John Bachmann’s striking bird’s-eye view of the theatre of civil war in the Chesapeake basin, issued to capitalize on patriotic enthusiasm in the early months of the conflict.

Drawn from an imaginary point far above Maryland, the view depicts the Del-Mar-Va Peninsula, Chesapeake Bay and its watershed, with the Blue Ridge Mountains looming in the background. Towns are shown pictorially as well as forts, roads, railroads, topographical features and waterways. Of particular interest are the several vessels at the mouth of the Chesapeake, likely representing the increasingly effective Union blockade of Southern waters. Washington, D.C. and the Confederate capital at Richmond are highlighted and their proximity—by both land or water–emphasized. Whether Bachmann intended so or not, this must have bolstered the position of Unionist viewers who throughout the Civil War advocated a quick strike at Richmond to end the conflict.

All this is done without any particular attention to the requirements of scale or geographic precision. But the effect of the panoramic perspective is really striking, in this case giving one the sensation of flying over the Chesapeake in a low-orbit spaceship. It was also remarkably suited to purpose: It rendered geographic information more readily accessible to the general public, which may not have been cartographically literate but sought a geographic context with which to follow news of the war.

This is the second issue of the view, with clouds in the sky and smoke over the Manassas (Bull Run) battlefield.

Bachmann’s “Panorama of the Seat of War” series
The view was one of John Bachmann’s ambitious “Panorama of the Seat of War” series, which also included views of the the Carolinas, Florida, “Louisiana, Mississippi, and Part of Florida” and “Texas and Part of Mexico”. These five prints, when assembled end-to-end, yield a continuous view of the American coastline from the Delaware Bay to the Rio Grande. The series also included a sixth view, depicting Kentucky and Tennessee. All were pioneering in their use of the “bird’s-eye view” perspective, which hitherto had been used by Bachmann and other artists to depict cities and towns rather than regions tens of thousands of square miles in extent.

“[The views were] intended to familiarize a general audience with the geography of the southern states. Using shading and pictorial symbols, they portray both the physical terrain and settlement patterns, especially major cities and towns, as well as roads and railroads… While not very useful for planning military maneuvers because of exaggerated topography and inconsistent scales, these large graphic representations were useful in assisting a living room audience to visualize the geographic areas where the battles would eventually occur.

 

“What is truly remarkable about these views is that they were apparently the work of one artist, and he did not have the ability to observe such a large part of the country from an elevated perspective, other than in his creative imagination.” (Grim, Block, et al, Torn in Two, p. 104)

John Bachmann (ca 1815-ca 1895)
Born in Switzerland, between 1838 and 1847 Bachmann worked there and in Paris as an artist and lithographer. Soon thereafter he immigrated to America and settled in New York City, perhaps propelled for some reason by the Revolutions of 1848. In 1849 he issued his first American view, of New York as seen from an imaginary viewpoint above Union Square, which “marks the starting point of the bird’s eye view as a popular American genre.” (Case, p. 22) Over the next decade, while based in New York, he produced nearly 30 views of New Orleans, New York, Philadelphia and other major cities. Reps writes of these that they “are particularly outstanding and are justifiably regarded… as among the finest American views to be found.” (p. 161)

In 1860 Bachmann moved to Hoboken and then on to Jersey City. During the war years, in addition to his Seat of War series, he issued a few other views, including Central Park, Hartford, and Washington, D.C. After the Civil War Bachmann continued to produce views of the great metropoli of the East Coast, though somewhat erratically, suggesting that he battled financial and/or physical hardships (a view bolstered by the fact that between 1871 and 1878 he had no fewer than four different addresses in Jersey City.) His final view was an unfinished painted bird’s-eye of Havana, Cuba, done in or around 1894. After his death in 1895 his son John Jr. worked as a printer for more than three decades.

In all, a spectacular image from early in the Civil War.

References
Ronald Grim, Debra Block, et al, Torn in Two[:] 150^th Anniversary of the Civil War, pp. 104-105 (illus.) Rumsey #43 (the first issue, lacking clouds and smoke over Manassas). Stephenson, Civil War Maps, #3. Stephenson & McKee, Virginia in Maps, p. 239 (illus.) William Wooldridge, The Mapping of Virginia, pp. 261-262 (illus.) and map #361For biographical information on Bachmann, see John Reps, Views and Viewmakers of Urban America, pp. 160-61 and especially Nat Case, “John Bachmann and the American Bird’s Eye View Print, Imprint, vol. 33 no. 2 (Autumn 2008), pp. 19-33.