During a long career in the United States and Confederate States of American Armies, Jeremy Francis Gilmer served as an engineer. Responsible for constructing fortifications and conducting land surveys, he created dozens of maps and other such documents. Eventually, these materials found their way to the University of North Carolina Library, and most recently a number of these materials were digitized. All told, this collection currently contains 161 maps, plans, and land surveys, spanning the region from Alabama to Virginia. There are some real gems in this collection, including a map of the battlegrounds of Shiloh in 1862 and a map detailing the military defenses along a portion of the coast of Texas.