Jedediah Hotchkiss' Maps of the Shenandoah Valley

Map of the Shenandoah Valley, 1862 by Jedediah Hotchkiss (approx. 50 by 100 inches)

Library of Congress

“... make me a map of the Valley, from Harpers Ferry to Lexington, showing all the points of offense and defense in those places.”

Stonewall Jackson, 1862

Jedediah Hotchkiss was one of the Civil War’s most famous topographic engineers. His accurate maps played a role in numerous Confederate victories, both in the Shenandoah Valley and elsewhere. Several of his maps are reproduced in exhibits at the Visitor Center. The map images in the exhibits are courtesy of the Library of Congress, where most of the originals reside.

“Make Me a Map of the Valley…”

Jedediah Hotchkiss had met Gen. Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson before the war, when Jackson was a professor at the Virginia Military Institute. By the spring of 1862 Jackson commanded all of the Confederate forces in the Shenandoah Valley and on March 26th directed Hotchkiss to “make me a map of the Valley, from Harpers Ferry to Lexington, showing all the points of offense and defense in those places.”

The order turned out to be a daunting task. The Shenandoah Valley, stretching 150 miles in length and 25 miles wide, had never before been mapped in detail. Nevertheless, Hotchkiss accepted the assignment and worked on the map for the rest of the war.

Hotchkiss glued three large sheets of tracing linen together to create a single map, using a scale of roughly 1 inch:1.26 miles. Nearly all of the surveys were done in notebooks while on horseback, and then transferred to the large map using a ¾ inch grid. The map covers the area from north of Winchester to south of Stanton. It includes all of the Valley’s significant natural and man-made features (including mountains, ridges, hills, rivers, streams, creeks, roads, farm lanes, railroads, towns, villages and even the names of individual farms).