1890 Vorzet Map of the Battles of Hampton Roads, Pea Ridge, Belmont, and Island No. 10

This is Ernest Dumas-Vorzet's 1890 map of the battles of Belmont, Pea Ridge, and Island No. 10, and the naval battle of Hampton Roads, prepared for his Histoire de la Guerre Civile en Amérique.

A Closer Look

The sheet documents four battles, three on land and one at sea, that took place in late 1861 or early 1862, and collectively pointed to future developments in the war (such as Union advances in the West, compared to tragic ineffectiveness in the Eastern Theater, and new tactics and weapons). In each case, cities and towns, roads, railroads, fortifications, terrain, and topographic features are detailed. The battles referred to are:

1. The Battle of Belmont (Missouri) - November 7, 1861. Most notable as the first battle of the Civil War in which Ulysses S. Grant was in command of a large force, in the District of Southeast Missouri of the Union Army. Launching from their stronghold on the Mississippi River of Cairo, Illinois, Grant's troops used steamboats to surprise the Confederate camp at Belmont, but the Confederates regrouped and were reinforced by a much larger garrison, armed with heavy artillery, across the river at Columbus, Kentucky, forcing Grant's troops to retreat. The battle was inconclusive but did amount to a rare Union attack on Confederate positions early in the war. By raising Grant's prominence and giving him and his troops battle experience, it helped set the stage for further advances in the following months, culminating in the Battle of Shiloh in April 1862.
2. The Battle of Pea Ridge (or Elkhorn Tavern) on March 7-8, 1862, which marked a decisive Union victory that helped secure control of northern Arkansas. By early 1862, Confederate forces had been effectively expelled from Missouri and pursued into Arkansas. Gen. Earl Van Dorn, recently appointed head of the Confederate Trans-Mississippi District, hoped a decisive counter-attack could turn the tide in the region. But a series of strategic and tactical mistakes caused the attack to falter, and the Confederates suffered heavy casualties while being repulsed. The battle is also notable for the high degree of participation (more than half of the Union force) of German immigrant troops, led by Franz Sigel, a Forty-Eighter revolutionary leader who had emigrated to the United States and become an influential voice in the German-American community.
3. The Battle of Island Number Ten was a siege and associated battles between February 28 and April 6, 1862. The area is home to a prominent bend in the Mississippi River near New Madrid, Missouri, where the borders of Kentucky, Tennessee, and Missouri meet. Given the Union's 'Anaconda' war plan to control the Mississippi River, the bend could serve as a choke point, allowing the Confederates to frustrate the overall Union strategy if it could be held. Fortunately for the Union side, taking towns on the Missouri side of the river, including New Madrid, was accomplished very quickly, with Confederate troops retreating to Island Number Ten. Union engineers dug a canal east of New Madrid, though it was too shallow for ironclad gunboats, proving useful for troop transports and supply ships nonetheless. Instead, two gunboats made successful daring nighttime runs past the Confederate positions (presaging those that would be used to similar effect at Vicksburg the following year), allowing the Union to have boats both up and downriver of Confederate positions, subjecting them to a withering bombardment. By this time, Union troops were in a position to cut off any retreat to the south, causing the entire Confederate force of some 7,000 to surrender. The island for which the battle is names no longer exists, having been eroded in the years since by the flow of the Mississippi River.
4. The Battle of Hampton Roads on March 8-9, 1862, perhaps the most famous of the battles presented here, known for its legendary confrontation between the Monitor and the Merrimack, the first battle in history between ironclad warships. At Hampton Roads, Virginia, the Confederate Navy sought to challenge the Union blockade that was stifling the Southern economy and its ability to sustain the war. The Confederates repurposed the scuttled USS Merrimac, armoring it with iron and renaming it the CSS Virginia. On its maiden voyage, this fearsome ironclad obliterated two wooden Union warships, the USS Cumberland and the USS Congress, demonstrating the vulnerability of traditional wooden ships against armored opponents. The carnage might have continued if not for the timely arrival of the USS Monitor, a revolutionary Union ironclad with a rotating turret. On the second day, the two iron giants clashed, firing heavy shells at point-blank range but failing to inflict critical damage on one another. While neither side could claim a definitive victory, the engagement proved the concept of the 'ironclad', transforming naval combat thereafter.

Publication History and Census

This map was drafted by Ernest Dumas-Vorzet, engraved by Louis Wuhrer, printed by Becquet, and published by Michel Lévy in Paris for the 1890 French edition of Philippe d'Orléans' Histoire de la Guerre Civile en Amérique. The atlas supplement, of which this map was part, was issued only with the 1890 French publication and was not included in any of the earlier English editions. The entire work, in this edition, is uncommon in institutional collections, with only 3 being identified in OCLC, and is scarce to the market. Most examples lack the atlas, which in OCLC appears only at the Boston Athenaeum. Very little market history.