Monday, March 19, 2007
This is a link to a cool flash map. Civil War Map, Valley of the Shadow is a website that depicts the movements of the regiments of two counties on opposite sides in the Civil War. The counties are Augusta County, VA and Franklin County, PA. Each county is represented by infantry, artillery, and cavalry units. For each unit you can follow its movements from the beginning to the end of the war. I assume that the action is a tweening function. Small fire bursts represent the battles each unit participated in. The action is played out over a digital image of Virginia.
The map allows the reader to visualize the impact terrain has a battles, it is clear to see that the artillery didn't travel the mountains as often as the infantry, presumably for practicle issues like terrain constraints. Moving a cannon is hard enough on muddy flat roads, muddy mountain roads would make it just about impossible.
It is also neat to see where these two opposing sides interacted. A map definitely has a stronger impact than reading a book that says that "these two units fought each other several times".
The map allows the reader to visualize the impact terrain has a battles, it is clear to see that the artillery didn't travel the mountains as often as the infantry, presumably for practicle issues like terrain constraints. Moving a cannon is hard enough on muddy flat roads, muddy mountain roads would make it just about impossible.
It is also neat to see where these two opposing sides interacted. A map definitely has a stronger impact than reading a book that says that "these two units fought each other several times".
// posted by Elizabeth Hull @ 7:43 AM 
