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Likely the first published map, of the historic battle, printed the same year.
[Gettysburg]. Sketch of the Battles of Gettysburg, July 1st, 2d, and 3d, 1863: With An Account of the Movements of the Respective Armies for Some Days Previous Thereto. Compiled from the Personal Observation of Eye-Witnesses of the Several Battles. Accompanied by an Exploratory Map by T. Ditterline. C.A. Alvord: New York, 1863. 24 pp. With detached Ditterline’s chromolithographed map of the “Field of Gettysburg.” 16 ½ x 20”
Inventory# 21151 SOLD
This map of the Gettysburg battlefield, printed the same year as the battle and likely the first of its kind, is accompanied by a printed testimonial dated October 23, 1863 from George W. Childs, noted philanthropist and publisher of the influential Philadelphia Public Ledger. Childs expresses his high opinion of the map “which is shared by several officers in the battle.” The map shows Gettysburg and environs in a scaled oval, with green shaded areas denoting woods and troop placement in Union blue and Confederate red, along with the town and all principal roads.
On the last page of the pamphlet, the map’s engraver, Ditterline, indicates his indebtedness “to the several correspondents of the press who were present and witnessed the battles, and from whose descriptions of the fight he has freely extracted; as also to the citizens of the town…”
The Battle of Gettysburg (July 1—July 3, 1863), the bloodiest of the Civil War, is frequently cited as the war’s turning point. Over the course of three grueling days, Union Major General George Gordon Meade’s Army of the Potomac defeated attacks by Confederate General Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia, ending Lee’s short-lived invasion of the North.
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