Thread by @rentaquill

Maps make a battle. Have a gander at the Blue & Greys at Shiloh, April 6 1862. Format, tech, scale are incompatible, I know [🤪], but which *style* nails our view of the *spirit* of the action, best? HT @Blanch6144

General Buell's action overview for public consumption?

Or the simple, approved, on-the-hoof version of the action according to the Confederate commander, Beauregard, drawn up by Frémaux, a French artist working in Louisiana as a civil engineer and cartographer?.

Back to the Union. Is it simplicity that helps? Paraphrasing from Sherman's memoirs: "Buell rode to me, and I explained where we were. Buell asked for use of my map, which I lent him on the promise he would return it. Major Michler made a copy, and returned the original to me."

Today, we usually prefer informative, detailed, fit for actual use maps - the American Battlefields Trust has done some great work capturing the accuracy, but does this capture the spirit of the events?

At the time, Robert Knox Sneden made things darker. Sneden was a landscape painter and a map-maker for the Union. Here, his intention is to provide a regional view of the area around Shiloh. Less about the battle, more about the topography. Does it work?

Do different orientations make a difference? Probably. Still showing troop positions, but Mitchell and Weiss the cartographers put their (faint) hand-coloured focus on location of batteries, roads, rail, houses, *fences* - important - and general scrub and vegetation.

This one hunkers down on vegetation and drainage ... emphasising the impact of topography on advancing and retreating forces. Can't run quickly if you're in a wet ditch. Would this have been useful for both sides, Union and Confederate?

... and now we get into it. A stylised overview like this isn't very helpful for the artillery but, bearing in mind the print destination for maps of this ilk - they can be effective for propaganda purposes. But what does it tell us about the battle?

Coup de grace. Detail from the elusive David Greenspan's map, for Catton’s Pictorial ACW History. Haunting and memorable. Often reproduced as authoritative, ironically full of mistakes, but sparking interest in the ACW for many.
So, a successful map for today, if not yesterday?

Twitter being what it is, the diligent addition of sources for the maps didn't get included on the ALT+ text in that thread. Which is nuts. And annoying.