Michelle Willard, Daily News Journal, July 18, 2015
MURFREESBORO – Over the past few years, the Tennessee State Library and Archives has developed an interactive map for researchers to use in their explorations of the Civil War.
The map has become even more detailed thanks to the efforts of Zada Law, director of the Geospatial Research Center in the Ralph O. Fullerton Lab for Spatial Technology at MTSU.
“Tennessee is a case study for the transition from slavery to freedmen,” Law said Thursday night at the monthly meeting of the Rutherford County Archaeological Society.
Adjunct Geosciences faculty member Zada Law (Photo: Submitted)
Law developed Landscape of Liberation, which documents the activities of freed slaves from 1861-1865, the years during and directly after the Civil War.
“We really wanted to capture that story … It represents the archaeology of freedom, and there is no more American story than that,” Law said.
In 2013, Law received a grant to create the Landscape of Liberation, a layer on a map that combines archaeologocal and historical research to uncover the hidden history of African-Americans after the Civil War.
Landscape of Liberation is connected to the Tennessee Civil War GIS Project, an online interactive map that shows Civil War battles, engagements, events and more. It also connects those points on the map to primary sources, such as historic maps, diaries, newspaper articles and first-person accounts, that describe the event.
Using Frederick Dyer’s “A Compendium of the War of the Rebellion,” a record of every regiment formed under the Union Army, their histories and the battles in which they fought, MTSU and the TSLA mapped 1,310 Civil War points in Tennessee.
“This forms the software platform and conceptual platform of the Landscape of Liberation,” Law said.
Law and the Fullerton Lab mined local lore, academic sources and primary sources for clues and place names to map locations on contemporary maps. Working with her crew at MTSU, Law then connected the points and sources on the Civil War GIS map.
The map contains 185 sites in Tennessee, including 20 total sites in Rutherford County and more than 10 in downtown Nashville alone. It includes name, type, county, location, historical context, description, how mapped and link to primary source.
The sites consist of everything from “contraband camps” — which the Union army established where freed slaves were treated like refugees — and freedman schools and orphanages to military recruitment and encampments and recaptured slave depots, like the one near the railroad in McMinnville.
“We didn’t know what was out there,” Law said. “It was much richer than expected.”
The project is ongoing and people with information on a site should contact the Law at [email protected].
“It’s really hard to see something if you don’t know what you’re looking for,” Law said.
Contact Michelle Willard at 615-278-5164 and on Twitter @MichWillard.
FYI
Landscape of Liberation
tnmap.tn.gov/CivilWar/freedmen
Rutherford County Archaeology Society
Upcoming events
August
Dr. Kevin Smith from MTSU will speak about the history and archaeology of Murfreesboro’s old City Cemetery at 6:30 Thursday, Aug. 20 at the Heritage Center of Rutherford County.
September
Archaeology Awareness Month
A variety of events are being planned, including a tour of Old Jefferson and an archaeology open house are planned for September. Details are forth coming.