Rare map of the area between the Pamunkey and Ames Rivers, showing the Vicinity of Richmond, Virginia, as surveyed by Jeremy Francis Gilmer, surveyor for the Confederate States of America.
The map bears some relationship to Albert H. Campbell's Map of the Vicinity of Richmond and Parto of the Peninsula. Confederate States of America. From Surveys Made by Order of Maj. Gen. J.F. Gilmer. Chief Engineeer, C.S.A. Gilmer was a United States Army Engineer, 1839-1861, and Confederate Chief of Engineers. Born in Guilford County, North Carolina in 1818. Gilmer entered the U.S. Army as a Second Lieutenant of Engineers in July 1839, after graduating from the United States Military Academy. He constructed fortifications and conducted surveys until 1861, when he resigned in support of the southern cause. In September 1861, Gilmer was appointed Major of Engineers in the Confederate States of America Army and served as Chief Engineer of the staff of General A. S. Johnston until the general's death at the battle of Shiloh on April 6,1862, where Gilmer was also severely wounded. In August 1862, he was assigned to the Office of Chief of Engineer Bureau in Richmond, Va., and promoted to the rank of Colonel of Engineers. In August 1863, he was promoted to Major General and ordered to Charleston, S.C., to direct the defense of the city. He returned to Richmond in June, 1864, where he directed the Engineer Bureau until the end of the War. After the war, he was a director of the Georgia Central Railroad and president of the Savannah Gas-Light. He died on 1 December, 1883.
The present map seems to be a variant of the Campbell map, but with a different title. The sole recorded example of the Campbell map at the Hargett Library, University of Georgia, includes a backwards N and S in the directional arrow, as does this map, and the dimensions are identical.
The notes on the Campbell map and the similarities suggest that the maps were probably both engraved and printed in Richmond at about the same time.