I recommend that you go to the site to blow up the map and explore it. It contains both hand written and typed explanatory notes. You can find it here:
https://www.loc.gov/resource/glva01.lva00001/?r=-0.01,0.258,1.194,0.438,0
The map was likely completed after the war and watercolors are used to “color-code” the map. From the LOC:
“Map made by David J. Coffman, born in 1839 in Luray, [Page] County, Va. Served in Co. D., 7th Virginia Calvary (sic). This map made while he was a prisoner of war at Elmira, N.Y., Military Prison.”- Accompanied by a copy of Coffman’s Civil War service record (22 x 28 cm.), stating he enlisted Apr. 1, 1862 in Luray, Virginia, was captured May 20, 1864, in Bowling Green, Virginia, and released June 27, 1865, Elmira, New York.
Here is the color-coding key:
Coffman offers some environmental details. He says that the site was “Exposed to freshets” (flooding). The camp was on low ground right next to the Chemung River. In the spring the river would often overflow its its banks and cold water would sweep through the camp.
For weather, he notes that it had “mild pleaant” summers, but winter was “very cold” with “snow all winter.”
Here is the modern google view of the site. The stockade ran along Water St. at the top and almost to the Chemung River at the bottom. Foster’s Pond was there in 1864. It bisected the prison with the small pox hospital on the southside of the pond.
In this photo you can see the stockade wall with two guardhouses visible in the lower portion of the photo. You can see guards patrolling the wall. Below them are Confederate prisoners. The gridded prison streets and the prisoner barracks fill the rest of the photo.
Here Coffman shows the entrance to the prison (along Water St.) and a row of buildings that were the officers’ quarters and commandant’s house (“headquarters). A flagpole stood at the end of the street.
Here is a photo of the officers’ row:
Here is the area north of the stockade. The large building at the center is Foster House. Water Street would not have been devoid of buildings at the time. Officers homes were constructed along it. The map shows the “Observatory” at the northeast corner. This was a commercial venture to allow people to gawk at the prisoners for a moderate fee.
This photo shows the stockade on the left, Water Street in the center. On the right is the observatory.
A battery of artillery was stationed at the prison in case of an uprising by prisoners.
