The fighting map maker

          During the American Civil War, the newspapers covering the Army of the Potomac did not call its commander ‘Mapping Joe’ Hooker. He was ‘Fighting’ Joe Hooker.

Hooker’s successor as head of the army was not nicknamed ‘The Mapmaker.’ No, George Gordon Meade was nicknamed ‘The Snapping Turtle.’

Under both Hooker and Meade, the Army of the Potomac had a cartographer. That same map making expert had done important work before the war. During the war this man was a somewhat unsung hero but he rendered great service in important moments of key battles and now has one of the most iconic statues in the United States honoring his best-known contribution to the army.

The hero is General Gouverneur K. Warren. His pre-war work gave the federal 

The front view of Warren's
statue at Gettysburg.

government a better understanding of the part of the North American continent that was west of Philadelphia. The theory at the time was probably something like this: If we’re going to govern something, we’d best send Gouverneur out there to tell us what we govern.

Once the Civil War started, the Army needed detailed maps of the areas where it might travel and fight the Confederates and that’s where Warren came in handy. By 1863, Warren was serving with the Army of the Potomac as chief cartographer and chief engineer. He was good enough at his jobs that he served through part of the round-robin series of army commanders that the AoP went through in the first two years of the war.

Fighting Joe Hooker, who gifted himself with his own sobriquet, headed the AoP during the battle of Chancellorsville in 1863. Hooker used Warren’s eyes and ears on some occasions and as a messenger at other times. When a general officer showed up with a message from the commanding general, that message got instant attention. Hooker struggled at times to get maximum effort from some of his subordinates at Chancellorsville and he used Warren to help get things moving.

The Confeds won at Chancellorsville, but it certainly wasn’t because of any failing on Warren’s part. There is a school of thinking that doesn’t even blame Hooker.

Eventually Meade replaced Hooker and three days later the AoP found itself smack in the midst of the battle of Gettysburg. It was during the three-day death struggle against Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia that Warren earned himself the wonderful statue which stands for the ages on a hill named Little Round Top.

On the second day at Gettysburg Meade, as Hooker had done, sent Warren to observe the condition of the Federal lines, particularly atop Culp’s Hill and Little Round Top. Warren famously stood on a tall rock at Little Round Top and determined that Lee’s army was attacking in that direction. Rather than report to Meade, Warren acted quickly on his own, found four regiments that didn’t seem to be too busy and got them up on Little Round Top a few minutes before the Confeds arrived.

It says here that Warren saved the battle of Gettysburg for the Federals.

Warren later earned promotions but lost his job as commander of V Corps in the

final days of the war when General Phillip Sheridan, Warren’s boss, decided Warren lacked the needed aggressiveness for Corps command. A court inquiry heard Warren’s case in 1879 and finally published its findings nine years later. The court absolved Warren of Sheridan’s charges, but Warren had been dead for six years by that time.

Even armies that win wars can only have a limited number of heroes. During the American Civil War, the United States Army had plenty. One of them is The Great Map Maker, Gouverneur K. Warren.

 

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