click here to zoom
Beaufort, SC & Environs/ Civil War. L. PRANG & CO. [Boston: c. 1861] Beaufort Harbor and Coast Line Between Charleston S.C. and Savanna Ga. With 5 Mile Distance Lines in Circles round Beaufort, and R.R. Connections, Roads, &c. &c. 9 x 12 inches. Color Lithograph, 9” x 12”, plus margins. Some damp staining in margins, else excellent. A rare map, one of the few we’ve seen focusing on Beaufort, depicting the then Confederate-held city and the surrounding coastal area, showing the Confederate defenses at the time of the 1861 Port Royal expedition by the Union Navy. OCLC records six institutional copies of the map, but all of them held at Massachusetts institutions, and we found only one example in market records. The map’s striking allegorical cartouche depicts an eagle attempting to subdue a large serpent. Reflecting Beaufort’s strategic importance, it is here depicted at the center of the area from Savannah in the south to Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor in the north, and including an area from Hickory Hill, South Carolina in the west to the Atlantic Ocean in the east. Numerous Confederate ships are depicted in Beaufort Harbor. Radiating distance lines at five-mile increments emanate from Beaufort. Also shown are the Charleston & Savannah Railroad and stops along the route, bodies of water, Confederate forts (Beauregard and Walker), and various asterisks on islands indicating rebel fortifications or troops. A note beneath the title reads “Our Family Record of American Allegiance [Boston: Louis Prang & Co., 1861] should be in every loyal household.” Due to Beaufort Harbor’s coastal position between Savannah and Charleston, the Union selected it as the intended base for its blockade efforts. Early in the war, the Union sought to control Southern seaports through occupation or blockade to cut off the Confederacy’s access to the sea, limit its supply lines, and prevent trade with foreign countries. Confederate commanders, knowing Beaufort was a likely target for the Union, constructed two forts, (Walker and Beauregard), at the mouth of the river in July 1861. In November, a Union fleet of seventy-one vessels with 14,000 troops attacked the forts and forced the its defenders to abandon them, which were then occupied by Union forces. A month after the Battle of Port Royal, the town of Beaufort fell to Union forces. The Union quickly established a fleet headquarters in the Port Royal Sound, from which it conducted other naval operations against Confederate seaports from South Carolina to the Florida Keys. Over the course of the Civil War, numerous maps of the seat of war, battlefields, sieges, and fortifications were created by various commercial firms, often to illustrate important events and situations for a public hungry for the latest information. Maps relating to events and places in the news during the war, especially those of Union victories, were reliable income streams for publishers. Such maps were often based on reliable eyewitness accounts, including participants in the conflicts, and narrative text was sometimes added. Louis Prang (1824–1909) was a major lithographer and publisher of prints, books, maps, greeting cards, paper toys and other ephemera in the late 19th century. Based in Boston, Prang enjoyed a career spanning four decades. His first lithographs were Civil War maps, battle and naval scenes, and portraits of political and military leaders. In 1864, he visited Europe where he studied the latest color lithographic processes, afterwards bringing a group of adept artists back to Boston with him. Last, Jay. The Color Explosion : Nineteenth-Century American Lithography (Santa Ana, California, 2005), p. 122–23; Stephenson, R. W. Civil War Maps (Washington, 1989), pp. 13–21; #368a; “Beaufort National Cemetery Beaufort, South Carolina” at National Park Service online
Sold