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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.

Period Map Consulted
Period Map Consulted
Period Map Consulted 2
Period Map Consulted 2

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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
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.

 

Filed Under: Reflections Tagged With: arcGIS, Battle of Roanoke Island, Civil War, Mapping, Roanoke Island

Where’s James Merill Linn? Mapping Linn in New Bern, NC

December 9, 2016 by Maureen Maclean

My role in this project was to spatially markup James Merill Linn’s journal entries from March 23- April 19, 1862, using ArcGIS online. Using the transcribed journal entries and historical research, I plotted, on various maps from the Civil War era, points where Linn mentioned he had gone for each of his journal entries (one point= one journal entry). Most of the points are around the New Bern area in North Carolina, where Linn spent most of his time (March 23- April 9, April 12-16, 1862) as part of the Union occupation of the town under General Burnside. On April 17, 1862, Linn and other Union troops left New Bern for South Mills in a (failed) effort to undermine Confederate transportation schemes by destroying the Dismal Swamp Canal locks. The Battle of South Mills (April 19, 1862) was one of only a few Union defeats as part of Burnside’s Expedition.

Screenshot of my work on ArcGIS
Screenshot of my work on ArcGIS

One of the hardest parts of mapping Linn was the fact that Linn rarely named the places he visited or the streets that they are on. For example, he mentions General Burnside’s headquarters as a white house in New Bern but doesn’t explain where it is or what the house was called. To find out what house it was so I could map it I had to do some research online. I figured out that the house was the Stanly House. However, the house was moved from its original location in the 1960’s and I couldn’t figure out where the house was originally located. I eventually found the general area where the house first was located after going through old land deeds but I hit another pitfall because the Stanly House isn’t listed on the map I was plotting the points on from 1866. The only building mentioned where the house was first located was listed as the Washington Hotel on the map. After even more research, I discovered that George Washington stayed at the Stanly house in 1770 and surmised that the map maker was referring to this moment in time when labeling the map.

General Burnside's headquarters at Stanly House.
General Burnside’s headquarters at Stanly House.

My struggle to find Gen. Burnside’s headquarters was probably one of my easier efforts to find a location Linn talks about because at least it is a physical landmark. For a lot of the journal entries, Linn just talks about his time at camp yet he doesn’t give the name of the camp he stays at and only offers hints of the general location. I used his hints, research, and the maps (both the 1866 and 1864 maps) to try to locate the camps he stayed at to the best of my ability. For example, on April 3, 1862 Linn mentions moving camp to be on the other side of the river (the two previous camps were on the south bank of the Trent) on the west side of town. Using a map from a newspaper article from that time, I surmised that the camp was located north of the Railroad Depot. Unfortunately, I cannot be entirely sure that the locations I plotted for Linn’s time at the camps, or for any of the points for that matter, are correct. That being said, my spatial analysis is more of a communication device than a historical record of Linn’s location; the purpose of mapping Linn’s entries is to provide an engaging interface for readers to contextualize Linn’s situation. A large part of this goal is aesthetics and accessibility, two key elements of effective communication. To make the analysis clear and good looking, I colored coded elements as well as labeled them. For example, instead of tracking Linn’s travels within New Bern, I instead just used a blue circle to indicate the general area he traversed during the majority of this time and labeled it as so. I figured that if I tried to track his moves around the city, like I did with his journey to South Mills and Pollocksville, it would be too cluttered and visually overwhelming. Additionally, instead of including the whole transcribed entry for each point, I instead only included a quote from the entry that related to the location of the pin. I did this because 1) it is more clean and concise and 2) it makes the reader want to find out more and thus click the link to read the full entry.

Newspaper map I used to help determine where on of the camps Linn stayed at was located. The red circle marks the label of a camp according to the map maker.
Newspaper map I used to help determine where on of the camps Linn stayed at was located. The red circle marks the label of a camp according to the map maker.
Entry that Linn talks about the camp. I used the context that Linn supplied with additional research (like the newspaper map) to determine the location of the camp.
Entry that Linn talks about the camp. I used the context that Linn supplied with additional research (like the newspaper map) to determine the location of the camp.

Overall, I am satisfied with the work I did and I think that I was effective in achieving my goals. In terms of relating the process to the other work we did, I think spatial analysis can be considered another form of transcription since I had to transcribe his words in a spacial fashion. Just like with the actual transcription of Linn’s writings, I had to negotiate Linn’s actual words with what I thought Linn meant, or in my case, where Linn meant he was. I had to question Linn’s own accuracy of his locations and use historical research to try to determine where he was. As I mentioned previously, my spatial interpretation of Linn’s entries is just that- an interpretation. This relates back to what Pierazzo says about digital editions:

“We should simply say that the notion of objectivity is not very productive or helpful in the case of transcription and subsequently of diplomatic editions and that we should instead make peace with the fact that we are simply doing our works as scholars when transcribing and preparing a diplomatic edition.” (Pierazzo 466).

Just as I choose what to markup for the various transcription/ TEI work we did this semester, I decided what places I thought were the most important to my edition and used research as well as Linn’s words to spatially markup the entries. As Pierazzo says, we have to distance ourselves from the notion of objective truth- our editions will be inherently subjective and we can’t be stuck on trying to make it “correct.” This is exactly what I did- I adjusted my knowledge and did the best that I could to make a scholarly edition of Linn’s journal entries.

Filed Under: Reflections Tagged With: 1862, arcGIS, burnside, final, Linn, map, maureen, new bern

HUMN 271

Bertrand 012
TR 9:30-11:20am
Dr. Diane Jakacki

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