Recently I learned that Louisiana maps from the Civil War era had been digitized by the National Archives (announcement in September 2021). These maps are described in A Guide to Civil War Maps in the National Archives on page 22 in section 1.63, "Portfolios of Captured Confederate Maps. 360 items." as "A group of manuscript parish maps received from Reese in 1866 generally showing township and private land claim lines, place names, names of landholders, roads, and routes of reconnaissances."
Here is the map from the area I am interested in, roughly the northwest third of Winn Parish, circa 1865 (click on the map to view a larger version, rotated from the one on the NARA website so north is at the top).
Above and below: Parish maps of Louisiana captured from the Confederates ca. 1865. Winn Parish [Maps and Charts]; Records of the Office of the Chief of Engineers, Record Group 77; National Archives at College Park - Cartographic,
College Park, MD [online version available through the
National Archives Catalog (NAID: 171031960, image #4, Local ID Z33-39) at
catalog.archives.gov; June 22, 2023]. Image above has been rotated 90 degrees to the left from the original so that north is at the top. Image below is cropped and enlarged from the image above, and the Levi Spikes land is outlined on its western half in green.
In the map above, I zoomed into a small area in the lower right of the map to be able to see the land marked as owned by "Spikes." That would be my Louisiana great-great-great-grandfather Levi Spikes (ABT 1805 - BET 1880-1900), who patented the land in 1860. His land was on both sides of the road, so I outlined the western portion in green (click on the map to view a larger version).
In the map below, I added an outline in blue of the land owned by my other Louisiana great-great-great-grandfather, Jacob Shelton (ABT 1822 - AFT 28 Feb 1874). He also patented his land in 1860. I suspect it wasn't included on the map because it was well off the main roads depicted.
Above: Parish maps of Louisiana captured from the Confederates ca. 1865. Winn Parish [Maps and Charts]; Records of the Office of the Chief of Engineers, Record Group 77; National Archives at College Park - Cartographic,
College Park, MD [online version available through the
National Archives Catalog (NAID: 171031960, image #4, Local ID Z33-39) at
catalog.archives.gov; June 22, 2023]. Image is cropped and enlarged from the original image at the top of this post, the Levi Spikes land is outlined on its western half in green, and the Jacob Shelton land is outlined in blue.
Below: Capt. Chauncey B. Reese. [Between 1860 and 1870] Photograph from Civil war photographs, 1861-1865, Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, <www.loc.gov/item/2018669924/>.
So who is the Reese who provided the maps in this sub-collection? The index to A Guide to Civil War Maps in the National Archives clarifies that he is the same C. B. Reese who provided other maps, and further research showed that he is Chauncey Barnes Reese (1837-1870), an 1859 graduate of West Point assigned to the United States Army Corps of Engineers. I couldn't find any documentation as to how he acquired them, nor on who created the Winn Parish map in the first place.
