While at our museum today, I found a copy of a map made by Captain Wilhelm Von Rosenberg under the auspices of the Topographical Bureau of the Engineering Department of the Confederate District of Texas, New Mexico and Arizona. It is labeled “Plot No. VIII, and is titled "Reconnoissance [sic] of the Sabine River and Vicinity." It is a very good quality copy, but was not accessioned properly [not accessioned at all is less kind] No one at the museum knows where it came from.

It shows a portion of eastern Smith County with remarkable accuracy and detail, including roads, cultivated fields, houses [with names] streams, towns, and even Camp Ford, Kirbyville, the Field Transportation works for the QM Department, the CS Medical Laboratory as well as tanneries, mills, and distilleries. The area includes, using modern references, US 271 from Gladewater southeast to Tyler, and then from Tyler along Texas 64 to London in Rusk County. It does not quite rise to the level of a Hotchkiss map, but it is close. The bends and twists of the roads match documented routes, so it is not schematic. I have a gut feeling that it was made in the summer of 1863, but I cannot substantiate it at this time. Magruder was fearful of invasion, and it would stand to reason that he would have maps made for that event. Roads are not llsited by their local designation but by the route and end destination, i.e. "Starrville - Marshall - Shreveport."

Von Rosenberg was a Prussian officer and trained surveyor who fled Germany after the failed 1848 revolution. By 1861 he was the chief draftsman for the Texas General Land Office.

To save a lot of research, has anyone out there ever seen this map and know where the original might be? A broader quesiton would be since it is Number 8, is anyone aware of any maps of the same series that might exist?

Any leads would be appreciated.

Randy Gilbert