A monthlong cruise next spring sails into Civil War history

Calling all Civil War buffs and travel bucket-listers: If you've ever wanted to explore the war between the North and the South in great detail, American Cruise Lines has a cruise for you. It's a monthlong sailing to nearly all the major battlefields across 12 states and the District of Columbia. But it doesn’t come cheap. -- Article

Captured Civil War maps among hundreds now available for viewing and downloading at National Archives site

Sketch of Confederate and Union artillery positions at Battle of Manassas on July 21, 1861

A large number of Confederate maps are among nearly a 1,000 Civil War maps that have been digitized and are available to download, the National Archives said this week.

The maps from the Army Corps of Engineers consist of manuscript, published and annotated maps relating to areas in the Southern states, the archives said. They are in an online catalog unit knows as the Z file.

De Soto Parish, La., map captured from Confederates (National Archives)

The maps mostly cover areas in Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, and West Virginia, the archives said in an article.

The Z file unit includes often-requested parish maps of Louisiana captured from the Confederate army.

The file unit has items that were created in the mid-19th century, either during the Civil War, or in the years just before and after the war.

View of Louisiana State House in Baton Rouge (National Archives)

“The records in the file span various subjects including, but not limited to, cities, counties, battlefields, railroads and fortifications,” says the National Archives’ “The Unwritten Record” blog.

The Z file touches on a small amount of maps available in the entire Civil Works Map File series.