World History Maps - Interactive Historical Atlas

The Civil War in North Carolina
Nov 6, 1860-June 25, 1865

This sample only shows events during June 1863

For more information or to purchase the Atlas CD/DVD with all the days visit www.worldhistorymaps.com
  • Click any date to see the map for that day
  • All maps contain links to the next and previous map
  • All maps are interactive, click help on any map to see hints and tips
  • Items on the maps display information in the status bar and many link to more detailed pages
  • Each page lists a chronology for the day
  • Additional information about the maps can be found at the bottom of this page

CSA: daily maps of the Confederate States

USA: daily maps of the entire United States

AL, AR, FL, GA, KY, LA, MD, MO, MS, NC, SC, TN, VA, Northern VA, Eastern VA, WV: daily maps for each of these states

CAMPAIGN MAPS

LOCAL MAPS: with chronology.

1863

June
1 2 3 4 5 6
  7 8 9 10 11 12 13
  14 15 16 17 18 19 20
  21 22 23 24 25 26 27
  28 29 30        
 


World History Maps offers a unique approach to Civil War mapping. Our Interactive Historical Atlas has one map for each and every day during the war. Instead of a series of campaign maps, or an historical atlas which has maps showing the Civil War at a few significant dates, or even trying to compress the entire war onto one map, we offer a different approach - one day, one map. In addition to the main maps of the Confederate States and the entire United States, we also have daily maps for selected states for each day in the war as well as reference maps with chronology of the major campaigns. Finally we have hundreds of local reference maps, one for each county in which events of the war occurred. We have thousands of historical maps showing an unprecedented amount of detail in time for the whole war that cannot be found anywhere else.

All of our historical maps are interactive. You can zoom in on specific areas to see the detail. Each event, place, and army displays information as you move over its name or symbol. Many of the symbols are links which bring up popup windows that have detailed information about armies, states, and army departments. Layers can be turned on and off. We use the SVG format which is an open standard so the maps can be copied and pasted into other applications and documents.

This Interactive Historical Atlas comes in two versions. The basic version is on a CD and contains only the main maps of the Confederate States and all the local maps. The enhanced version, which comes on a DVD also includes the entire United States, the more detailed state maps, and campaigns maps.

Viewing the maps requires an SVG viewer plugin. For more information about SVG or to obtain the free SVG viewer go to www.adobe.com/svg/.

These maps require significant system resources and may not work properly on older computers. They have been developed and tested primarily on a Pentium IV system running Windows XP, Internet Explorer 6, and SVG viewer 3.


The focus of these maps are the individual events of the Civil War. Over 10,000 events are recorded in the National Archives Guide to the Official Records of the Civil War which is the principal source for these maps. Of these 10,000 events, approximately two-thirds can be classified as individual events such as battles, engagements, combats, actions, skirmishes, etc. which occurred at a specific location at a specific point in time. The vast majority of these are skirmishes or actions. Of these 7,000 or so, some are duplicates and some could not be located. So in the end about 6,000 individual events are shown on the maps on the day when they occurred. No previous atlas has mapped this amount of detail in time.

To give context to the individual events, some other primary features have been mapped. One is the borders and headquarters locations of army departments which are not shown in most other atlases. Another is the general location of the field armies. The third is the location of over 500 forts that are shown during the time they were active.

Each map page also gives a chronology of what was happening on that day.

On the maps, events are shown by purple X's. The size of the X is determined according to the classification of battles by the National Park Service Civil War Sites Advisory Commission. In its 1993 report, 384 battles were classified 1 thru 4, with 4 being the most important. We have followed this system with the addition of one lesser size to show the remaining thousands of minor actions. There are therefore 5 different sizes of X's. Otherwise red is used for CS and Blue for US forces and entities. Forts are shown with small squares. Field armies are shown with circles. The size of the circle is indicative of the relative size of the army but no attempt has been made to determine absolute sizes of forces. Army department names are shown in italicized text. Army department borders are shown with dashes. State and city names are shown in red or blue text according to which side was in control on any given day. All towns with population over 1,000 are shown in the southern states, over 3,000 in the northern states where towns were much more numerous. Railroads are shown with green dashes.

Locations of field armies are determined by where the headquarters was, even though units of the armies were sometimes widely scattered. The maps show only Armies and independently operating Corps or equivalent units.

No attempt has been made to draw a line of control or front line since there was no such thing during the war. Events frequently occurred in areas that were supposedly already occupied or pacified. The largest armies could only control a continuous line of less than 100 miles, so there were many opportunities for forces to operate around or behind the enemy and they frequently did. This is one of the features of the war that our maps make particularly clear by showing individual events for every day.