Photo: Lynn Shaw /
I recently purchased a collection of books and several other items from an online auction of the estate of Lynn Jackson Shaw (1940-2019). Shaw served for many years as the Haywood County historian and helped establish the Haywood County Museum in Brownsville. Years ago, he gave me a personal tour of the museum and shared some of the stories he had spent a lifetime collecting and preserving. I wrote about that memorable visit in an earlier blog post.
Lynn Shaw giving me a tour of the Haywood County History Museum, in Brownsville, Tennessee
This 1895 map of the Chickamauga Battlefield was prepared by Joseph C. McElroy of the Ohio Commission and printed in Cincinnati. This copy was later preserved by Haywood County historian Lynn Shaw.
A closer examination revealed something even more intriguing. Written on the back of the map was the inscription, “Henry A. Chambers, Sept. 26, 1896, Chattanooga, Tenn.” I located a digitized letter bearing Chambers’ signature, and the handwriting is similar enough that it authenticates it, at least for me.
The inscription on the reverse of the map identifies Henry A. Chambers and is dated Sept. 26, 1896, in Chattanooga. The handwriting closely resembles Chambers’ signature on other surviving documents.
The beautifully illustrated map depicts the Chickamauga Battlefield and the positions of Union and Confederate forces during the fighting of Sept. 19-20, 1863. Its title block identifies the cartographer as Joseph C. McElroy (1831-1907) of the Ohio Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Park Commission and notes that he had served as a captain in the 18th Ohio Infantry. The Henderson-Achert-Krebs Lithograph Co. of Cincinnati printed the map in 1895. It shows troop positions and movements, commanders’ names, roads, bridges, railroads, houses, natural features and the locations of battlefield monuments. The Library of Congress holds and has digitized another copy.1
The printing company has an interesting history of its own. The Henderson-Achert-Krebs firm operated under that name in Cincinnati during the early 1890s and produced colorful commercial lithographs, advertising pieces, calendars, historical prints and maps. Its surviving work includes advertisements for breweries and other businesses, as well as commemorative and patriotic images. The company was renamed the Henderson Lithographing Co. about the time McElroy’s map was printed.
Although I have always loved Tennessee history, I am not necessarily a Civil War buff, so the map inspired me to learn more about the battle it depicts. The Battle of Chickamauga unfolded Sept. 18-20, 1863, in northwestern Georgia near the Tennessee border. The Confederate Army of Tennessee, commanded by Braxton Bragg (1817-1876), defeated the Union Army of the Cumberland under William S. Rosecrans (1819-1898). Approximately 35,000 soldiers were killed, wounded, captured or reported missing, making Chickamauga the largest and bloodiest engagement in the Civil War’s Western Theater and one of the costliest battles of the entire war.2
The battlefield later became part of Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park, now added to my bucket list. Congress authorized the park in 1890, making it the nation’s first national military park and the first American battlefield preserved as a national park. Union and Confederate veterans returned for its formal dedication in September 1895. Today, the National Park Service describes it as the nation’s first and largest national military park.3
McElroy’s map was issued to accompany his short publication, “The Battle of Chickamauga: Historical Map and Guide Book.” He also prepared “Chickamauga: Record of the Ohio Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Park Commission,” published in 1896. A former Union officer and longtime official of the U.S. House of Representatives, McElroy helped document the movements of Ohio regiments and the placement of monuments commemorating their service. His map was more than a guide for tourists. It was part of the larger effort by veterans and state commissions to mark the battlefield before the physical evidence of the fighting disappeared.4
The map is especially meaningful because of its apparent connection to Henry Alexander Chambers (1841-1925). Born in Iredell County, North Carolina, Chambers attended Davidson College before serving in the Confederate army. He enlisted as a private in the “Saltillo Boys” of the 4th North Carolina Infantry and became captain of Company C, 49th North Carolina Infantry, in 1862. After the war, he taught school, studied law and established a legal practice in Tennessee. He served in the Tennessee House of Representatives from 1870 to 1872, in the state Senate from 1875 to 1877 and as a federal postage stamp agent from 1877 to 1882. He also became known for his historical and genealogical writing.5
The Southern Historical Collection at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill preserves Chambers’ diaries, correspondence, speeches, business records and other papers dating from 1832 to 1925. According to the collection inventory, folder 24 contains his diary from 1896 — the same year he signed and dated this map in Chattanooga. Wouldn’t it be something if that diary records how he acquired it?
A March 13, 1985, article in The Charlotte Observer described the long search for Chambers’ Civil War diary and its eventual publication.
Selby Daniels recounts how Jewell Oxendine of Charlotte received the original Civil War diary of Capt. Chambers from her mother. Covering June 1, 1863, through April 24, 1865, the leather-bound volume fascinated Oxendine, both because of its historical value and because she was descended from his family. Unable to understand some of the military terminology, she asked Daniels to read the diary and offer his opinion. He quickly became absorbed in Chambers’ detailed and engaging account of the war.
The diary contained far more than a personal narrative. Chambers recorded his family genealogy, beginning with an ancestor who arrived in the Statesville area from Pennsylvania in 1752. He also preserved a complete personnel roster for Company C of the 49th North Carolina Regiment, along with ordnance and clothing records. Most unusually, he included biographical and physical descriptions of many soldiers, noting their appearance, enlistment dates and length of service. These details convinced Daniels that the volume was an exceptionally valuable historical document and led him to investigate Chambers’ life and search for other surviving diaries.
Daniels’ initial research in Statesville produced little, but an obituary revealed that Chambers had died in Chattanooga in 1925. Through libraries, newspaper files and local historians, Daniels learned that seven additional Chambers diaries survived, covering portions of the years from 1874 through 1893. Because library restrictions prevented him from obtaining copies, he enlisted researchers in Chattanooga and Loudon County, Tennessee, where Chambers had once practiced law after marrying Laura Lenoir. Their help provided a broader investigation into Chambers’ postwar career, family connections and extensive written record.
“The Civil War Diary of Captain Henry A. Chambers,” published in 1983, was an edited presentation of Chambers’ diary, with Daniels contributing the introduction and biographical sketch.6
I do not know how Shaw obtained the map, but it fits naturally within the collection of a man who devoted much of his life to local and military history. His obituary noted that he established the local Col. W.L. Duckworth Camp of the Sons of Confederate Veterans and served as national commander of both that organization and the Military Order of the Stars and Bars.
Portrait of Lynn Shaw
He was also affiliated with the Society of the War of 1812, Sons of the Revolution and George Washington Family Descendants. As i wrote earlier in this post, Shaw served as president of the Haywood County Historical Society and as founder and curator of the Haywood County Museum.7
Items purchased at auction of Lynn Shaw’s estate that were dontated to the Haywood County Museum
I returned the other archival materials I purchased in the auction to Shaw’s niece, Beth Shaw Tripp, who succeeded him as Haywood County historian. She had purchased many of the auction lots in an effort to keep related materials together and make them available to researchers at the Haywood County Museum. Before returning them, I photographed a small assortment of the documents Shaw had preserved so others could see them. You can view those here.
Soon, the Chickamauga map that Shaw protected — and that appears to have belonged to Henry A. Chambers — will hang on the wall of my office. It will be more than a decorative map. It will remind me that historical objects often pass through many hands and that each person who preserves, studies and shares them becomes part of their story. Shaw understood that responsibility, and because of his care, this map has survived to inspire the curiosity of another generation.
- Joseph C. McElroy, “Chickamauga Battlefield [Sept. 19-20, 1863],” map (Cincinnati: Henderson-Achert-Krebs Lithograph Co., 1895), Library of Congress, reproduced by the Digital Library of Georgia. ↩︎
- National Park Service, “Chickamauga Battlefield,” Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park; American Battlefield Trust, “Chickamauga Battle Facts and Summary.” ↩︎
- National Park Service, “Creating a Park,” Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park; National Park Service, “Places,” Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park. ↩︎
- Joseph C. McElroy, The Battle of Chickamauga: Historical Map and Guide Book ([Tennessee?]: publisher unknown, approximately 1890s); Ohio Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Park Commission, Chickamauga: Record of the Ohio Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Park Commission (Cincinnati: Earhart and Richardson, 1896); “Postmasters of the House,” U.S. House of Representatives: History, Art & Archives. ↩︎
- Davidson College, The Semi-Centennial Catalogue of Davidson College, Davidson, N.C., 1837-1887 (Raleigh, NC: Edwards, Broughton & Co., 1891), 118; Southern Historical Collection, “Henry A. Chambers Papers, 1832-1925,” University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. ↩︎
- T.H. Pearce, ed., The Civil War Diary of Captain Henry A. Chambers, introduction and biographical sketch by Selby A. Daniels (Wendell, NC: Broadfoot Publishing Co., 1983); Charlotte Observer, March 13, 1985, clipping in the author’s collection. ↩︎
- “Lynn Shaw,” obituary, Lea & Simmons Funeral Home, October 28, 2019. ↩︎
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