The Petersburg Project
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  • Blog and Updates
  • Postwar Visit to the Battlefields 1866
  • Civil War Combat Trenching
  • Views of the City of Petersburg
    • Petersburg Panorama 1865
    • Steeples of Petersburg
    • Petersburg Mill Photographs
  • The Mine Explosion and its Crater
  • Petersburg in Pencil and Ink
    • Alfred R. Waud, Special Artist at Petersburg >
      • Waud Drawing of 5th Corps Fortifications
    • William Waud, Special Artist
    • Charles H. Chapin, Special Artist
    • Joseph Becker, Special Artist at Petersburg
    • Edwin Forbes, Special Artist at Petersburg
    • Winslow Homer, Special Artist
    • Edward Mullen, Special Artist at Petersburg
    • Andrew W. Warren, Special Artist
    • Enlisted Artists >
      • Charles Wellington Reed
      • Andrew McCallum
      • Francis Knowles
      • James William Pattison
      • Herbert Valentine
      • Howard A. Camp
  • Petersburg Photographs --So Many!
    • Dimmock Battery 5 Photographs >
      • Working with Photographs
    • City Point
    • City Point Wharf Explosion, Aug. 9, 1864
    • Fort Rice?? We don't think so!
    • Federal Picket Line, Jerusalem Plank Road
    • Egbert Guy Fowx, Photographer at Petersburg
    • Timothy O'Sullivan, Photographer at Petersburg >
      • Harrison's Creek USCT Camps
      • Fort Morton and Baxter Road Group
      • Fort Haskell Panorama and Bomb Proofs
      • Fort Stedman Group
      • Gracie's Salient Group
      • Camp of the 50th N. Y. Engineers
    • David Knox, Photographer at Petersburg
    • William Redish Pywell, Photographer at Petersburg
    • John Reekie, Photographer at Petersburg
    • Thomas C. Roche, Photographer at Petersburg
    • Andrew J. Russell, Photographer at Petersburg >
      • "Fort Mahone" CS Batteries 25 & 27
  • U. S. Military Railroad
    • Terminus of Military R. R. at City Point
    • City Point to Clark's Station
    • Pitkin's Station to Shooting Hill
    • Hancock's Junction/Jerusalem Plank Road
    • Parke's Station
    • Warren's Station
    • Patrick's Station
  • Topographical Engineers -- Our Heroes
    • Grand Medicine Pow-wow
    • Michler's Reports from Topographical Department
    • John E. Weyss, Cartographer
    • William H. Paine, Cartographer
    • Gilbert Thompson
    • Albert Hanry Campbell, C.S.A. Cartographer
  • Confederate Maps
    • Confederate Defenses 1862
    • Gilmer-Campbell Maps, 1864
    • Stevens Map July 1864
    • Fields of Fire
    • Campbell Dinwiddie County 1864
    • Coit's map of the Crater Battlefield
  • Federal Maps
    • Army of the Potomac, Routes of the Corps to Petersburg
    • June 9 1864, Kautz Attack
    • June 18, 1864-Federal Engineers Maps
    • June 18, 1864, 18th Corps
    • June 19, 1864, Engineers Map
    • June 21, 1864, Federal Engineers Maps
    • June 22, 1864. Second Corps at Jerusalem Plank Road
    • June 29, 1864. Dept of VA and NC
    • June 30, 1864 -- XVIII Corps Map
    • June-July, Undated Federal Engineers Map-
    • July 29, 1864, Engineers Map, Annotated
    • July 1864 Map of XVIII Corps Lines
    • Crater, Native American Perspective of the Crater
    • August 1864, Michie Map - Bermuda 100
    • August 28, 1864, Michler Map
    • Aug.-Nov. 1864 Two Base Maps
    • September 13, 1864, Recon Map
    • Sept. 13-Oct.25 versions. Redoubts and Batteries
    • September 30, 1864, Warren Map
    • October 1864, Two IX Corps Maps
    • October 20, 1864. Benham's map of defenses of City Point
    • Nov. 2, 1864, Army of the Potomac
    • 1864, Coast Survey Map of Petersburg
    • Michler Map Series 1865-1867
    • 1864-1867, Michler-Weyss, Siege of Petersburg
    • 1865-1867, Manuscript Survey Maps
    • 1871, Map of Recapture of Ft. Stedman
    • 1881, Boydton Plank Road
  • Confederate Forts and Batteries
    • Dimmock Line >
      • Priest Cap
      • French Rifle Pits
    • Fort Clifton
    • "Fort Mahone" CS Batteries 25 & 27
    • Confederate 8-inch Columbiad
    • Leadworks
  • Federal Forts and Batteries
    • Union Battery Ten (X)
    • Fort Alexander Hayes
    • Fort Avery
    • Fort Conahey
    • Fort Davis & Battery XXII
    • Fort Fisher
    • Fort Meikel --Photographic Views
    • Fort Morton
    • Fort Patrick Kelly
    • Fort Sedgwick, better known as Fort Hell,
    • Fort Wadsworth -- the Evolution
    • Fort Willcox or Battery XVI
  • Battlefield Features
    • Aiken House
    • Armstrong's Mill
    • Avery House
    • Bailey/Johnston Farm
    • Blandford Church
    • Broadway Landing, Appomattox River
    • The Crater
    • Cummings House
    • Dams and Inundations
    • WW Davis Farm
    • Dunn House
    • Friend House >
      • View from Friend House toward Gibben complex and Petersburg
    • Gibbons Properties
    • Globe Tavern / Weldon Railroad
    • Gregory House
    • Griffith Farm
    • Gurley House
    • Hare House Hill
    • The "Horseshoe"
    • Jerusalem Plank Road
    • Jones House
    • Jordan House
    • Newmarket Racecourse
    • Pegram's Farm
    • Peebles Farm, Pegrams Farm, Poplar Springs Church
    • Shands House
    • Taylor Farm >
      • The Ice House
      • Surviving Taylor Barn
    • Williams House
  • Signal Towers and Trees
    • Some Operations of the Signal Corps at Petersburg
  • Archeology
    • Geology of the Crater
    • Fieldwork -- Petersburg
    • Civil War Sinks
    • Deserted Confederate Camp
    • Gracie's Countermine
    • LIDAR Forts and Batteries
  • Articles, Papers, Presentations
    • Shiman: A Note on Maps
    • The Siege Landscape: Through Fire and Ice at Petersburg
    • "The Rebel in the Road"
    • "A Strange Sort of Warfare Underground"
    • Lost Trenches of Petersburg: June 17
    • Between the Lines
    • Combat Trenching: An Introduction
    • Lowe -- Post-War Topographical Survey
    • Civil War Maps and Landscapes -- Observations
  • Kittens, Puppies & Ponies
  • Executions!
  • Notes on Leveled Earthworks
  • Depot Hospital at City Point
  • Pontoon Bridges
  • The Great Pontoon Bridge Across James River
  • Captain Robert Davis CSA

William H. Paine, cartographer, Army of the Potomac

PictureWilliam Henry Paine, CDV from the Paine Collection, New-York Historical Society. Colorized.
William Henry Paine (1828-1890) was born in Chester, New Hampshire on May 17, 1828. In 1848, Paine's family moved to Sheboygan, Wisconsin. He studied mathematics and trained as a land surveyor. Paine traveled to the gold fields of California in 1852 where he was employed on various hydraulic mining operations. In 1853, he hired on as an assistant for a chain survey of a proposed railroad right-of-way from Sacramento to Utah. During this time he developed and later patented a flexible, flat steel tape measure to replace cumbersome survey chains then in use. Paine's American Tape afterwards came into widespread use in the profession. Paine returned to Wisconsin in 1856 to serve as county surveyor and railroad engineer. He married but his wife, Harriet, died soon after the birth of their daughter in February 1861.

With the coming of Civil War, Paine traveled as a civilian in company with the 4th Wisconsin Infantry 
to Washington, D. C., where he sought a commission as an engineer. Maj. Amiel Weeks Whipple, chief topographical engineer on Gen. Irvin McDowell's staff, was a principal on the Pacific railroad surveys of the 1850s and was likely familiar with Paine's work. He took Paine on as a civilian assistant to conduct surveys in and around Washington. In early April 1862, Whipple sent Paine into Virginia with several others to fill out some of the many unknown areas in existing maps. Paine returned from this reconnaissance with detailed maps and much useful military intelligence. As a result of his efforts, he was commissioned a captain and A.D.C on April 28, 1862, and attached to the staff of General McDowell, then commanding I Corps. When Maj. Gen. John Pope came east to command the Army of Virginia, Paine was assigned to his staff and with others conducted a full survey of portions of Northern Virginia, "which extended from Manassas south to Rapidan Station." On February 2, 1863, Brig. Gen. Gouverneur K. Warren took command of the Engineer Department, Army of the Potomac, and Captain Paine was assigned as his assistant. Paine performed valuable duties during the Chancellorsville campaign. Paine remained with army headquarters and proved indispensable in guiding the various army corps during the 1864 Overland Campaign. He continued with the Army of the Potomac until the end of the war and was a valued officer on General Meade's staff. A fellow staff officer wrote during fighting before Petersburg that "Paine gave a very good account of the trend of our lines--and was, as usual, the only man who had much general information." During October and November, he was given the very dangerous task of surveying and tracing the Confederate fortifications as closely as possible for addition to headquarters maps.

After the war, Paine remarried and relocated to Brooklyn, New York, to survey for the railroad. But wartime associations soon led to work with the New York Bridge Company. When Washington Augustus Roebling succeeded his father as chief engineer of the Brooklyn Bridge in 1869, he hired his former fellow staff officer, Paine, as a construction engineer and later promoted him to Assistant Engineer in charge of the massive cable railway that serviced the bridge project. Paine continued to invent and innovate, receiving a patent for the "Paine Grip" used for cable cars and many other devices. As a recognized civil engineer, Paine consulted or supervised other major construction projects in and around New York City, including the Third Avenue Railway and the Hudson River Tunnel. He also continued his Civil War interests and contributed maps to William Swinton's "History of the Army of the Potomac" and Horace Greeley's "American Conflict," among other publications. In the late 1880s, Paine moved to Cleveland, Ohio, to oversee a cable railroad project. He died there on December 31, 1890. Paine is buried in Green-Wood Cemetery, Brooklyn.

Maj. Gen. Gouverneur K. Warren wrote of Paine's service: "To his previous great knowledge of the country he added by constant laborious and oftentimes daring reconnaissances, and applied it in unfailing efforts to correct our imperfect maps and in guiding our columns on the marches night and day along the secret paths he had discovered.”

​William H. Paine, Past Vice-President Am. Soc. C. E., Obituary, Transactions of the American Society of Engineers, 1891, 160-163.
Colonel William H. Paine, Obituary, 
Street Railway Journal, Vol. 7 (February 1891), 95-96.
A Guide to Civil War Maps in the National Archives, 2nd Edition 1986, p.68.
Derby, George and James T. White. "William H. Paine." National Cyclopedia of American Biography. J.T. White, 1930.
http://dlib.nyu.edu/findingaids/html/nyhs/whpaine/scopecontent.html
http://www.green-wood.com/2015/civil-war-biographies-pabst-perrin/
​https://unwritten-record.blogs.archives.gov/2015/04/07/mapping-appomattox/


Picture
"Capt. William H. Paine, Topographical Engineer." CDV from the collection of Theodore Lyman, Massachusetts Historical Society
Picture
Obituary photo, Street Railway Journal, Vol. 7 (February 1891), frontspiece.

Picture
LC34052. "General Meade and Staff." Paine is standing behind Meade's left shoulder. According to an entry in Paine's diary, this photograph was taken on June 29, 1865: He wrote "By invitation of Maj. Gen. Meade joined him and other of the staff and had our photographs taken at Gardner's Studio."
Picture
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