Talk:Confederate States of America/Archive10

deleting railroads map

Rjensen deleted without discussion this photo of the pre-war Baltimore &Ohio Railroad map, reasoning that it was a Union railroad.

pre-war B&O Railroad 1860
South's 10,000 miles of track
connections west to LeCompton

Consider the map as a place holder until an editor crops the map south to the north border of Missouri, leaving the important south-leaning town of Lecompton on the western edge of the map.

At a minimum, the map will then show the pattern of the South’s 10,000 miles of railroads in 1860, whether the reader is interested in (a) “South” below the Mason-Dixon Line, (b) the rails in 10 states of the Confederacy, (c) the interior lines of communication and supply, (d) rail lines of approach available to advancing Federals, or (e) port city rail access to the interior of the Confederacy.

• This is a map of a Southern city’s B&O Railroad, “East West connections” to the territorial center of pro-slavery sentiment, Lecompton, Kansas, which has no rail connection. The southerner/secessionist import is apparent. It shows state capitals, including Milledegville GA, and connections, along with the South’s major ports and industrial and commercial centers and their connections.
• This is a map of the Confederacy’s “interior lines”. The military import is apparent. There are three clearly traceable.

(1)westerly: New Orleans-Memphis-Knoxville-Richmond, broken in 1863,

(2) central: Pensacola-Atlanta-Charleston, broken in 1864, and

(3) east-coast: Allapaha-Savannah-Charleston-Wilmington-Richmond broken in 1865. The direct Savannah-Charleston link, completed December 1860, does not show on this map.

• This map shows the axis of Confederate 1863 incursion to interdict Union eastern rail chokepoints at the military supply centers in Harrisburg PA and Baltimore MD. In this larger view, it is apparent that Meade at Gettysburg lay between Lee and the primary rail center target and Stuart’s route of reconnaissance for the army’s eastern route of extraction following destruction of the secondary rail center. Washington was fortified, but still a possible target of opportunity.

Without this map, one might idly speculate about Stuart wandering lost aimlessly behind the Federal lines, or Lee’s disinterest in a spectacular right flanking move to slip the set piece battle Meade had developed for Gettysburg’s third day.

• This map shows the axis of Federal 1864 advance to interdict Confederate east-west rail connections in Sherman’s March through Union Point to the north and Macon to the South, splitting the last 30% Confederate population.

Savannah was of course to be the point of Federal resupply, but the strategic objective was destruction of the east-west rail connectors of population and foodstuffs beyond Federal’s immediate grasp.

The map could be cropped, or replaced, but not removed until a suitable replacement is found which makes available the same information and orientation that this map affords the reader. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 17:43, 25 March 2012 (UTC)

the map is not useful to the reader. I did try cropping it but the RR system in the South is illegible because the artist included rivers, boundaries, longitude & various other lines that overlap the RR's & make it impossible to see where the RR are located. Try it yourself The B&O lines are bolded but they did not extend into the South. No reader will learn anything about the RR system, so let's encourage some one to make a new map that actually shows RR. A new map would also "This map shows the axis of Federal 1864 advance" which this map does not. As for "without this map one might idly speculate about Stuart wandering lost" -- the map shows zero about Stuart: nada, nothing. Rjensen (talk) 18:31, 25 March 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for trying to crop the map. It may be that Golbez has a contact to help us out. I also agree that a legend of some description would be useful. In the meantime, a one-line legend might be added to the caption,

Bold lines are B&O, other lines connecting places are railroads. Modern convention for longitude and latitude now labels the lines of latitude and longitude, then stops them an inch or so into the map so there are no lines into the data mapped.

(1) We must not underestimate the Wiki readership. On this map, there are no “various other lines” which are of no use to a general reader. All are a part of the public education required to pass end-of-course tests for 5th and 8th grade in Virginia, Texas and South Carolina, and other states. These include identifying standard symbols for rivers, oceans, longitude and latitude, state boundaries, capitals, place name fonts sized by population, and unfinished construction. Students learn to read subway/metro maps and Amtrak maps using the same line conventions in the B&O map without intersecting roads and highways. Editors can form a consensus approving maps in English Wikipedia using those same symbols.

(2) The reader sees smoothly drawn continuous lines representing the 10,000 miles of track in the South which are the RR lines. That is where they are located. They are the not-squiggly, not-rectangle, not-dash-dot lines. They “actually show” most RRs in the South as required here.

(3) The reader can take advantage of the map picturing the railroad lines as lines –trace the rail lines from Atlanta to Savannah and Baltimore to Harrisburg, I only meant to point out that on this 1860 map, those familiar with the major military operations in the Civil War would recognize the rail lines as drawn relating to strategic operations commanded by Stuart in 1863 and Sherman in 1864. There is not “nothing, nada” there, it is all there but for Chattanooga, late 1860 and post 1860 construction. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 01:46, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

B&O RR Connections map, continued

it's a poor map--one that was never designed to show the southern RR system. (it was designed to show the B&O system) The rail lines look just like the rivers and the state boundaries and the coastlines and are not named--unless you already know the rail system you will not be able to see it on this map. This article furthermore does not discuss military operations using the rails, so that role is irrelevant. Fact is if they used a map like this in the NY subway a million people a day would get lost. Rjensen (talk) 04:02, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

I do not understand the complaint. The first thing one reads to understand a map is the title. It says,

A map of the

Baltimore & Ohio Railroad

and its principal connecting lines

uniting all parts of the EAST & WEST.

B&O Railroad, connections showing the South's
10,000 miles of track, west to Lecompton KS Territory
Lines connecting places are railroads

NYC subway map
rails are represented as lines,
places as bubbles like B&O map

As the title describes, this map is intended to show connecting lines from the north and the south to go EAST - WEST, the principal axis of B&O Railroad right-of-way. The explicit intent of the B&O map is to inform the reader how to travel and transport freight by rail from all points north and south to the B&O railroad to travel WEST continuously on its standard gauge track, eliminating the time delays and costs of teamster transport across cities with different gauge lines, as opposed to connecting west by alternative, competing routes available at the time. The South is included in the B&O carrying trade, and so all principal rail connections from the South to the B&O are mapped in the B&O map.

Further, Lecompton is a westerly destination of interest to advocates of slavery in the territories. Most freight and passenger prospects for the B&O Railroad to Lecompton KS as a destination in 1860 are found in the South. Further, more rail lines are omitted in the North than are omitted in the South for the B&O map purposes.

Note in the accompanying NYC subway map in use on Wikipedia, the same mapping convention is followed as in the B&O map, that is, lines = rails, bubbles = places. A million people a day are indeed lost in NYC, but not because of their rail maps. This is the map that everyone reads for subways, and maps drawn with like symbols are clearly understandable to millions in NYC who do ride the rails to their destination every day.

In my travels over fifty years to museums and historical sites throughout the South, I have not found any maps of railroads on display or in publications available in their specialty bookstores which were drawn exclusively within the territorial confines of the C.S.A., omitting all reference to rail lines above the Mason-Dixon Line. This, whether in reference to maps used by commanders of Confederate armies, plantation owners or cotton factors. I may have overlooked the specialty map we are looking for. If one is readily available for free use, an Editor should download it onto Wikimedia Commons for our use. Rjensen and I are agreed on his main point.

Mapping railroads in the South as of 1860 is certainly germane to the topic of “Economy” relative to transshipping cotton for sale as a source of taxable government revenue and government-owned commodity support of the Confederate currency. Indeed, it seems that there was interest in the rail axis of approach from the North even among even the non-commercial civilian population. At the McLean House, it is reported that rail lines and their location were a consideration of Mr. McLean in removing his family from Manassas to Appomattox, away from any possible chance of armies maneuvering to battle over his farm's acreage again.

On this map, rail lines look like smooth lines drawn between bubbles, [ o-----o---o ]. Rivers look like squiggly lines [~~~-~] labeled in italics Rivername R., going to the sea, pictured with close parallel rippled lines, [ [land] )}}} }} } [water]]. State boundaries are dash-and-dot lines [ --- - --- - --- ]. They do not look the same. Students are taught, make maps using these symbols with titles and legends, are tested, are re-taught, make different maps with titles and legends, and are retested to master this distinction in sequential grades for elementary school map reading. The mastery of these fundamentals is extended by student activities in every subsequent social studies subject through 12th grade.

It may be that the map Rjensen and I wish for never was. In the mean time, I propose that we go with what we got. It is (a) as legible to the reader as other Wikipedia maps in use, (b) understandable to U.S. middle school readers and above, (c) applicable to the topic and (d) illustrative of the article text found in the “Transportation” section. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 16:59, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

Increase visibility of the 1860 B&O map: (1) Click on the map shown in the article. (2) Click on the “File:1860 B&O.jpg” map. (3) Click on the map (+) to enlarge. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 22:05, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

TheVirginiaHistorian says we should read the caption--it says East-West connections. There is no evidence the cartographer was at all interested in showing the southern RR, the great majority of which did not connect to the B&O. For example the key RR center of Chattanooga (famous for its choo-choo trains) is not even on the map. I've taught the use of RR maps to middle school and high school teachers. They say it is very difficult material for their kids. This map is illegible when it comes to the South--try locating the RRs in Georgia and North Carolina, for example, and see if you can tell which are interconnected and which are not. Who will explain to kids about the o-o-o and squiggles?? -- the map and its caption do not do that. It's a bad map for this article. There are hundreds of RR maps--find a better one. Rjensen (talk) 22:10, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

Did you try the three-clicks trick on both maps? Our 19th Century cartographer does better than the NYC subway map. Sort of like the Capitol designs in India ink on linen showing every individual cut stone in a façade were better than the auto-cad blue lines of today. Just a different level of draftsmanship.

Above, I mentioned the omission of Chattanooga and the Savannah-Charleston link. If the “great majority” of the South’s 10,000 miles that you refer to is omitted, is it four-fifths? There was not 8,000 miles of southern track about Chattanooga to be omitted, so it was not. ALL of the other lines between the bubbles on the map are the railroads.

- Why not admit all of the rail lines mapped into the discussion?

As I referenced above, the B&O map tells you exactly the rail connections in Georgia Sherman followed west to east by each railway station, north axis of advance [ Atlanta-Union Pt.-Camak-turned southeast-Millen-Savannah ] and south axis of advance [ Atlanta-East Pt.-Macon-Gordon/Milledgeville-Millen-Savannah ], then north to Charleston and into North Carolina, station by station. Before you said this detail was irrelevant, and now, for the purposes of our conversation, it does not exist.

- Why not admit the mapped rail lines into the discussion?

I explained mapping squiggly rivers and bubble towns to the kids. Over the course of nine years, my learning disabled students in eleventh grade with a fifth-grade reading level or better mostly got 100% on the geography section of the end-of-course U.S. History test. Only the best 50% of my 17 – 19 year olds with below a third-grade reading level could even get 50% of the section correct.

I found my secondary educational profession demanding. Hint: reading is fundamental. Pay elementary teachers six figures to teach reading, pay professors who assign reading lists and fail non-readers, a base living wage of 12k, then let them publish or perish, sort of like Europe’s great medieval universities. Well, regardless of interesting aspects of developmental psychology and learning strategies and public education that we may otherwise consider, the point is, Should we aim in our editorial selection of maps for a readership composed of elementary students who have not learned their lessons?

- What is the target map - readership that you are proposing for this article?

I have seen you now for months, repeatedly showing yourself to be a knowledgeable, discerning and fair minded editor. I have been grateful for your collaboration and guidance. Please take another look at the map. (1) Click on the map shown in the article. (2) Click on the “File:1860 B&O.jpg” map. (3) Click on the map (+) to enlarge.

- With respect, would you try the three-clicks trick? TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 02:53, 28 March 2012 (UTC)

Confederate Railroad Map

A couple points here: the general reader cannot handle the map without the hours of excellent training TheVirginiaHistorian provides his students. The map is irrelevant-- this article does NOT concern military movements--those are covered in many other articles. This article does discuss RR's at length but the map is no help. For example it does not name a single southern RR nor explain its gauge its connection, its disrepair, its importance. As TheVirginiaHistorian pointed out before, read the caption and it says it is a :EAST-WEST map and we need a map of the SOUTH. Rjensen (talk) 04:03, 28 March 2012 (UTC)

Again, as above, I totally agree with your main point, we need a better map. It now occurs that the exhaustive inclusion of so many southern rail links in the B&O map was meant for contemporary readers to see how they could get from anywhere in the north, anywhere in the south, to the B&O to go west. That large amount of visual information, presented in a way which I so much admire for its elegance and economy, is incomprehensible to the modern general reader.

- Chattanooga was not mapped because, although it was a new railroad junction, it had not yet developed as much of a place to come from. It would, just as the rail centers of the north had done, but as of early 1860, there was not much there there from which to attract B&O business.

I now believe your point about our reader's lack of comprehension is correct, only for a different reason. The modern reader will anachronistically look at the network mapped and offhandedly think the smooth lines of man-made construction as pictured must be paved roads, railroad rights-of-way having shrunk so much over the 20th Century. Asphalt-on-gravel has replaced rip-rap railroad beds for all-season, all-weather local transportation.

- For instance, in northern Virginia, along the axis of I-495 to I-66 west, the asphalt laid for Old Dominion Drive runs for tens of miles of unbroken suburban settlement. In 1860 it connected several discrete towns extant on the railroad right-of-way of the Old Dominion Railroad. North of there, along the axis of Route 7, my great uncle would finish a Sunday service in Herndon, Virginia, and hop a train to the Washington Navy Yard to have dinner with my grandmother once a month, a casual affair unthinkable by road even in the 1920s. Likewise there are continuous asphalted walking-cycling paths that run from Alexandria west to Loudoun County over rail beds basically abandoned from 1870 to 1970.

To summarize our points of agreement, we need a RAILROAD MAP of the Confederacy which is

(a) comprehensive of the South, including the 5% population in Texas, and distinguishing wartime construction.

(b) limiting the mapped rail connections by importance, perhaps no more visually crowded than a modern Interstate Highway map,

(c) including examples of all four gauges, especially showing the discontinuities at cities.

(d) Labeling major railway names and the dates of their interdiction, perhaps boxed at the place adjacent, with the permanent break in bold.

I feel like I dropped by your office and got the benefit of an unscheduled interview during office hours. Thank you for your patience. I get the sense you are what college professors are supposed to be. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 13:06, 28 March 2012 (UTC)

Railroads of Confederacy, 1861, from West Point Atlas

thanks for the compliments--there's a great map (copyright) at http://www.csa-railroads.com/images/Eastern%20Railroads.pdf which I hope some cartographer can use to make a wiki map. I suggest we use the West Point map --- a government document and not copyright -- at http://www.csa-railroads.com/images/WP%20RR%20Map.pdf. For the purpose of the entire CSA this is highly useful. It's pdf -- will that upload just like JPG or what? Rjensen (talk) 00:09, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

Ok here is the West Point map--everyone OK with it?

Rjensen (talk) 00:27, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

I concur. Hey !! 2.95 out of 4.00 aint bad, considering. I'm lovin' it. I do not think a .pdf file can be used with the "double image" format, but it seems to work here as a single "File" image ...

size at 300px per guidelines,

Alternative "B" caption:

Railroads of the Confederacy, 1861

The system with four gauges caused interior problems, not "interior lines".

Alternative "C" caption:

Railroads of the Confederacy, 1861

These railroads moved cash crops to market, but limited interstate transit.

-- TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 09:02, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

"Fred Leach" delete

I am not so interested in restoring the locomotive Fred Leach, deleted without discussion. I thought that it was interesting to show a period 4-0-0 locomotive captured by the Confederates and used on their right-of-way. Also, sort of a counter-weight to the Great Locomotive Chase Federal raid capturing a Confederate locomotive. I am so old I saw the Disney movie in a theater. But I am beginning to get Rjensen's editorial direction about steering away from military items in this article. I did cut almost 1000 words from my "Confederacy at war" contributions following the article-too-long tag.

Of course, being of Union origin does not disqualify a locomotive from use in an article about the Confederacy. Most of its locomotives in 1860 were Northern manufactured. Tredegar Iron Works in Richmond ceased production in 1860. Stonewall Jackson captured some 50 locomotives in his early raids on the B&O Railway. But I just want to say, Why not a movie about Jackson's locomotive raid? Not just a failed one-locomotive heist, an infantry raid successfully bagging tens of them!-!-! Later this year I'd like to get to writing a stand-alone stub on the Fred Leach. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 13:51, 28 March 2012 (UTC)

USMA RR map critique / assessment

Thanks to Rjensen for the assist on finding a railroad map placeholder. I believe it to have four advantages over the B&O placeholder. To review our consensus criteria / grading rubric, and critique the USMA map for our purposes. Begin assessment awarding 4.0 points.

(A) Show Confederate railroads in the South at 1860 and wartime construction.

(1) USMA placeholder shows “Southeastern United States 1861” as titled. Shows the Savannah-to-Charleston link, (plus). That RR’s opening Dec 1861 figured prominently in South Carolina’s secession convention, held away from regular business at Columbia, the state capital. And RR defense at Savannah enabled continuous rail supply to besieged Charleston until 1864.

-- Advantage over B&O map. No points deducted.

(2) USMA placeholder like the B&O leaves out Texas, with its railroad-building campaign throughout the war, so central to its Civil War – Reconstruction history. Omitting Texas shows economy for U.S. military purposes, but fails to meet comprehensive requirement to encompass the SOUTH, (minus).

-- No advantage over B&O map. Omitting Texas in railroads in the south with 5% of the Confederacy’s population, deduct .05 on the 4-point rubric.

(3) USMA placeholder highlights railroads south of the Mason-Dixon Line by using a thick double line similar to that used in modern Interstate maps, meeting the conventional definition of the “South”, (plus). Using title “United States” to illustrate the Confederacy, (minus).

-- B&O advantage for SOUTH competition against Yankee investment in westerly railroads of NY & PA. No points deducted.

(4) USMA placeholder shows Danville-Goldsboro 1864 wartime construction, (plus). Important to show military “interior lines of communication” and route of Jefferson Davis flight from Richmond by train. Does not show other wartime construction in Alabama and Georgia for connecting cotton-to-food acreage to regional theaters of war, (minus). While these wartime-built southern railroads were not important to United States military assessment of Confederate troop movements to the front, feeding Confederate soldiers was important to the Confederacy. The market was not to export, but to internal shipment to armies.

-- Advantage over B&O map. Omitting provisioning railroads in wartime construction category, two-tenths of a point deducted.

(B) Limit railroads mapped to most important, uncrowded visually.

-- Successful, (plus). Advantage over B&O map. No points deducted.

(C) Show gauges with discontinuity at cities.

-- Successful, (plus). Advantage over B&O map. No points deducted.

(D) Label major railways, names and dates of principal disabling

-- Does not label names or disabling by disrepair or interdiction, (minus). No advantage over B&O map. Omitting labeling requirement, deduct one full point.

Summary: By our criteria, USMA placeholder map has a 4-2-1 advantage over B&O map: four advantage, two no advantage, and one B&O advantage. Points deducted for omitting Texas in South (-0.05), omitting Confederate provisioning RRs in wartime construction (-0.20), and omitting labels altogether, both RR names and disrepair (-1.0) = 2.75 of 4.00. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 10:27, 31 March 2012 (UTC)

• Support inserting the USMA map uploaded by User:Rjensen. Perhaps not as lovely as the previous, but certainly a resource which describes and identifies, and an unimpeachable source. BusterD (talk) 11:43, 2 April 2012 (UTC)
• Support RR map placeholder from USMA over B&O previous. USMA has four advantages over B&O and it scores above 2.0 on the article's editor-consensus 4.0 scale.

Also, do not miss animated campaign and battle maps on USMA history department webpage which can be used in the public school classroom with great effect, supplemented with other open source online illustration during presentation. RR administrative troop moves have locomotive whistle sound effects. Students cannot miss them, they develop a concrete understanding of the Civil War as the first Railroad War, directly applicable to the WWI American Expeditionary Force getting exclusive use of U.S.-built narrow-gauge right-of-way for rail supply to the front ...

USMA military maps for all historical periods are click-to-pause for classroom discussion, student responses to map questions, teacher remedial lecture, supplemental electronic in-class retest, etc. Also, the continuous run format for each map allows the instructor "preview" and a "review" summary overviews showing the uninterrupted flow of movement for each campaign and battle in time scale which is unattainable by any other way I've tried. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 12:12, 2 April 2012 (UTC)