1851 U.S. Coast Survey Map or Chart of the Entrance of Savannah River, Georgia

A blockade-runner's chart.

This is an 1851 U.S. Coast Survey nautical map or chart of the entrance of the Savannah River, including Tybee Island, Cockspur Island, and Fort Pulaski, Georgia. This is a rare, separately-issued example, printed on thicker paper for durability.

A Closer Look

The map depicts from Cockspur Island and Tybee Island to the Atlantic Ocean. Fort Pulaski, Tybee Beacon, and the Tybee Lighthouse are identified. Depth soundings are given as well as information on shoals, buoys, and beacons, along with detailed notes on tides and sailing directions at bottom.

Fort Pulaski and the U.S. Civil War

This map contains an irony in that it covers the strategically important waters around Fort Pulaski after surveys overseen by John N. Maffitt. One of the few Coast Survey men to join the Confederacy during the American Civil War (1861 - 1865), Maffitt used his expert knowledge of the coasts to become a privateer and blockade runner. Early in the conflict, Confederate forces occupied Fort Pulaski to protect the vital shipping port of Savannah. Believing the fort's massive 7.5-foot-thick brick walls were entirely invincible to artillery from a distance, Confederate General Robert E. Lee ordered the evacuation of Tybee Island to consolidate defenses closer to the fort. Seizing this opportunity, Union forces occupied Tybee Island in late 1861. Under the direction of Captain Quincy A. Gillmore, Union troops spent months secretly constructing 11 artillery batteries along Tybee's northern shore, preparing a specialized assault just a mile across the water.

The siege culminated on April 10, 1862, when Union forces unleashed a devastating 30-hour bombardment. This battle marked a turning point in warfare history due to the experimental use of rifled cannons. Unlike traditional smoothbore guns, these rifled weapons fired elongated projectiles with incredible precision and piercing power, rapidly chewing through Fort Pulaski's masonry. With the fort's southeast wall breached and Union shells exploding perilously close to the main gunpowder magazine, Confederate Colonel Charles H. Olmstead surrendered on April 11. The Union victory effectively choked off Savannah's access to the sea for the rest of the war and instantly rendered brick fortifications obsolete worldwide.

Tybee Island

Tybee Island is the easternmost point in Georgia and is a popular tourist destination for tourists both from and outside the Savannah metro area. The other claim to fame of Tybee Island is that it is one of the few locations where the United States Air Force dropped an atomic bomb - by accident. In 1958, the 'Tybee Bomb' was dropped during a botched military training exercise. Even though the bomb did not detonate, there has been an ongoing cause for concern, since the bomb was never recovered.

Publication History and Census

This chart was compiled by the hydrographic party under the command of Lieut. John N. Maffitt and produced in 1851 under the Supervision of A. D. Bache, the most influential leader of the Coast Survey. The letters 'THO' within the neatline at bottom-left might be a printer's signature.

This is a separate issue example of the chart, which means it was published on thicker paper than charts appearing in the Coast Survey Superintendent's Annual Report, and engraved rather than lithographed. The OCLC records this map at five institutions - the New York Public Library, the Tennessee State Library and Archives, the Buffalo and Erie County Public Library, Duke University, and the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin - but from the catalog record it is impossible to tell if these examples are the separate issue seen here or, more likely, from the Annual Report.

Cartographers

John Newland Maffitt (February 22, 1819 - May 15, 1886) was a naval officer with the U.S. and later Confederate States of America Navies. He was born at sea near New York City as his parents were immigrating from Ireland. When Maffitt was five, his family relocated to North Carolina. He entered the U.S. Navy in February 1832 as a midshipman, serving in the West Indies and the Mediterranean. In 1842, he was ordered to work for the U.S. Coast Survey, where he would spend more than fourteen years undertaking hydrological surveys up and down the East Coast. His exceptional precision in mapping complex Southern waterways - including the vital harbors of Savannah, Wilmington, and Charleston (where a channel was later named in his honor) - earned him professional praise from Survey Superintendent A.D. Bache. This deep, firsthand understanding of the intricate networks of shoals, inlets, and sandbars would unexpectedly provide him with a lethal tactical advantage in the years to follow. From 1857, Maffitt was placed in command of the USS Dolphin and later the Crusader, ships tasked with hunting down pirates and slavers. Maffitt ably carried out these duties despite his own status as a slaveowner and later service for the Confederacy. With the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861, Maffitt resigned his U.S. Navy commission to join the Confederacy, ultimately earning the moniker 'Prince of Privateers.' Leveraging the unparalleled geographical knowledge he gained during his years with the Coast Survey, he became one of the South's most notorious and successful blockade runners and commerce raiders. As the commander of the cruiser CSS Florida, Maffitt masterfully evaded Union blockades, slipped into heavily guarded ports, and captured or destroyed dozens of merchant vessels, inflicting millions of dollars in damages to Union wartime commerce. Maffitt survived the war, choosing briefly to command British merchant ships before returning to North Carolina, where he spent his final years farming and writing.   Further Details...

The Office of the Coast Survey (1807 - present) founded in 1807 by President Thomas Jefferson and Secretary of Commerce Albert Gallatin, is the oldest scientific organization in the U.S. Federal Government. Jefferson created the "Survey of the Coast," as it was then called, in response to a need for accurate navigational charts of the new nation's coasts and harbors. The spirit of the Coast Survey was defined by its first two superintendents. The first superintendent of the Coast Survey was Swiss immigrant and West Point mathematics professor Ferdinand Hassler. Under the direction of Hassler, from 1816 to 1843, the ideological and scientific foundations for the Coast Survey were established. These included using the most advanced techniques and most sophisticated equipment as well as an unstinting attention to detail. Hassler devised a labor intensive triangulation system whereby the entire coast was divided into a series of enormous triangles. These were in turn subdivided into smaller triangulation units that were then individually surveyed. Employing this exacting technique on such a massive scale had never before been attempted. Consequently, Hassler and the Coast Survey under him developed a reputation for uncompromising dedication to the principles of accuracy and excellence. Unfortunately, despite being a masterful surveyor, Hassler was abrasive and politically unpopular, twice losing congressional funding for the Coast Survey. Nonetheless, Hassler led the Coast Survey until his death in 1843, at which time Alexander Dallas Bache, a great-grandson of Benjamin Franklin, took the helm. Bache was fully dedicated to the principles established by Hassler, but proved more politically astute and successfully lobbied Congress to liberally fund the endeavor. Under the leadership of A. D. Bache, the Coast Survey completed its most important work. Moreover, during his long tenure with the Coast Survey, from 1843 to 1865, Bache was a steadfast advocate of American science and navigation and in fact founded the American Academy of Sciences. Bache was succeeded by Benjamin Pierce who ran the Survey from 1867 to 1874. Pierce was in turn succeeded by Carlile Pollock Patterson who was Superintendent from 1874 to 1881. In 1878, under Patterson's superintendence, the U.S. Coast Survey was reorganized as the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey (C & GS) to accommodate topographic as well as nautical surveys. Today the Coast Survey is part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration or NOAA as the National Geodetic Survey.   Further Details...

Alexander Dallas Bache (July 19, 1806 - February 17, 1867) was an American physicist, scientist and surveyor. Bache is best known in cartographic circles as the Superintendent of the U.S. Coast Survey from 1843 to 1865. Born in Philadelphia, Bache, a great grandson of the statesman and inventor Benjamin Franklin, had a varied career primarily focused on education. He toured Europe on behalf of Girard College and composed an important treatise on European Education. Later he served as president of Philadelphia's Central High School and was a professor of natural history and chemistry at the University of Pennsylvania. On the death of Ferdinand Rudolph Hassler, Bache was appointed Superintendent of the United States Coast Survey. Picking up where Hassler left off Bache presided over the Survey during its most prolific period and oversaw the mapping of most of the United States coastline. To this day his name appears on countless marine pilot books and U.S. Coast Survey nautical charts. For his work he was elected Associate Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, and a Foreign Member of the Royal Society. Following the Civil War, Bache was elected a 3rd Class Companion of the Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States. He died at Newport, Rhode Island and was buried in the Congressional Cemetery in Washington, DC, where he is commemorated with a monument built by American architect Henry Hobson Richardson.   Further Details...

Condition

Very good. Some toning to margins.

References

OCLC 254431723 (co-mingles multiple editions as well as reproductions with originals).