Reconnaissance of secession Works and Plan of Siege of Yorktown

Yorktown, Shiloh, and Corinth – three Union victories in the American Civil War.

Preparing what would eventually become known as the “War of the Rebellion Atlas” started even before the peace was signed at Appatomox. In 1864, Adjt. Gen. E.D. Townsend of the U.S. Army filed the first request for copies of various battle plans and reports, attempting to compile a comprehensive war narrative.

It would be another twelve years before the Secretary of War was provided legislative means to formalize publication, and three more (1874) until the project was finally laid on sound footing by Lieut. Colonel Robert N. Scott. Scott diligently oversaw work on what would become the massive 70-volume Official Records of the American Civil War until his death in 1887. The companion atlas, compiled by Calvin D. Cowle, was published in 1895 by the Government Printing Office on behalf of the War Department.

That impressive two-volume set is the original source of this composite map, which presents three images of prominent battlefields of the Civil War. The primary plan presents U.S. and Confederate troop dispositions during the Siege of Yorktown in Virginia (April 5 to May 4, 1862). The two smaller maps on the right show the battlefield around Shiloh (Tennessee) and the preparation for the Siege of Corinth (Mississippi), both of which were major engagements in the Western Theater.