Free Online Maps of Civil War North Carolina

When the Civil War began in 1861, much of the United States had never been mapped in any detail. The coasts were charted by the US Coast Survey, but maps of the roads and rivers of the interior were hard to find for many regions. Union commanders sent staff officers to scour bookshops in Baltimore and elsewhere for maps of Virginia. The eastern portions of North Carolina were quite well mapped during the course of the Civil War, leaving us with a great deal of interesting maps to study today.

The Historical Publications section of the North Carolina Office of Archives and History http://nc-historical-publications.stores.yahoo.net sells printed copies of a few Civil War maps. Notable is “the Gilmer Map”, one of several versions of a map based on the 1863 survey by Lieutenant P. W. Oscar Koerner. The 28x36-inch map is $10 plus sales tax and shipping. The map includes Greenville, Tarboro, Wilson, Rocky Mount, Kinston, Goldsboro, and Snow Hill. Details fade away within a few miles of Washington, Plymouth and New Bern, giving an idea of the extent of Union pickets in those places.

This map was certainly useful for my research on Potter’s Raid. Anyone concerned with other events and places between the Neuse River and the Virginia line in North Carolina will get a lot of use out of this map. Numerous farms are indentified by the owner’s surnames, and small communities and country churches are also shown, making this map a treasure for genealogists. Other versions of this map can be found in digital collections at the Library of Congress and the University of North Carolina, below.

Online Civil War Maps of Eastern North Carolina

There are several sources of great Civil War maps of eastern North Carolina. Most of the maps can be downloaded and stored for viewing on your computer.

The collection Civil War Maps at the Library of Congress at http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/civil_war_maps has 92 maps of North Carolina. Many of the maps relate to the approaches to Wilmington, and the Battle of Fort Fisher. There are several Confederate Army maps that show the area east of the Wilmington & Weldon Railroad, between the Neuse River to the Virginia line.

The Gilmer Civil War Maps Collection at the Southern Historical Collection at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill at http://www.lib.unc.edu/dc/gilmer/?CISOROOT=/gilmer has 36 maps of North Carolina. There are excellent maps of Wilmington and New Hanover County, as well as of the Neuse, Tar, and Roanoke River regions.

“Historical Maps and Charts” at NOAA’s Office of Coast Survey http://www.nauticalcharts.noaa.gov/csdl/ctp/abstract.htm has hundreds of 19th and 20th century charts (as nautical maps are called) of the North Carolina coast. Included are numerous charts from the Civil War era including detailed views of the coast, Wilmington, and New Bern.

“Civil War Maps” at the U.S. Military Academy Library’s Digital Maps at http://digital-library.usma.edu/collections/maps/civmaps has a couple of maps showing parts of Brunswick County, North Carolina, and a sketch map of the region east of the Wilmington & Weldon Railroad and south of the Neuse River.