1862 map of Memphis and Vicinity - by order of Maj. Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman
MEMPHIS AND VICINITY
Surveyed and drawn by order of
Major General William Tecumseh Sherman
by Leut's Pitzman & Frick
Topographical Engineers
More info on topographer Julius Pitzman:
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en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julius_Pitzman
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home.usmo.com/~momollus/CiCmtg/Pitzman.htm
Topographer Kilian Frick died in 1864 after serving with Sherman. "He came home in the Spring of 1864, sick and worn out from the effects of overwork in the war, and died soon afterward. " (source)
This map must have been made around the late summer to fall of 1862. Sherman, Pitzman and Frick were in Memphis by July 1862 and Pitzman had been promoted from Lieutenant to Captain by the time Sherman left Memphis on December 20, 1862 and took Pitzman and Frick with him, keeping them very busy making maps all the way down to Vicksburg. This engineering publication also indicates it was made in the fall of 1862
"Maj. Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman" in Memphis, TN, c. 1862
a photo from PEPLOW & BALCH, Artists, STAR GALLERY, 221 Main St., MEMPHIS, TENN.
probably from some time in July 1862 - Jan 1863 when Sherman was in and around Memphis a lot. I think he first came to Memphis in late July 1862 , left Memphis with forces in November 1862, was briefly back in Memphis in mid-December, left to go down to Vicksburg on December 20, 1862, and was last in Memphis in October 1863 after Vicksburg.
Here's an excerpt from Sherman's memoirs describing some of his time around Memphis and thoughts on it: books.google.com/books?id=JG4FAAAAQAAJ&dq=Sherman&...
Sherman's son died of yellow fever at the Hotel Gayoso in Memphis:
"In August 1863, after the Sherman children returned home to Ohio, Ellen took them to visit William's encampment on the Big Black River, below Vicksburg, during a respite in the fighting. They spent six weeks at the camp.
In late September, as the family boarded the steamboat Atlantic to begin their journey back up the Mississippi River and home to Ohio, William noticed that Willy didn't look well. The boy was very quiet and his cheeks were flushed. Surgeon E. O. F. Roler of the 55th Illinois was consulted, and he sadly diagnosed young Willy as having yellow fever.
The trip to Memphis could only be described as terrible. Willy suffered from high fever, diarrhea, and other symptoms associated with the illness. The family refused to accept the prognosis and hovered over his bedside.
Arriving in Memphis, the semiconscious boy was carried by ambulance to the Gayoso Hotel, and was seen by the best of physicians. The situation was grim and a Catholic chaplain was summoned to administer the last rites. As Willy floated in and out of consciousness, he realized that he was dying.
Willy told the priest that he was quite willing to die if it was God's will, but that he didn't want to leave his father and mother. With this revelation, Ellen and William Sherman began to weep. Willy reached out and caressed their faces, then closed his eyes and slipped away. He died at 5 p.m. on October 3, 1863. He was nine years old.
On October 6th, after placing his family on the steamer to return to Ohio, Sherman found himself alone at the Gayoso Hotel, preparing to return to Vicksburg and the continuation of the war. From the hotel, he wrote his wife a letter of total despair:
'I have got up early this morning to steal a short period in which to write you, but I can hardly trust myself. Sleeping, waking, everywhere I see poor little Willy. His face and form are so deeply imprinted on my memory as were deep seated the hopes I had in his future. Why, oh why, should this child be taken from us, leaving us full of trembling and reproaches?
Though I know we did all human beings could do to arrest the ebbing tide of life, still I will always deplore my want of judgement in taking my family to so fatal a climate at so critical a period of the year… To it must be traced the loss of that child on whose future I had based all the ambition I ever had.'
Sherman never ceased blaming himself for the death of his son. He literally went insane with grief. Historians now consider the fact that Sherman's madness, the burning and killing throughout Mississippi, continuing on to the March to the Sea, was the result of his insurmountable loss."
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Robert Peplow
- Llisted simply as "Peplow" as a daguerreian in 1855 at 186 Main Street, Memphis, TN.
- In 1856-1857, listed as Robert Peplow, at 219 Main Street, in partnership as Park (J.) and Peplow.
- In 1859 Peplow was listed alone as a daguerreian at 313 Main Street; and
- In 1860 listed as a photographist at 262 Main Street.
H.A. Balch
- Noted as a daguerreian in Joliet, Ill., c. January, 1855. It was reported that he might move to Chicago, Ill., in the spring.
photographer info from: craigcamera.com/dag