New Online Application Maps African-American History During the Civil War in Tennessee

As slavery and plantation life dissolved in the crucible of war and occupation during the 1860s, Tennessee became a laboratory of new social arrangements for African Americans. Landscape of Liberation: The African American Geography of the Civil War in Tennessee, which highlights many of the changes in African-American life, is now available online at http://tnmap.tn.gov/CivilWar/freedmen/.

This fully functional (and free) geographic information system application shows 150 wartime sites—refugee camps, early freedmen schools and churches, and recruitment sites for the more than 20,000 black Union soldiers who enlisted from Tennessee. In addition to narrative information, the sites are linked to scans of original primary sources that document historic events. These sources include maps, newspapers, and manuscript items from the collections of the Tennessee State Library and Archives and the Tennessee State Museum.

The application is an interactive map showing the landscape of emancipation as it unfolded from 1861 to 1865. Students now have a powerful new tool for viewing the geography of the African-American experience in Tennessee and connecting it with the digitized primary sources from the archives.

The application, a collaborative project between the Tennessee State Library and Archives, the Fullerton Geospatial Laboratory at Middle Tennessee State University, and the State of Tennessee Office of Information Resources, was built with funding from the Tennessee Civil War National Heritage Area.

The African American Geography of Civil War Tennessee is an interactive map showing the landscape of emancipation as it unfolded from 1861 to 1865. Every point on the map is linked to primary documents and images that tell the story of people, places, and events.

Service Impressment Roster, North-Western Railroad, October 13, 1863. Tennessee State Library and Archives.
Image available online at: http://tnmap.tn.gov/linked_docs/Roll_of_ImpressedNegroes_NNWRR_1863.pdf

Railroad depot on Church St. from James Allen Hoobler, Cities Under the Gun Photograph Collection, 1862-1986. African American women selling produce at the depot are visible in this photograph. Tennessee State Library and Archives.
Image available online at: http://tnmap.tn.gov/linked_docs/Hoobler_RailyardMarket_THS454001.pdf

 

The State Library and Archives is a division of the Tennessee Department of State and Tre Hargett, Secretary of State.