The History Channel in collaboration with the Library of Congress host a series of short videos called This Week’s Hidden Treasure. One of the videos that I watched this morning is called Mapmaking… on Horseback. Mapmaking… on horseback is a short video in which a curator from the Library of Congress shares the sketchbook and maps made by Jedediah Hotchkiss during the US Civil War. The maps and sketchbook shared in the video are from the LOC’s Hotchkiss map collection. The Hotchkiss map collection is a part of the larger Civil War maps collection.

Applications for Education
Mapmaking… on horseback could be a good way to get students thinking about how maps were map and how maps were used during the Civil War. The LOC’s Civil War maps collection could be used by students as the basis for creating placemarks and virtual tours in Google Earth of Civil War sites.

Here are some related items that may be of interest to you:
20,000+ Historical Maps
Henry Hudson’s Maps and Model Ships
American Memory Historical Maps