Document Type
Presentation (Class or campus)
Scholarship Type
Student Scholarship
Presentation Date
Fall 2013
Event Name and Location of Presentation
EES 201 - Introduction to Geographic Information Systems
Instructor(s) or Advisor(s)
Mike Winiski and Lloyd Benson
Abstract
This study conducts an exploratory analysis of the travel patterns of troops in the 33rd United States Colored Troop (USCT) during the Civil War using flowlines created via Geographic Information Systems (GIS) software. Doing so creates a visual representation of the routes the colored troops of the 33rd regiment took from their birthplaces to where they were enlisted into the Union army. Information on seventy records of individual soldiers were documented into an excel file, which included their age, occupation, birthplace, place of enlistment, term of service, date of enlistment, and any other additional notes on them. By visualizing the birthplaces of these soldiers compared with their enlistment locations, historians are better equipped to examine the historical records and accounts of these troops in a nuanced way. Historians may look at patterns that emerge from the data, and juxtapose them with answers to the questions of how and why these colored soldiers ended up where they did as well as what might they have encountered both during and after the war. This study finds that by in large the USCT 33rd regiment was a southeastern troop, which likely played a major factor in the experiences of these men both during and after the war.
Additional Affiliated Department, Center or Institute
Center for Teaching and Learning, History
Recommended Citation
Strauss, Grant, "USCT 33rd Regiment: Their Journey" (2013). Earth and Environmental Sciences Presentations. 2.
https://scholarexchange.furman.edu/ees-presentations/2