UNITED STATES 1861 ILLUSTRATED LONDON NEWS WALL UNUSUAL ANTIQUE CIVIL WAR MAP

Map of the United States of North America, Upper & Lower Canada New Brunswich Nova Scotia & British Colombia. Mexico Cuba Jamaica St. Domingo and the Bahama Islands. By T. Euling.

Description: Striking and highly detailed fine very large original lithographic map of the United States, during the Civil War, showing the divisions between the States of Union and the States of the Confederacy. Covers also southern Canada, Mexico and West Indies. Small inset map of Central Mexico, at the lower left quadrant. Engraved by Theodor Ettling and published as a supplement of the Illustrated London News at the onset of the American Civil War. 

The map presents the United States, colored by free and slave states though not in its final form. Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri, all slave states, would never leave the Union.
 
The American Civil War in Great Britain
 
The American Civil War was of great interest to the people of Great Britain and Ireland. They legally recognized status of the Confederate States of America but never recognized it as a nation remained neutral throughout the ongoing conflict. As public sentiment would fall on the side of the Union, fighting to free those enslaved, Britain would cease to import cotton from the Confederate States. In one instance, Manchester cotton workers refused out of principle to process any cotton from America. This in turn hampered the CSA's ability to fund the war, which among other things, shifted the long-term advantage to the Union.
 
Examining the Western Territories
 
Aside from the obvious call to attention for the Civil War, the map offers an interesting look at the new and developing American West. Arizona and New Mexico are divided by a horizontal line known as the "Baylor Line," named after the Confederate Lt. John R. Baylor whom invaded Arizona one month after this map's publication in July of 1861. The idea was to solidify an overland path to the Pacific for the Confederate States. This confederate territory was never recognized by the United States but it can be found in maps published between 1861 and 1862.
 
While the Colorado Territory was established in 1861, it does not appear on this map. At least it doesn't appear in the right place. The territory was established as a result of the Pike's Peak Gold Rush that brought prospectors from every direction to the Rocky Mountain front range of what was the Nebraska Territory, proposed Jefferson Territory, and ultimately the Colorado Territory. In this map, Ettling outlines a large section of southern Texas from the Rio Colorado of the Mexican border and coastline, giving it the name "Colorado."
 
The rest of the west is comprised of the state of California and the large territories of New Mexico, Nevada, Utah, Oregon, Washington, Nebraska, Dakota, and Kansas. Over the next decade, the boundaries of these territories would alter, rearrange, shrink, and divide themselves into the states we recognize today.
 
The American Civil War

The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States between the Union[e] ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), which had been formed by states that had seceded from the Union. The central cause of the war was the dispute over whether slavery would be permitted to expand into the western territories, leading to more slave states, or be prevented from doing so, which many believed would place slavery on a course of ultimate extinction.

Date: 1861 ( dated )

Dimension: Paper size approx.: cm 107,4 x 76,8

Condition: Very strong and dark impression on good paper. Map old original colored. Small foxing and browning. Small tears. Small holes repaired on the verso. Map folded. Conditions are as you can see in the images. 

Publisher & Mapmaker: The Illustrated London News, founded by Herbert Ingram and first published on Saturday 14 May 1842, was the world's first illustrated weekly news magazine. The magazine was published weekly for most of its existence, switched to a less frequent publication schedule in 1971, and eventually ceased publication in 2003. The company continues today as Illustrated London News Ltd, a publishing, content, and digital agency in London, which holds the publication and business archives of the magazine.
 
Theodor Ettling was a Dutch draftsman, engraver, and lithographer who worked first in Amsterdam, later moving to London where he produced maps for some of the British newspapers of the mid-19th century. Ettling seems to have made quite a study of North America, issuing a number of fine cartographic works such as this example. He employed a process called "paniconographie." The process was invented by F. Gillet who produced this map using a relief plate made on zinc, upon which an image had been transferred mechanically using ink which would resist the acid used to etch the rest of the plate.