MAP PHOTOGRAPHING FOR THE ARMY IN THE FIELD

Robert Gray

Sergeant Major
Joined
Jul 24, 2012
Alexander Gardner's usefulness to the secret service lay in the copying of maps by the methods shown below—and keeping quiet about it. A great admirer of Gardner's was young William A. Pinkerton, son of Allan Pinkerton, then head of the secret service. Forty-seven years later Mr. Pinkerton furnished for the Photographic History some reminiscences of Gardner's work: "It was during the winter of '61 '62 that Gardner became attached to the Secret Service Corps, then under my father. I was then a boy, ranging from seventeen to twenty-one years of age, during all of which time I was in intimate contact with Gardner, as he was at our headquarters and was utilized by the Government for photographing maps and other articles of that kind which were prepared by the secret service. I have quite a number of his views which were made at that time." These negatives, more than a thousand in number, are among the collection so long buried in obscurity before becoming represented in these volumes. Mr. Pinkerton adds: "I used to travel around with Gardner a good deal while he was taking these views and saw many of them made."

THE PHOTOGRAPHIC HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR IN TEN VOLUMES
Frances T. Miller - Editor in Chief - The Review of Reviews Co.
1911

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SUN-PRINTING...

I found this story by a guy who did mapping for General Lee and the need of maps for the army. The process used to obtain them... Sun-printing : Has anyone ever heard of this term to make copies of maps or anything...

Can we say the union army used the camera while the confederate army used the sun to make copies of maps...



HISTORICAL HIGHLIGHTS - THE CIVIL WAR

SURVEYING FOR ROBERT E. LEE

This fascinating account of Confederate surveyors and mappers was excerpted from a memoir penned by Capt. Albert H. Campbell of the Engineer Corps;

"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 any use to the Army of Northern Virginia, June 1st, 1862. Incomplete tracings or fragments of the old "nine-sheet" map of Virginia were probably all that our commanders had for guidance...

It is probably that weightier matters filled the minds of the higher authorities at this time, and that too much reliance was placed by commanders in the field on 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 battelings and unnecessary losses of men, to develop the indispensable necessity of a more intimate knowledge of topographical details of regions over which troops must be maneuvered. The march up the peninsula from Yorktown, the battle of Fair Oaks and Seven Pines, Jackson's collision with Hill's line of march from Mechanicsville to Gaine'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 organization of some plan for procuring accurate maps for his own use and that of his commanders...On the 3rd or 4th of June, 1862, the writer was sought by Major Walter H. Stevens, chief Engineer of the Army at this 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 take charge of a topographical organization...I was asked if I would undertake the duty...and my commission was received on June 6th.

Two or three surveying parties furnished with the necessary instruments were immediately 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 section 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 attention was given to other localities. Therefore, this map in question was dated 1862-63; it was not available as complete until the spring of 1863.

Other parties, soon after these first ones were started, were sent into Hanover and Spotsylvania Counties, and as fat 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 the course of time detailed surveys were made and at the close of the contest nearly all the work was mapped...

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 constructed 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 the James River, were prepared on a smaller scale, preserving all the details.

So great was the demand for maps occasioned by frequent changes in the situation of the armies, that it became impossible by the usual method of tracing, 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 not a new one, but not in practical use. Traced copies were prepared on common tracing-paper in very black India ink, and from these sharp negative by sun-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 capture, 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 methodical means for procuring accurate maps, to supply the want that has been, by implication mainly, so unfavorable commented on. Many maps that grace various memoirs, and personal recollections, and descriptions of campaigns and battlefields in Virginia have their basis in the maps made as above described, though accredited to others. " 'I could a tale unfold' in regard to some of these stolen maps, but cui bono? Nil proprium ducas quod mutari potest." --Albert H. Campbell, 1887

the link... http://www.surveyhistory.org/surveying_for_robert_e__lee.htm
 
Here is another story about the effort about the Confederates in getting detailed maps for Lee... by Major Albert Campbell
efforts...

Albert H. Campbell and the Mapping of Virginia

Recently I've been browsing Civil War maps of Virginia on the Library of Congress's American Memory website. In particular I've spent time studying an 1864 Confederate map of my new home county - Albemarle. The map is a part of the Gilmer Map Collection, named for Jeremy Francis Gilmer, Chief of the Engineer Bureau of the Confederate War Department.


Albemarle.jpg

Map of Albemarle: Made under the direction of Maj. A.H. Campbell; Held in the collection of the Virginia Historical Society.

I'll be the first to admit I'm no map expert. I enjoy books that provide high quality, modern maps to help explain combat, but if you asked me to name as many Civil War mapmakers as I could, I probably would stop after Jedediah Hotchkiss. But I was impressed with the detail of the Albemarle County map, and I wanted to find out more about those who made it. I started with the information written directly on the map:
CHIEF ENGINEER'S OFFICE D.N.V.
MAJ. GEN. J.F. GILMER CHIEF ENGINEER.
ALBEMARLE
From surveys and reconnaisances by C.S. Dwight Lt Engrs P.A.
Made under direction of A.H. CAMPBELL Capt. Engrs. in charge of Top. Dept.I decided to start by tracking down A.H. Campbell. I thought it would be easier than it turned out to be, though in the process I became acquainted with the fascinating story of Confederate efforts to map the seat of war in the east.

Census records indicate that Albert H. Campbell was born in Kanawha County, [West] Virginia sometime around 1826 or 1827. Both Campbell's parents were Yankee-born, Mason Campbell in New Hampshire, and Mary Chaddock Campbell in Massachusetts. The Campbells were living in Kanawha County by 1824, but by the 1850 Census Albert's parents had removed to Washington D.C., where Mason Campbell worked as a clerk.

Campbell graduated from Brown University in 1847, and by 1850 the young man was out west. He is credited as a civil engineer on maps of San Francisco Bay completed in 1850 under the direction of Cadwalader Ringgold. In 1853 and 1854 Campbell accompanied another expeditionunder Captain A.W. Whipple from Fort Smith, Arkansas, via Albuquerque, to San Pedro, California to survey a potential Pacific Railroad. Then, in 1854 and 1855, Campbell was part of Lieutenant John G. Parke's expedition from San Francisco Bay to Los Angelos, San Diego, and on to El Paso and San Antonio. By 1861, Campbell had quite the impressive resume, and was serving as the superintendent of the Pacific Wagon Roads Office in Washington. Clearly, Campbell had connections in the North and the South, but he sided with the Confederacy. With their pre-war army and War Department connections, Jefferson Davis and Robert E. Lee would have been well aware of Campbell's talents at the start of the Civil War.

Campbell's role in Confederate map making appears to have begun immediately after Robert E. Lee's ascension to command of the Army of Northern Virginia in June of 1862. In the early campaigns of the war, maps used on both sides were woefully inaccurate, many based upon surveys completed in the 1820s at the behest of state legislatures. According to Campbell's own account in Century Magazine in 1888, Lee recognized his deficiency in maps immediately:
One of the first things that engaged General Lee's attention on taking command of the army was the organization 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 take charge of a topographical organization 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 the army.Campbell asked to have a previously-made request for an appointment as a captain of engineers expedited, and by June 6th he had his commission and began to organize field parties to survey and map the vicinity of Richmond. Eventually, he oversaw about thirteen parties in all, traveling across the countryside of northern and central Virginia, creating detailed surveys. By the end of the war, Campbell explained, his parties had mapped:
from the western part of Fauquier and Rappahannock counties to Wilmington, North Carolina; from the strategic lines on the eastward Piedmont region of Virginia; and down the valley of Virginia as far as the Potomac River in Jefferson and Berkeley counties; and in southwestern Virginia as far as Smythe county; and nearly all the counties south of James River east of Lynchburg unoccupied by the Federal forces.The maps were done in incredible detail, and included not only significant geographic features and road networks, but also known fords, passes, and the houses and names of residents. The demand among Lee's officers for these maps was so great that eventually the Topographical Office created a process of utilizing photography to reproduce maps, so as to save time, effort and the cost of reproductions via tracings and lithographic prints.

Louisa+County.jpg

Map of Louisa County, Virginia; held in the collection of the Virgina Historical Society.

After the war, Campbell became convinced that his maps had been lost to posterity during the fall of Richmond. He wrote that at about 10 p.m. on the night of April 2nd, 1865, "I placed in charge of an engineer officer and draughtsman, upon an archive train bound for Raleigh, North Carolina, a box or two containing all the original maps and other archives of my office." Campbell never learned the fate of these boxes. Luckily for modern researchers, the maps eventually turned up, and can be found in several archives, including the Virginia Historical Society. They were essential tools for Robert E. Lee and his officers during the war. They remain extremely valuable resources today for Civil War and 19th century historians, as well as genealogists.

Let me know if you can point me in the direction of more information on Major Campbell.

Sources Consulted
In addition to those sources linked to above, I also consulted a Library of Congress essay entitled History of Mapping the Civil War, reproduced from Richard W. Stephenson's Civil War Maps: An Annotated List of Maps and Atlases in the Library of Congress.

Personal info on Albert H. Campbell was also located in Through Indian Country to California: John P. Sherburne's Diary of the Whipple Expedition, 1853-1854, edited by Mary McDougall Gordon, and the Report upon United States Geographical surveys west of the one hundreth meridian, prepared by George Montague Wheeler, A.A. Humphreys, and Horatio G. Wright and published by the Government Printing Office in 1889.


Link... http://battlefieldbackstories.blogspot.com/2014/01/albert-h-campbell-and-mapping-of.html
 
So Sun-printing has a scientific name:

Cyanotype is a photographic printing process that produces a cyan-blue print. Engineers used the process well into the 20th century as a simple and low-cost process to produce copies of drawings, referred to as blueprints. The process uses two chemicals: ammonium iron(III) citrate and potassium ferricyanide.

Another:...

The Cyanotype, which is also known as ferroprussiate or blueprint was invented by Sir John Herschel in 1842, when he discovered that ferric (iron) salts could be reduced to a ferrous state by light and then combined with other salts to create a blue-and-white image. Not long after, Anna Atkins, one of the few women in photography during that century, published the first book with photographs instead of illustrations, "British Algae: Cyanotype Impressions"

Cyantype is a contact print process and you will need a negative the same size as the size of the print you want. A cyanotype with a blue image on a white background is obtained using a negative transparency. In order to obtain a pale white image on a blue background, a positive transparency must be used.
 
Here more definition and agents:

By placing objects on special paper and exposing the paper to sunlight, early photographers created blue images, called cyanotypes or sun prints. The process was also used for copying architectural plans called blueprints.

Sun printing may refer to various printing techniques which use sunlight as a developing or fixative agent.

Cyanotype[edit]
Main article: Cyanotype
Cyanotype
, also referred to as "blueprinting", is the oldest non-silver photographic printing process.[1] It involves exposing materials which have been treated with a solution of potassium ferricyanide and ferric ammonium citrate to a UV light source such as the sun. Negative or positive images can be obtained by blocking UV light from reaching the sensitized material. For example, a negative image can be produced by placing a leaf upon paper treated with this solution and exposing to sunlight for 10 to 20 minutes. The paper will retain the image of the leaf after it has been rinsed with water. Once the paper dries, parts that were exposed to the sun will turn a shade of Prussian blue (ferric ferrocyanide), while parts that were covered by the leaf will remain white.

Light-sensitive vat dyes[edit]
A specialized type of vat dye called Inkodye is also used for sun-printing due to its light-sensitive quality.[2] Unlike other vat dyes which use oxygen to develop their color, Inkodyes are developed by light.[3] These dyes are suspended in leuco form appearing colorless until they are exposed to UV. Their usage resembles that of cyanotype, but unlike cyanotype Inkodyes are primarily used on textiles and exist in a full range of colors.[1] Exposure times vary from 3 to 15 minutes depending on the desired color and intensity of light.[4] Once exposed, the sensitized material is washed in soapy water to remove dye from unexposed areas. Such dyes are typically used by craftspeople, fabric printers and artists and can be printed with photographic negatives, resist pasteor through a silk screen.

Potassium dichromate[edit]
Sun printing may also refer to a photographic process using potassium dichromate which produces a negative plate for conventional lithographic printing. The process uses a film of gelatine spread on a flat and rigid surface. This is coated with a dilute solution of potassium dichromate and dried in low light conditions. A translucent positive is secured in tight contact with the treated gelatine layer and exposed to bright sunlight for a period of up to 30 minutes. During this time the sunlight and potassium dichromate tan the gelatine exposed to light. The plate is developed by washing in warm water and removing the untanned gelatine. Once dry, a relief print is revealed on the plate. The surface can be inked and printed in a hand press to produce any number of identical prints of the original subject.
 
Traced copies were prepared on common tracing-paper in very black India ink, and from these sharp negative by sun-printing were obtained, and from these negatives copies were multiplied by exposure to the sun in frames made for the purpose.

Based on this line Black Indian ink was the reactive agent...
 
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