Geo-Referenced Mapping Project

Mapping our Future, Plotting our Past: Geo-referencing Historic Battlefield Maps

During and after the Civil War, a wide variety of maps were created depicting battlefield landscape features, troop movements, and other data.  Maps by well-known Civil War era cartographers such as Jedediah Hotchkiss and G.L. Gillespie can help us learn more about today’s battlefield landscapes and how they may have changed since the time the battles were fought. 

Despite the lack of modern survey equipment and GPS technology, the Civil War and post-war era battle maps hold an unmatched wealth of artistic yet accurate topographic, cultural, natural resource, and military detail.  In 2008, the Shenandoah Valley Battlefields Foundation undertook a project to align – or “geo-reference” – a series of historic maps with the modern landscape at ten of the Valley’s battlefields. 

In a process that pulls or stretches a digital scan of the historic map, using control points to align specific points on the map with the modern landscape, the historic map can be manipulated to depict where on the modern landscape the historic features may exist.  Examples of control points would be road intersections, historic homes or sites, railroad bridges and railroad crossings, and sometimes fence lines.  After the control points have been identified and selected, the map is moved (shifted, rotated, and scaled as necessary) into place, thus aligning the features on the Civil War map with modern spatial data.

The project was funded through a grant from the American Battlefield Protection Program and allows the Battlefields Foundation and its partners to better understand the Valley’s battlefield landscapes and make more informed decisions about how to preserve and steward them.

The maps may be viewed in compressed pdf format by clicking on one of the links below.  Please contact the American Battefield Protection Program for clarification about the rights, restrictions, and distribution of the grant product.

Belle Grove/Cedar Creek, Battle of.  19 October 1864. Original map prepared by Jed. Hotchkiss  (Download)

Belle Grove/Cedar Creek, Battle of.  19 October 1864.  Original map prepared by Jed. Hotchkiss. Plate 82 (Download)

Cedar Creek and Fisher's Hill.  22 September 1864 & 19 October 1864. Original map prepared by Lt. Col. G.L. Gillespie (Download)

Cedar Creek and Fisher's Hill.  22 September 1864 & 19 October 1864. Original map prepared by Lt. Col. G.L. Gillespie. Plate 99 (Download)

Cross Keys, Battle of. 8 June 1862.  Original map by Jed. Hotchkiss. Plate 111 (Download)

Cross Keys, Battle of.  8 June 1862. Original map by D.C. Humphreys  (Download)

Cross Keys, Battle of.  8 June 1862.  Original map by Lt. Col. John Pilsen. Plate 21 (Download)

Fisher's Hill, Lines of Entrenchments and Battle of.  22 September, 1864. Original map prepared by Jed. Hotchkiss (Download)

Fisher's Hill, Lines of Entrenchments and Battle of.  22 September, 1864. Original map prepared by Jed. Hotchkiss. Plate 82 (Download)

Kernstown, First Battle of.  23 March 1862.  Original map prepared by D.C. Humphreys (Download)

Kernstown, First Battle of.  23 March 1862.  Original map prepared by Jed. Hotchkiss  (Download)

Kernstown, First Battle of.  23 March 1862.  Original map prepared by Robert K. Sneden (Download)

McDowell, Battle of. 8 May 1862.  Original map prepared by D.C. Humphreys (Download)

McDowell, Battle of. 8 May 1862.  Original map prepared by Jed. Hotchkiss (Download)

McDowell, Battle of. 8 May 1862.  Original map prepared by Jed. Hotchkiss. Plate 116 (Download)

New Market, Battle of. 15 May 1864.  Original map prepared by B. A. Colonna, surveyed 1910-1912 (Download)

Port Republic, Battle of.  9 June 1862.  Original map by D.C. Humphreys  (Download)

Port Republic & Cross Keys. 9 June 1862 & 8 June 1862. Original map by Jed. Hotchkiss. Plate 85  (Download)

Port Republic, battlefield topographic. Original map by Jed. Hotchkiss (Download)

Tom's Brook, Battle of. 9 October 1864. Original map prepared by Lt. Col. G.L. Gillespie. Plate 69  (Download)

Winchester, First Battle of. 25 May 1862.  Original map prepared by Jed. Hotchkiss. Plate 85 (Download)

Winchester, Second Battle of. 13-15 June 1863.  Original map prepared by Jed. Hotchkiss.  Sketch LOC. (Download)

Winchester, Second Battle of. 13-15 June 1863.  Original map prepared by Jed. Hotchkiss.  Plate 43 (Download)

Winchester, Third Battle of.  19 September 1864. Original map prepared by Lt. Col. G. L. Gillespie (1873) (Download)

Winchester, Third Battle of.  11:40am, 19 September 1864.  Original map prepared by Lt. Col. G.L. Gillespie (1873), additions by Fuller and Whitney (1883).  Blue Map 22 (Download)

Winchester, Third Battle of.  19 September 1864.  Original map prepared by Lt. Col. G.L. Gillespie (1873), additions by Fuller and Whitney (1883).  Blue Map 23 (Download)

Winchester, Third Battle of.  5pm, 19 September 1864.  Original map prepared by Lt. Col. G.L. Gillespie (1873), additions by Fuller and Whitney (1883).  Blue Map 24 (Download)