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DIGITAL PROGRAM: Modern Civil War Cartography: Behind the Scenes

Thursday, October 22, 2020
7:00 pm8:00 pm

We continue our weekly digital program series. Please tune on our Facebook page to view the live stream: www.facebook.com/achspa

Readers say that one of the most important features of a modern book about the Civil War is a good collection of understandable, accurate maps. Hal Jespersen’s presentation will reveal some of the details behind the process for creating such maps. Hal’s cartography business has produced over 3,300 maps for Wikipedia and numerous books, magazines, and battlefield displays. Hal will discuss the state of mapmaking during the war, review the work of some famous cartographers, and describe tools and processes he uses to create maps. Some of the technical concepts included are cartographic projection, elevation rendering, evaluating the accuracy of the Official Records Atlas, and plotting the courses of 19th century rivers, roads, and railroads.

Hal Jespersen is a retired computer industry executive who has a strong interest in studying the Civil War. Hal was a U.S. Army Signal Corps officer in the 1970s and then held a variety of computer software jobs in Silicon Valley until his retirement in 2010.
In 2004, Hal began to make significant contributions to the Civil War articles on Wikipedia, and is the principal author of about 130 battle and campaign articles as well as an equal number of biographical articles about Civil War generals. In addition to the text of the articles, Hal created a large number of Civil War battle maps, which are available for free use. Now in retirement, Hal operates a small cartography business, http://www.CWmaps.com, that specializes in customized Civil War campaign and battle maps. He was recently named Cartographer for Gettysburg Magazine.

Hal’s personal website, http://www.posix.com/CW/, contains links to his important Wikipedia articles, and a large number of travelogue articles, recording his visits to Civil War battlefields and seminars over the years.

Hal and his wife Nancy live in Redwood City, California.

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