This week, we focused on the physical locations of our soldiers during their lives. As a different way to observe and analyze our soldiers, we each used Google Maps Engine to map the locations where our documents indicate our soldiers were. Within the map of Wilhelm Kurz’s locations, I created two layers, one for his civilian life and one for his military life. The civilian life layer included pins in his birth place, death place, lifelong US residence, state of naturalization, and where he was married. His military life map is essentially a map of the 29th infantry’s movement through the Civil War from 1861-1863. The military map had many more location and was therefore more time consuming. I decided to plot all of the locations where Kurz’s unit was reportedly, even if his presence was “not stated.” To differentiate between where he was confirmed to be present and where it was unknown, I color-coded the pins.

The most time consuming part of this mapping was drawing lines between each location to indicate movement. Although it was challenging, it helped me make sense of some of the dates of his military movements. For instance, I found gaps of around 15 days between muster rolls at different locations to be odd until I realized that these large gaps in time occurred when the unit moved a significant distance. Seeing the movement mapped out visually allows me to comprehend the information much more deeply. I hope to add the the map of his civilian life by inputting the locations of where men provided affidavits for Wilhelm Kurz so I can see where most of his lifelong acquaintances were acquired. This mapping is without a doubt the most interesting technological component of the project thus far for me, because it helps solidify Kurz’s physical existence in my mind.