United States of North America (Eastern and Central)

T. Ettling
Holborn, 1862

Appearing in the London-based Weekly Dispatch Atlas, this map displays the eastern portion of the United States in the early years of the American Civil War. Britain officially declared its neutrality in the war in May 1861. Six months later, the Union Navy removed two Confederate envoys from a British steamship and detained them for several weeks. The incident, known as the Trent Affair, quickly tested Britain’s neutrality. Although tensions rose and war between seemed possible, within a year, Prime Minister Henry John Temple (Lord Palmerston) maintained that Britain should “continue merely to be lookers-on till the war shall have taken a more decided turn.”[1]

T. Ettling, United States of North America (Eastern and Central), London: Weekly Dispatch Atlas, 1862, Map #93667, Map Collection, Archives and Records Program, Texas General Land Office, Austin, TX.

The map’s colored boundary lines are ambiguous in Virginia.

The map reflects this outlook, both overtly and by omission, by referring simply to the United States of North America and making no reference to the Confederacy. It does not ignore the division completely, however, as colored borders differentiate the secessionist states (green) from the border states of Missouri, Kentucky, Virginia (orange), and the Union (red). In Virginia, which does not yet reflect the 1861 separation of present-day West Virginia, the boundary remains ambiguous.

Transportation and population centers are prevalent throughout the Northeast and Upper Midwest.

Within both the Union and Confederacy, the map details towns, capitals, waterways, and topography. In the western territories and Texas, it names and locates Indigenous groups and, in some cases, provides descriptions of the sparsely settled lands through which four separate proposed or explored transcontinental railroad routes pass. Transportation networks, including roads, railroads, and canals, appear throughout the states but are most prevalent in the Northeast and upper Midwest.

[left] Texas appears as part of the Confederacy. [right] Details in the sparsely-settled Panhandle include descriptions of the land and its topography and hydrography, as well as Indigenous territory and the location of a “Proposed Pacific Railroad.” [bottom] The label “British Possessions” stretches across Canada.

To the north, a bold capitalized label reading “British Possessions” stretches across Canada. This serves as a reminder that the British government still harbored a colonial stake on the continent, which heightened their interest in the war’s outcome. Britain stood to benefit in different ways from either side emerging victorious, and various competing economic, social, and political interests attempted to sway British influence toward the North or the South. Ultimately Lord Palmerston’s strategy prevailed, and the neutrality expressed by this map persisted throughout the conflict.

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[1] Phillip Buckner, “’British North America and a Continent in Dissolution’: The American Civil War in the Making of a Canadian Confederation,” Journal of the Civil War Era 7, no. 4 (2017): 517. Accessed December 14, 2020. https://www.jstor.org/stable/26381475.

John M. Hernon, Jr., “British Sympathies in the American Civil War: A Reconstruction,” The Journal of Southern History 33, no. 3 (1967): 359. Accessed December 14, 2020. https://www.jstor.org/stable/2204864.

Samuel J. Rogal, “Gone and Forgotten: Abraham Lincoln through the English Eyes of Tom Taylor and John Drinkwater,” Journal of the Abraham Lincoln Association 37, no. 2 (2016): 3. Accessed December 14, 2020. http://www.jstor.org/stable/26290299.