South Carolina in 1860 - Columbia, Charleston, Sullivan's Island

Joseph Hutchins Colton of New York published this map of South Carolina in 1860, part of Colton's General Atlas, the single-volume successor to his earlier two-volume Atlas of the World and one of the most widely distributed commercial atlases in the country by mid-century. The Colton firm was known for high-quality steel-plate engraving, decorative borders, and hand watercoloring, and this sheet carries a detailed inset of Charleston, an unusual level of city-scale attention for a state atlas map of the period. It captures South Carolina in the final months before secession, the state that in December 1860 would become the first to leave the Union, at a moment when the railroads threaded across the map were still tying the plantation interior to the port that would soon come under blockade.

Columbia, the state capital, anchors the map's interior at the head of the Piedmont's rail network. Charleston receives the map's most detailed treatment through its dedicated inset, which zooms in on the city at the confluence of the Ashley and Cooper Rivers and extends out to Sullivan's Island and Morris Island, with particular attention paid to military installations guarding the harbor entrance, ground that would draw international attention within months when Fort Sumter came under fire there. Railroads and settlements radiate outward from Charleston and Columbia across the state, while the adjoining edges of North Carolina and Georgia appear in partial outline, showing the rail connections tying South Carolina to its neighbors.

This map is a strong choice for a South Carolina family, a Charleston transplant, or a Civil War history collector drawn to the state on the very eve of secession. The store also carries Anthony Finley's 1831 South Carolina and Jeremiah Greenleaf's 1842 map of both Carolinas together; those earlier sheets predate both the state's rail network and its detailed Charleston harbor inset, making this 1860 Colton edition the most current and the most historically charged of the three. It is available unframed in a range of sizes.