As I was writing earlier about the Cassville Affair, I knew that what I really needed was a Civil-War-era map of this area. Well, thanks to a visit to the Kennesaw Mountain National Park, where I went hiking yesterday, I have found one! On display in the museum there is a copy of a map of north Georgia by “William E. Merrill, Captain, U.S. Army, 1864” – i.e. an essential piece of intelligence used by Sherman when he came through on the Atlanta Campaign. Park Ranger Jacob Boling informed me that, as a Library of Congress document, one can view it online, and the images below are screen shotted from this. 

So here is the triangle of Kingston, Adairsville, and Cassville, the former two connected by the Western & Atlantic railroad, the latter two by a road indicated by a line and a series of dots (there is no legend to indicate what this might mean, although I assume that line-and-dot roads were more developed than mere line roads). 

You will notice two roads leading away from Cassville to the east, with the southern one splitting just above the second S in Cassville. The northern branch, on the larger map, ends up at Pine Log, so I reckon that that is now the Cass-Pine Log Road. The southern branch, I assume, is what Albert Castel called the Canton Road, and the larger map suggests that it may have linked up with what is now Stamp Creek Road in order to get to Canton. The road that extends north-northeast from Cassville I could imagine as the (then) Spring Place Road, because it does eventually get to Spring Place on the larger map.

But note what appears on the road on the way to Adairsville, right underneath the word “Plateau” – another road heading north-northeast, and ending at what is clearly Moesteller’s Mills. So there were two possible roads on which Hood’s troops could have been stationed, waiting to ambush whatever troops came down the Adairsville-Cassville road. 

What actually happened remains a mystery, but it’s useful to have a better sense of the contemporary geography.  

A little to the east, we find notice of Rowland Springs, “most exclusive resort in Georgia,” connected to what is now Stamp Creek Road. Notice the little building on Stamp Creek itself – does this represent one of the furnaces?

A glimpse of the area to the east of Cartersville before the creation of Lake Allatoona. I assume that “Etowah” on the map is only a railway depot, the actual town of Etowah being further up the river, around “Etowah Iron Works.” You can see the railroad spur connecting the Etowah Iron Works with the W&A, which was worked by the Yonah of Great Locomotive Chase fame. I’m not sure what the separate Allatoona Iron Works are, but I guess they are now submerged in the lake? I’m curious to know what “Laffing Gall” was.

Further up the Etowah River we find Canton, the seat of Cherokee County. One road leads to Battle Ground (i.e. Ball Ground), another leads to the “Shoal Creek Post Office,” presumably an early reference to Waleska, which is just south of the intersection of Shoal Creek and what is now GA-140. Note also Buffington, one of the collection points for Cherokee Removal.

Of course, one wonders how accurately this map represents this area as it was in the 1860s.* It was “compiled from the Cherokee land maps, from surveys of the Topl. Engrs., and from the state map of Georgia,” but it would have been very difficult for the Union cartographers to check anything before publication. It has certainly changed since then – unlike in Ohio (or Ontario), Georgia’s roads were not constructed on a grid, but were much more ad hoc in their arrangement, and as new roads were created, old ones disappeared. This process continues to be true to this day. 

* UPDATE: Sure enough, other maps of Georgia from the same era in the Library of Congress collection don’t quite agree with Captain Merrill’s map, nor with each other. Dang.

Henry Schenck Tanner’s 1853 map of Georgia and Alabama has Kingston too far to the north, and Adairsville in Gordon County!

Krebs and Lindenkohl’s 1864 map of Northern Alabama and Georgia features a different set of roads radiating from Cassville.

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Also in the museum: flags! As you enter, two variants of the flags of the combatants in the Civil War: one USA flag with gold stars, and a CSA flag with a “couped” and unfimbriated saltire. 

I liked this flag with its Laconic phrase. 

This one is the flag of the Cobb Mountaineers, a version of the Stars and Bars with an unusual arrangement and number of stars.