
 The Century magazine for June, 1887. — Editor. 
 
480 
 
 MEMORANDA ON THE CIVIL WAR. 
 
 It is true that there were no maps of any account in 
 existence at the time when General Lee assumed the 
 command, that were of use to the Army of Northern 
 Virginia, June 1st, 1862. Incomplete tracings or frag- 
 ments of the old " Nine-Sheet" map of Virginia were 
 probably all that our commanders had for guidance. 
 General Long has, therefore, seemingly made an error 
 in asserting in his note at the close of chapter ten of 
 his book that the map accompanying that chapter was 
 " used by General Lee during this campaign," as will 
 be seen by reference to the indorsements on the map 
 itself. The " Seven Days' Fight " occurred in June- 
 July, 1862. This map was approved by me April 3d, 
 and was " sent from the Engineer Bureau with letter 
 of April 4th, 1S63." It may, as alleged in the note, have 
 been filed subsequent to these dates, but it was not in 
 existence at the time stated by General Long, as will 
 be seen further on. 
 
 Up to this period the blame, if any is due, must lie 
 with the "war-directing power at Richmond." It is 
 probable that weightier matters filled the minds of the 
 higher authorities at this time, and that too much reli- 
 ance was placed by commanders in the field in the 
 efficiency of local guides and the insane and ridiculous 
 notion that was affected that one Southern man could 
 lick three Yankees under any and all circumstances ; 
 and besides, our armies as yet had not had sufficient 
 battlings and unnecessary losses of men, to develop 
 the indispensable necessity of a more intimate knowl- 
 edge of topographical details of regions over which 
 troops must be manoeuvred. The march up the pen- 
 insula from Yorktown, the battle of Fair Oaks and 
 Seven Pines, Jackson's collision with Hill's line of 
 march from Mechanicsville to Gaines's Mill, and the 
 whole seven days' campaign brought out this fact in 
 strong colors, bloody colors, at Beaver Dam Creek. 
 
 One of the first things that engaged General Lee's 
 attention on taking command of the army was the or- 
 ganization of some plan for procuring accurate maps 
 for his own use and that of his commanders. A few 
 days after this event, on the 3d or 4th of June, the 
 writer was sought by Major Walter H. Stevens, Chief 
 Engineer of the army at that time, and Major Jasper S. 
 Whiting, his associate, and was informed that they had 
 been sent from headquarters by General Lee to find a 
 suitable person to takecharge of a topographical organi- 
 zation which he was desirous of having formed as soon 
 as possible, and proceed to the field, as he found no 
 maps of consequence on taking command of thearmy ; 
 and as maps were indispensable, no means must be 
 spared to procure them. I was asked if I would under- 
 take the duty and on what terms. They were in- 
 formed that I had an application for the appointment 
 to a captaincy in the Engineer Corps, favorably in- 
 dorsed by the President, which for several months had 
 been conveniently pigeon-holed in the Engineer Bureau, 
 and that if they would procure that appointment I would 
 accept it and proceed immediately to work. It was 
 done by order of General Lee on recommendation 
 of those officers, and my commission was dated and 
 received on June 6th. Two or three surveying parties 
 furnished with the necessary instruments were im- 
 mediately organized and started from Richmond .as a 
 center, to radiate thence to the picket-lines of the army, 
 from Meadow Bridge around to James River, each 
 party taking an allotted sector of that circumscribed 
 
 space. This work had not sufficiently far advanced to 
 be of any use in June, for no part of the region beyond 
 our lines was accessible to survey until June 30th, when 
 orders were given to follow in the wake of our army 
 and extend the surveys as fast and as far as possible. 
 The field work was mapped as fast as practicable, but as 
 the army soon changed its location, more immediate at- 
 tention was given toother localities. Therefore, this map 
 in question was dated 1862-3: it was not available as 
 complete until the spring of 1863. Other parties, soon 
 after these first ones were started, were sent into Han- 
 over and Spotsylvania counties, and as fast as possible 
 other parties, amounting in all to about thirteen, were 
 formed and sent into other counties of northern and 
 north-eastern portions of Virginia, until in the course of 
 time detailed surveys were made and at the close of the 
 contest nearly all the work was mapped, from the western 
 part of Fauquier and Rappahannock counties to Wil- 
 mington, North Carolina; from the strategic lines on 
 the eastward to the Piedmont region of Virginia ; and 
 down the valley of Virginia as far as the Potomac River 
 in Jefferson and Berkeley counties ; and into south- 
 western Virginia as far as Smythe county ; and nearly 
 all the counties south of James River east of Lynch- 
 burg unoccupied by the Federal forces. The surveys 
 in North Carolina embraced a considerable belt on each 
 side of the Weldon and Wilmington R. R. The exact 
 limits of these extensive surveys can not now be recalled, 
 for these maps have all been lost. 
 
 The general plan of operations was adopted of 
 placing full parties in each county, and maps of each 
 county thus successively surveyed in detail were con- 
 structed on a comparatively large scale, giving full 
 credit to heads of field corps in the titles; and also 
 general maps, one north and one south of James Riv- 
 er, were prepared on a smaller scale, preserving all 
 the details. So great was the demand for maps occa- 
 sioned by frequent changes in the situation of the armies, 
 that it became impossible by the usual method of tra- 
 cings to supply them. I conceived the plan of doing this 
 work by photography, though expert photographers 
 pronounced it impracticable, in fact impossible. To 
 me it was an original idea, though I believe nut a new 
 one, but not in practical use. Traced copies , ere pre- 
 pared on common tracing-paper in very black India 
 ink, and from these sharp negatives by su --printing 
 were obtained, and from these negatives copies were 
 multiplied by exposure to the sun in frames made for 
 the purpose. The several sections, properly toned, 
 were pasted together in their order, and formed the 
 general map, or such portions of it as were desired; 
 it being the policy, as a matter of prudence against cap- 
 ture, to furnish no one but the commanding general 
 and corps commanders with the entire map of a given 
 region. 
 
 From this statement it will be seen that to General 
 Lee is due the credit of promptly originating method- 
 ical means for procuring accurate maps to supply the 
 want that has been, by implication mainly, so unfavor- 
 ably commented on. Many maps that grace various 
 memoirs, and personal recollections, and descriptions 
 of campaigns and battle-fields in Virginia have their 
 basis in the maps made as above described, though ac- 
 credited to others. "I could a tale unfold" in regard 
 to some of these stolen maps, but cut bono ? Nil pro- 
 prium ducas quod mutari potest. 
 
MEMORANDA ON THE CIVIL WAR. 
 
 481 
 
 General Woodruff, United States Engineer, orally, 
 and Generals Lee and Gilmer and several other per- 
 sons have from time to time, by letter, inquired of me 
 the fate of these maps. It may be of public interest to 
 give all the information I have concerning them, for it 
 does not seem to be known how extensive, how com- 
 plete, and how valuable these surveys were. It was 
 gratifying to my pride to learn that the United States 
 Engineer Bureau was desirous of obtaining our maps, 
 and to hear one of the distinguished officers attached 
 thereto remark that our maps were better than their 
 own. His expressed reasons in nowise reflected on 
 his own service, but accounted for it from the fact that 
 no regular system could be maintained in consequence 
 of the frequent change of commanders of the Army of 
 the Potomac. On Sunday, April 2d, the night of the 
 evacuation of Richmond, about 10 o'clock p. M., I 
 placed in charge of an engineer officer and a draughts- 
 man, upon an archive train bound for Raleigh, North 
 Carolina, a box or two containing all the original maps 
 and other archives of my office, except the field note- 
 books, which were burned by order of my superior. 
 This officer in charge never has reported to me the fate 
 of this property, nor his own fate. It is supposed it 
 was burned with the train, or pillaged, for fragments 
 of some of the maps were reported to have been seen 
 along that route in North Carolina. Nineteen years 
 after the shipment of this property I received a pack- 
 age of worthless securities, personal property, from a 
 son of General Gilmer in Savannah. He could give no 
 information as to how this package came into his fa- 
 ther's possession. I presume General Gilmer did not 
 have them in 1867-8, when I saw him in Savannah, for 
 he did not mention them. This package was in one of 
 those boxes, my camp-desk. Who sent those papers to 
 General Gilmer ? and did the sender retain the maps 
 and correspondence ? There were many autograph let- 
 ters from various generals acknowledging with thanks 
 the receipt of maps, with commendations as to their com- 
 pleteness and accuracy. I should like to recover these 
 letters. The negatives of the general maps, to divide 
 the chances of capture, I gave to my private secretary. 
 Some time after, he informed me that he had carried 
 them with him in his flight as far as Macon, Georgia, 
 and on hir return, for greater security, had placed them 
 in a lady'; trunk, a fellow-passenger's. Hearing en 
 route that all baggage of returning fugitives was to be 
 examined at Augusta, Georgia (which proved to be a 
 false rumor), he incontinently burned them to save Hum. 
 This is the extent of my information concerning the 
 fate of these valuable maps. On learning this sad fate 
 
 of all the evidences of our three years' labor, and that 
 my modicum of glory was thus dissipated in thin air, 
 my feelings were akin to those of Audubon when he 
 learned that the rats had destroyed his labor of years 
 in the wilderness of woods ; or, more congenially, per- 
 haps, to those of General Magruder on being informed 
 in advance of written orders that he was to make prep- 
 arations for evacuating his lines before Yorktown at 
 an early hour. Raising himself on one elbow, when 
 he was roused from his slumbers to hear the verbal 
 order to that purport from General Johnston, he re- 
 marked with mingled astonishment and disgust, in that 
 peculiar manner of speech which all who knew him 
 will recognize : " Stevenths (Stevens) thic iranthit 
 gloria pe-nin-thu-lee." 
 
 Albert H. Campbell. 
 Charleston, W. Va., May 17th, 1887. 
 
 General Robert B. Potter and the Assault 
 at the Petersburg Crater. 
 
 In The Century magazine for September (page 
 764), in an account of the Explosion of the Mine at 
 Petersburg, it is stated that 
 
 "each of the three commanders of the white divisions 
 presented reasons why his division should not lead the 
 assault. General Burnside determined that they should 
 ' pull straws,' and Ledlie was the (to him) unlucky vic- 
 tim. He, however, took it good-naturedly." 
 
 There are the best reasons for saying that this state- 
 ment is incorrect, and among them is a letter written 
 by General Robert B. Potter to one who especially en- 
 joyed his confidence, in which he says : 
 
 " My division expected and was anxious to have the 
 advance, because they knew the ground, had an interest 
 in the work, were in the best condition, and known to be 
 the best division in the corps." 
 
 That he did not have this task committed to him was 
 well known by his friends to have been the one great 
 disappointment of General Potter's army life, and there 
 are those who have often heard him say that, so far 
 from there having been reluctance on the part of any 
 of the division commanders of the Ninth Corps to 
 take the leading place in the charge, they were all de- 
 sirous of that honor. The question was decided by 
 General Burnside in»order that in the choice there 
 should not seem to be any favoritism, and, especially, 
 to avoid that appearance of partiality for a very dear 
 personal friend which would not improbably have 
 been said to have influenced him had he chosen 
 General Potter. 
 
 Henry C. Potter. 
 
 New York, Nov. 5th, 1887. 
 
 A CAVALRY ORDERLY. (FROM A PHOTOGRAPH.) 
 
TOPICS OF THE TIME. 
 
 Manual Training in Common Schools.* 
 
 THE argument against common schools has been put 
 in its strongest form by a distinguished English 
 thinker, as follows : " Conceding for a moment that the 
 Government is bound to educate a man's children, 
 what kind of logic will demonstrate that it is not bound 
 to feed and clothe them ? " The argument ignores and 
 refuses to meet the only excuse which has ever been 
 offered for a common-school system, — the political 
 basis. The system is not a largess to the recipient, 
 but a natural measure of self-defense on the part of the 
 government which educates. It is necessary, in a dem- 
 ocratic form of government, that the voters should be so 
 far educated as to be reasonably relieved from danger of 
 deception by interested parties ; when that is accom- 
 plished, the duty of the government ceases. To look 
 at the function of government in the matter, as so 
 many of those interested in public education are apt 
 to look at it, as " the prevention of ignorance," is 
 really but another phase of the feeling that the func- 
 tion of government is "the prevention of poverty." 
 
 While the purpose of the system is political, it seems 
 legitimate to attempt to attain as much other good as 
 possible on the way to the goal. If, as a part of the 
 process of making the boy a reasonably good voter, it 
 is possible also to give him the rudiments of a mechan- 
 ical training, surely time and money spent in this way 
 are very far from being wasted. It is on this ground 
 that the appeal has been made for a certain proportion 
 of manual training in the public schools. It is not in- 
 tended that the public schools shall be diverted from 
 their proper work into that of graduating expert 
 plumbers, carpenters, or shoemakers : the basis of the 
 system, as above stated, should guard one from any 
 such error. All that is meant is that the training of the 
 hands and eyes should have a place alongside of the 
 training of the mind, body, and heart. There are ele- 
 mentary principles of execution which are common to 
 all trades, or most of them. The boy who has mas- 
 tered these is prepared, in a measure, for any trade, 
 though he is master of none. It is only asked that 
 boys in the public schools who desire it should have 
 the opportunity, as a part of their ordinary work, of 
 receiving instruction in these elementary principles. 
 They would thus receive education which the State is 
 under obligations to provide for all its voters, and, at 
 the same time, a preparation through which they will 
 be better apprentices and better workmen when they 
 pass out of school. 
 
 The argument is offered in reply that the public 
 schools are for all, while this is a preparation designed 
 for a special class. In this form the argument has 
 little weight so long as German, French, music, the 
 higher mathematics, and most of the features of a 
 preparation for college are a recognized part of the 
 educational system of so many States. But the argu- 
 * See "Open Letters," in this number. 
 
 ment really has a different foundation. It implies that 
 the proposition is a disguised attempt to develop 
 a permanent artisan class, to fit a part of our boys for 
 " that state of life unto which it shall please God to 
 call " them, and to make it pretty certain that they shall 
 stay there. Nothing could be more baseless than such 
 an idea. It is quite sure that this feature in educa- 
 tion would incline boys to be good mechanics, and not 
 mere bunglers ; and that this training, if it should 
 become general, would tend to increase the total work- 
 ing force of the country, even though it did not increase 
 the number of mechanics. But it is far from true that 
 this training would be of benefit only to him who is | 
 to be an artisan. Even the clergyman or the editor 
 would be the better as a man and in his profession for 
 a practical knowledge of the proper use of those won- 
 derful tools, the human hands. There is no man, in any 
 profession, who would not be better able to do his 
 usual work, at times, for just this training. It is, 
 above most others, a training whose benefits are not 
 restricted to a special class, but are bestowed upon all. 
 The argument assumes, also, the odd position that 
 the better artisans are the most likely to remain per- 
 manently in the artisan class. There are too many ex- 
 amples to the contrary to make it necessary to do more 
 than state this position. So far as the proposition for 
 manual training touches the " special class " which has 
 been spoken of, it aims only to clear the way of the 
 artisan's children to any position which he may think 
 higher and better for them. But the essence of the 
 proposition has no such restricted aim. It aims to help 
 eradicate that pestilent feeling of contempt for work 
 which is the bane of this generation. Better that the 
 rich man's son should be compelled to work with his 
 hands for a year or two than that he should grow up 
 to feel, and to impress upon others, that work is de- 
 grading. Better that the sons of our men of moderate 
 means should learn that there is a science and beauty 
 in manual labor than that they should come to believe 
 that there are easier ways of getting a dollar than by 
 working for it. Better that we should have manual 
 training in our public schools than that all our public- 
 school boys should want to begin life as clerks in bro- 
 kers' offices, or in any position which is not smirched 
 with manual labor. That feature which has made our 
 country what it is, work and the love of it, is at stake, 
 and the new proposition is a means of saving it. 
 
 The only other objection which has been seriously 
 offered caters to one of the worst errors of our modern 
 labor organizations. They aim to restrict the number 
 of apprentices, in order to " make more work " for 
 those already in the trade. What will they say when 
 they see apprentices of a higher grade of intelligence 
 and ability swarming out of our public schools ? In 
 answer, it should be said frankly and distinctly that 
 the effect which is implied would be one of the most 
 weighty benefits of the new system. Suppose the law- 
 yers should form an organization for the purpose of 
 
UNIVERSITY OF N.C. AT CHAPEL HILL 
 
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