1890 Vorzet Map of Arkansas and Missouri, U.S. Civil War

This map of Missouri and Arkansas during the U.S. Civil War was prepared by Ernest Dumas-Vorzet for the scarce 1890 atlas volume of Philippe d'Orléans' Histoire de la Guerre Civile en Amérique.

A Closer Look

Arkansas and Missouri south of the Missouri River are displayed, as well as portions of neighboring states and territories, with roads, railroads, cities, towns, waterways, mountains, and other features recorded in great detail. Two inset maps appear at the bottom-left, with the first presenting Lexington, Missouri. A city on the Missouri River east of Kansas City, Lexington was the site of two of the largest battles west of the Mississippi River during the Civil War, in September 1861 and October 1864, respectively. The second inset map presents the battlefield of Wilson's Creek or White Oak south of Springfield, the first major battle of the war west of the Mississippi River, which took place on August 10, 1861.

Missouri and Arkansas in the U.S. Civil War

Missouri and Arkansas were part of the Trans-Mississippi Theater of the U.S. Civil War, but the states' experience of the war was also somewhat distinct from fighting in Tennessee, Mississippi, and Louisiana, since they lay west of the Mississippi River.

Being a border state that saw intense violence even before any southern states seceded, Missouri played a complex and pivotal role in the U.S. Civil War. Though a slave state, it remained in the Union, making it a battleground for both Confederate and Union forces. The state's divided loyalties led to intense guerrilla warfare, with pro-Union and pro-Confederate groups fighting throughout the region and often committing atrocities against perceived sympathizers of the other side. (After the war, many Confederate 'bushwhackers' turned to banditry, including the notorious James-Younger Gang.) Missouri's government, backed by the Union, was often at odds with secessionist factions within the state. The state's position was crucial for both sides, given its key geographic location along the Mississippi River and its access to vital transportation routes. Missouri's internal conflict was marked by significant violence and unrest, including the infamous 1863 raid on Lawrence, Kansas, by Confederate guerrillas, which killed 164 civilians. The Lawrence raid was a reprisal for a smaller pro-Union raid on Osceola that had killed 9 pro-Confederate civilians. (Lawrence had also been sacked before the war, in 1856, by pro-slavery raiders. That confrontation resulted in one death.)

For its part, Arkansas was still mostly a sparsely populated frontier when the Civil War broke out. With less of a slave-holding elite or vested reliance on the slave trade, the state was less enthusiastic about secession. Nonetheless, some pro-Confederate hotheads attacked the Federal Arsenal in Little Rock in February 1861. The state initially seemed inclined to stay in the Union before seceding in May 1861 in the fallout from the rebels' capture of Fort Sumter. Arkansas' strategic location along the Mississippi River made it vital for Confederate efforts to control the western part of the Confederacy and secure supplies, such as food and timber, for the Confederate war effort. The state was the site of several important battles, including the Battle of Pea Ridge (or Elkhorn Tavern) in March 1862 (a decisive Union victory that helped secure control of northern Arkansas). After a series of Union victories and the eventual fall of Little Rock in 1863, Arkansas was largely under Union control by the war's end. It had even mustered units for the Union cause, drawing on a degree of residual opposition to secession. At the same time, Confederate sympathies remained strong in parts of the state, and Union troops fared poorly in the field after capturing Little Rock, especially during the disastrous Red River Campaign in the Spring of 1864.

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.