The Last Three Soldiers

by W. H. Shelton

"PHILIP MADE UP THE MOST MARVELOUS STORIES,
WHICH WERE RECITED BEFORE THE FIRE"

One of the most interesting incidents of the first winter was the construction, by Lieutenant Coleman, of a map of the "old United States," and the plotting thereon of the Confederacy as they supposed it to be. When it is remembered that the map was drawn entirely from memory, the clear topographical knowledge of the officer was, to say the least, surprising.

The first reference to the map is found in Lieutenant Coleman's entry in the diary for the 24th of January, 1865:

"As we were sitting before the fire last night, George introduced a subject which, by common consent, we have rather avoided any reference to or conversation upon. This related to the probable boundaries of the new nation established by the triumphant Confederates. We had no doubt that the Confederacy embraced all the States which were slaveholding States at the outbreak of the Rebellion; and as they doubtless had made Washington their capital, it was more than probable that they had added little Delaware to Maryland on their northern border. We assumed that so long as there were two governments in the old territory, the Ohio River would be accepted as a natural boundary as far as to the Mississippi; but we were of widely different opinions as to the line of separation thence.

"George, who is inclined to the darker view, is of the opinion that the Southern republic, if it be a republic at all, would certainly demand an opening to the Pacific Ocean, and therefore must embrace a part, if not the whole, of California.

"February 16. We have been confined to the house two days by a driving snow-storm, and the territorial extent of the Confederacy has come up again, not, however, for the first time since the discussion on the 23d of January. As we still have one stormy month before the opening of spring, I have determined to enter upon the construction of a map which shall lay down the probable boundaries of the two nations. When George and I are unable to agree, the point in dispute will be argued before Philip, and settled by the votes of the three."

On February 17, then, this map was begun on the inner side of one of the rubber ponchos after buttoning down and gluing with pitch the opening in the center. It was stretched on a frame, and thus provided a clean white canvas five feet square on which to draw the map.

If Lieutenant Coleman and his companions had known that General Sherman, after whom they had named their island in the sky and whom they mourned as dead, was that very morning marching into the city of Columbia, the capital of South Carolina, with all his bands playing and flags flying, the map would never have been made, and the life on the mountain would have come to a sudden end. Fortunately for the continuance of this history, they were ignorant of that fact, and Lieutenant Coleman on this very day began plotting his map with charcoal. After going over the coasts and watercourses and establishing the boundaries of States, and that greatest and most difficult of all boundaries, the one between "the two countries," he would blow off the charcoal and complete the details with ink. Of this necessary fluid there was a canteen full, which had been made in the fall from oak-galls (lumps or balls produced on the oak-leaves by tiny insects) and the purple pokeberries which had been gathered from the field below the ledge. The oak-leaves had been steeped in warm water, and this mixture, together with the berries, had been strained through a cloth and bottled up in the canteen.

While at West Point, Cadet Coleman, of the class of '63, had devoted himself to mapping, and he believed he was tolerably familiar with his subject until, at the very outset, difficulties began to arise. He found that his knowledge about the Northwestern Territories was shaky, and it was difficult to convince Bromley that Arkansas was not west of Kansas.

They finally gave little Delaware to the Confederacy, accepting the bay and river as a natural geographical separation. Thence they followed the southern boundary of Pennsylvania to the Ohio River, the Ohio and Mississippi to the southern boundary of Iowa, and thence west and south on the northern and western frontiers of Missouri. The Indian Territory became the first point of disagreement.