My rudimentary map-making skills aside, I am hopeful that the above map will help others locate their ancestors. This is a rough copy of a map found in Volume 7 of Grant's Papers.* There, he names many of the towns included on the map, as well as several not shown here. The latter include Lumpkin's Mills, Yoknapatalfa, Saulsbury, Pott's Farm, Waterford, Coffeeville, and New Albany. (At the time, these were in Marshall County, MS; some of them may be in Benton or Tippah today.)

Slaves living in any of the towns on the map or those mentioned here had a good chance of reaching Union lines since Union forces were known to have battled in this area in the fall of 1862. Moreover, the Register of Freedmen mentioned in an earlier post included many blacks from this area. My own ancestors may have encountered Union lines in or near Salem, MS mentioned on p. 89 of Volume 7 of Grant's Papers. My family members, the Williamses, listed in the document in the post below, were slaves of the Hulls of Salem, MS.

Studying Grant's Papers is a good way to envision the slave's "road to freedom," for in these published texts, specific roads--Ripley, Pontotoc, and Pigeon Roost--and several bodies of water--Tallahatchie R., Tippah Creek, Hurricane Creek, and Coldwater R--are mentioned.

*John Y. Simon, Ed., The Papers of Ulysses S. Grant, Volume 7, Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1982.