The Atlas Of The Civil War, edited by James McPherson

Although most of my audience is American, this is a blog with a substantial international audience, and it should be noted that this book is about the American Civil War. There are no doubt many examples of civil wars that merit their own atlases, but this one is focused on the period between 1861 and 1865 in the United States. As an atlas, this is a very good one, not merely because the maps are so informative but also because it has some excellent commentary from an award-winning Civil War historian. That is not to say that this book is perfect, but it is a very good book, and the maps are explained well by the text that puts the maps in a context of the war and its overall course. The Civil War is a classic narrative subject with a very clear story flow and this book gives a good example of how to weave different elements of the larger narrative along with lots of good maps.

This book is a bit more than 200 pages, with the vast majority of the content being in 1862, 1863, and 1864, and only short chapters on the first and last year of the war. The book begins with a short prologue from the historian/editor, then provides a key to maps and several pages of theater maps that show the span of the war, with its Eastern front, Western front, and Trans-Mississippi fronts. Each year is introduced with a short essay that provides some overall thematic information about the progress of the Civil War during that year. In 1861 there are maps showing Fort Sumter, classes in Missouri, Western Virginia, Virginia proper, and the South Atlantic Coast. In 1862, the maps show battles in Eastern Kentucky and Tennessee, Forts Henry and Donelson, the two days of Shiloh, the Upper and Lower Mississippi valleys, the New Mexico Campaign, the North Carolina Campaign, the sea battle at Hampton Roads, the Peninsula Campaign, the two phases of Jackson’s Valley Campaign, Seven Days Battles, Second Bull Run, And Antietam Campaign, Fredericksburg, cavalry raids and the Confederate invasion of Kentucky, Iuka and Corinth, and the First Vicksburg campaign. In 1863, we see maps of the Second Vicksburg Campaign in two phases, the siege and capture of Vicksburg, the Port Hudson Campaign, four sets of maps on Gettysburg, two raids, the campaign against Charleston, the Tullahoma Campaign, two maps on Chickamauga, the battle of Chattanooga, the Knoxville campaign, and the operations in Virginia. In 1864 we see operations in Mississippi and Florida, the Red River Campaign, Steele’s Arkansas Campaign, the Wilderness, Spotsylvania, North Anna and Cold Harbor, Petersburg, Drewery’s Bluff, Sheridan’s raids, early operations in the Shenandoah Valley, Early’s Washington raid, Sherman’s Atlanta campaign and the battles for Atlanta, Forrest’s Operations in Mississippi and Tennessee, the Mobile Bay Campaign, the siege of Petersburg and Richmond, Sheridan’s battles with Early in the Shenandoah Valley, Price’s Missouri raid, Hood’s Nashville Campaign, and Sherman’s march to the sea. This leaves not much for 1865, namely Fort Fisher, Sherman’s Carolinas campaign, and the fall of Petersburg and Richmond and the road to Appomattox.

One of the notable aspects of the maps of this book are that there is a very clear structure to them. Campaign maps precede battle maps, or battle maps are included on small parts of larger campaign maps, giving a sense of how the battle went. We see raids, invasions, and campaigns. The one area I would want to see more of that I do not see as much as I wanted is information about matters of social history. Showing the electoral maps of the elections of 1860 and 1864 would have been helpful, as would maps that show the economic wealth of the various states, perhaps even showing things like agricultural colleges that resulted from the Homestead Acts passed during the Civil War. This book was certainly very full of military history, and I loved that, but if a book is trying to be the definitive atlas of the Civil War, it needs to include other contexts as well–diplomatic history, maps showing when slavery was eliminated in various states or other countries, economic history, and political history. Suffice it to say that if you like military maps, there is a lot to enjoy here, and that may be enough for you. It is certainly enough to appreciate.