(Above: Louisiana Tigers at Front Royal)

I thought I would try something a little different for this post.

I find it difficult to follow a written description of a battle or military campaign without a good map. Written narratives of terrain and physical features do not always fully reveal the events described. I have atlases to augment reading about battles, etc. which I find is the only way to really understand what happened.

So I created an interactive map of Stonewall Jackson’s Shenandoah Valley Campaign and linked it below. The key to Jackson’s success lay foremost in brilliant maneuvering and the impressive endurance of the Confederate Army of the Valley to march great distances in a short time. By outmarching his opponents, Jackson managed to bring about most of the battles with a numerical advantage on the battlefield even though the Union had almost four times as many soldiers in the region.

Hopefully, the map will aid in understanding the geography of the Shenandoah Valley and the movements of the various armies. Just click on the blue link at the bottom of the post below the animaps description.

You can click on any of the text or picture boxes which pauses the playback as long as the image/text is enlarged (click outside the enlarged box to return to playback). There is also a toolbelt at the top of the map. I tried to time the text boxes so there is enough time to read them between the animations but if you find it to be too fast, you can control the speed of the playback using the arrows as identified below. You can also pause the playback or open the text by clicking on it which pauses the playback. If you left click on the stopwatch on the green bar and hold down the button, you can move to any time in the simulation so if something went by too fast, you can use the stopwatch to rewind.

Historically speaking, the rivers in the Shenandoah flow mostly north so going “up” the Valley actually means moving south while marching “down” the Shenandoah means travelling north and usually east. Also, this map has modern roads which did not necessarily exist in 1862. Modern Interstate 81/Virginia Route 11 was at that time the Valley Road. However, Civil War armies could not cross the mountains between the Luray and Shenandoah Valleys where Route 211 exists now. Further, for Fremont to move from Franklin, West Virginia into the Shenandoah, he had to take longer routes on poor roads as Route 33 had not yet been constructed through the Allegheny Mountains. I tried to animate the routes as closely as possible.

I refrained from including too much detail about each battle which would take away from the focus on geography and movement of the various armies. Also, the time of the simulation appears to stretch over 2 years. That is not historically accurate, but in order to make the animations work, the timeline had to be off.

*** The introduction for this article is in the scroll box to the left, be sure to read it before beginning, it will disappear when the simulation starts.

If you see opportunities for improvement, bugs, etc. please do not hesitate to leave a comment below.

Jackson’s Valley Campaign (Animaps) In the spring of 1862, the Confederacy found itself in desperate straits. The war started off promisingly when outnumbered Confederates defeated a Union army at First Manassas. The optimism did not last. By April of 1862 Union troops and warships controlled the upper reaches of the Mississippi River into Tennessee threatening the Deep South.The situation in the East became increasingly desperate as well.

For other Civil War posts, please see:

The story of Confederate submarine H. L. Hunley’s historic achievement in becoming the first submarine to sink an enemy warship in combat and the 149 year odyssey in recovering the Hunley and attempts to discover why it failed to return after its historic first:

Confederate Submarine H. L. Hunley’s Historic Night and the Mysteries That followed

Read more about Ulric Dahlgren’s controversial 1864 raid on Richmond:

Dahlgren’s 1864 Raid on Richmond Generates an Ongoing Controversy

In 1862, Irish dominated Union and Confederate brigades faced off at Mayre’s Heights during the Battle of Fredericksburg with tragic results:

An American Tragedy at Fredericksburg: Clash of the Irish Brigades

Recently founded Virginia Military Institute played a significant role in filling the officer ranks of the Confederacy and a pivotal role in the Battle of New Market:

November 11: Veteran’s Day and Founding of VMI

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