UA Museums’ Collections Spotlight: Civil War Maps

UA Museums’ Collections Spotlight: Civil War Maps

The historic maps of Civil War battlefields were compiled by the United States Army Corps of Engineers.

The Erskine Ramsay Archaeological Repository curates a collection of historic maps of Civil War battlefields on behalf of the Mobile District Office of the United States Army Corps of Engineers. The maps, compiled by the Corps of Engineers in the decade following the Civil War, are lithograph prints showing the topography, battle lines and major fortifications of the war; major battles, such as Gettysburg, span many maps, with each sheet showing how the battle lines shifted from day to day during the event.

As part of the contract with the Corps of Engineers, The University of Alabama Museums and the Erskine Ramsay Archaeological Repository provided professional conservation for the documents. The fragile maps were sprayed with archival deacidification spray, and were encased within archival quality encapsulation film. The acidity of the maps is monitored by small dots of pH-sensitive ink, allowing the curators to watch for any further deterioration.

The History Collection, begun in 1985, is comprised of about 14,000 items, many from the Alan Blake Collection. Particular strengths of the Blake collection include bottles, stoneware jugs, hand tools and telegraph insulators. The History Collection also includes items associated with the history of Alabama’s natural resources, such as agriculture, turpentining, lumbering, mining, pottery and iron making. Also included in the collection are a number of artifacts that belonged to Eugene Allen Smith, which are of great significance to the history of the Museum. Smith was the second state geologist of Alabama, and the first director of the Alabama Museum of Natural History. The collection is housed in the Mary Harmon Bryant Collections Facility.

WIlliam R. Allen, archaeology collections manager for The University of Alabama Museums, provided the above information.