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Mapping the Battle of Roanoke, From the Personal Perspective of James Merril Linn

December 12, 2016 by ejp013

For my portion of the final project, I worked at mapping Linn’s journal entries from February 12 – March 12, 1862 spatially using arcGIS online. To accomplish this goal, I used a combination of period maps and in-text research to sketch out a basic view of Linn’s travels, and then digitized my results. The section of journal I worked on primarily concerned the Battle of Roanoke Island, and the various logistical work done before and after the battle. Almost all of Linn’s travel by foot occurs on Roanoke Island, as the only other place he visits is Elizabeth City, during a short supply run.

These maps proved incredibly helpful for me, as Lynn mentions many place names that were temporary, or too insignificant to warrant marking on a larger map. Still, even with this help there were numerous locations I was unable to identify. Some of these locations, like the location of the Cossack was approximated to a general area based on other knowledge in the text. Other issues I encountered were some of the fort names, which confused me at first, until I realized that after being taken for the Union, all the forts were renamed. Fort Hugher became Fort Reno, Fort Blanchard became Fort Park, and Fort Bartow became Fort Foster. Unfortunately, I still couldn’t find the location of ‘Fort Russel’, as it wasn’t labeled on the maps, and there were too many generic gun batteries without names to be sure.

In Red: Forts/Gun Batteries/Redoubts. One is most likely the elusive Fort. — In Red: Forts/Gun Batteries/Redoubts. One is most likely the elusive Fort Russel.

The island of Roanoke seems to be fairly small, as after taking it, Lynn traverses it fairly frequently, visiting most it’s various forts and ruins during his time there. Given the closeness of the various points on the island, I thought it would be too hard to read if I put in a line that traced his journey, as I was missing a few points, and he often doubles back and criss-crosses his previous paths. Instead I used the line tool to give a rough approximation of the Ship’s journey, based on the natural landmarks described by Linn, such as Stumpy Point, and Ocracoke Inlet.

Overview of ArcGIS map, showing Linn's journey on the Cossack to Elizabeth City, and the approach to New Berne. — Overview of ArcGIS map, showing Linn’s journey on the Cossack to Elizabeth City, and the approach to New Berne.

The goal of this digital mapping was to provide a potential viewer with an interactive visual to help aid in their spatial understanding. I though this was especially important given the intermittent mentioning of place names like Ashby’s Landing, and Neuse River that are most likely to be unfamiliar to a casual observer. Although it was a little too complicated, I would have liked to incorporate the feature of being able to click on a location, and then going to the place in the journal where the location was referenced. This would have allowed a potential user to gain more access to the surrounding content, as well as providing an excellent way of bringing someone who might just be looking at maps, into reading the actual journal itself.

Closer view of ArcGIS map, showing Roanoke Island

I really enjoyed being able to work on this part of the project, as I have done work with GIS before, and even work with historical GIS, but I have never recreated a map based on primary source data. It was also cool to work with a figure in local history, the rest of whose personal documents exist at the university I go to! I hope this provides a good addition to the site, to be expanded and modified in the future, as I think it is an excellent option for more visual learners, as well as being a cool graphic that can provide a more interactive counterpoint to the text transcriptions.

James Merrill Linn the… Cartographer?

December 12, 2016 by ejp013

What I learned most from doing the markup was to get a much clearer picture of the various locations described when I marked up for placeNames. When I first read through the letter, it was difficult to conceptualize in my head where/what every location he referred to was, but as I was doing the markup and cross-referencing to the document, I started comparing the various names with Lynn’s hand drawn map, which helped me visually think about it. I also had to think about how to represent the map in my markup, and while I was interested in perhaps inserting a photo of just the map into my markup, it proved to be a little too difficult, so I ended up just marking spaces every time the writing wrapped around his map.

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Additionally, when I was first skimming the letter I didn’t really get a sense of what he was talking about in a big picture sense, but marking up the various objects and groups (like Carolinians, or Prisoners) I was able to summarize that most of the letter dealt with the after effects of a battle (I believe the battle of Roanoke), and it seems Linn’s regiment was involved with two main tasks, first the housing and care of the prisoners captured, and second, the transporting of supplies up and down the sound. Unfortunately, as I was not able to view the original archive copy, most of the last words before the line break on the 2nd page were illegible, as the document is slightly folded in the photo, which covers up the last part of each line.

Although much of the letter is spent detailing the mundane day to day activities of army life, I enjoyed the few times in which Linn revealed some of his deeper feelings about what he what he was doing. Such as close to the end of the first page when he says “I hope this war will thoroughly disgust Americans with war.” Lynn does his duties with honor and discipline, although he is anything but a mindless soldier. He seems to take most things in stride, always finding the positive things in his life to keep the tone of his letters light, remarking on the subject that “one cannot expect his pathway to be strewn with flowers.”

A Student Created a Blogpost, You Won’t Believe What Happened Next!

September 20, 2016 by ejp013

Progress on the game was a bit slow at first due to some unforeseen circumstances, which put one of our group members out of commission. As a result we ended up assigning aspects of the project to focus on based on what we were more familiar and comfortable with. Sarah and I would focus on the story and text of the game, while helping with code, while PJ would focus on the coding while helping with the story. To this end, we created a collaborative google doc for the story section of the game, which was nice as it gave the entire group the ability to view and edit the same document. However, there is unfortunately no easy google doc for coding, and the nature of coding makes it difficult to work simultaneously. So we decided to try and focus on our areas separately before coming together for a meeting the night before to be able to work together in the same geographical location, which would allow us to combine our disparate parts into a whole product. To this end I have written an outline as well as a chunk of the actual dialogue, mapped with pseudo-code.

Rough draft of the script, using pseudo-code

Script/Pseudocode

The idea for our game was inspired by another Game Called The Stanley Parable, which despite being a 3d game with a navigable environment, bears remarkable similarities to the text adventures of old. The game features a narrator who describes the player’s actions before they happen. However the player is always given multiple options, including doing the opposite of what the narrator describes. The idea is that it challenges the traditional conceptions of a game, where there is a defined win point and when the game tells you to do things, you generally assume that by accomplishing them you will eventually win. However this game has no win state, but merely multiple endings, most of them bad. The same principles were applied to our game, as we decided that the narrator would actually have the worst interests of the player character at heart, and thus by following what is the perceived path to victory, the player will be working directly against his own interests.

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The narrator of Stanley Parable

This approach to the game allowed us to purposely mess with the ideas of encoding/decoding, as we encoded information that was purposely meant to be interpreted the wrong way, as since the player is assuming control of a character with 0 motivation or backstory, so that it is easier to empathize with. Then we provided the player with a path to follow, and given the tactical lack of other leads or details to grab onto, we hope that the player makes incorrect assumptions. This in particular is what makes this type of communication so interesting, since in a traditional piece of writing, the reader has no agency, and can only follow the path the author has designed. Whereas in a text game the roles are changed since while the creator can design and lay out a narrative or path, the agency belongs to the player of the game, who can choose to follow or subvert the game designer’s narrative.

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