page_title: William H. Emory
section_title: Early life and early career
hierarchical_section_title: William H. Emory / Early life and early career
caption_attribution_description: English: U.S. Army Topographical Engineer Lieutenant William H. Emory (1811-1887) prepared this map of the Republic of Texas in preparation for the negotiations between the representatives of the U.S. government and the representatives of the Republic of Texas when they met in Washington, D.C., to discuss the issue of annexation. The map shows Texas and its position relative to the U.S. and Mexico, which at that time still included all of what became the U.S. Southwest. Emory had not yet visited Texas (although he would later accompany General Stephen F. Kearny's expedition to San Diego during the U.S. War with Mexico of 1846-1848 and also head the U.S.-Mexican boundary survey of the 1850s). Emory used the best sources available, including maps by Alexander von Humboldt, Zebulon Pike, Stephen Long, John C. Fremont, the U.S. Boundary Commission Survey of 1825, Stephen F. Austin, John Arrowsmith, William Kennedy, and S. Augustus Mitchell. This also meant that he placed "Passo del Norte" too far east (by one-and-a-half degrees of longitude), thus making the area of present far west Texas much too compressed. Emory acknowledged the dearth of information by delineating two sites for "Presidio de Rio Grande" and by noting that "of the two positions given … no information can be obtained to decide which is correct." The map shows routes of American military and civilian pathfinders in the west including Pike (1806), Long (1819-1821), Gregg (1839), and Fremont (1842). It also indicates topographical features and numerous early settlements in eastern and southeastern Texas.
context_page_description: William Hemsley Emory was a prominent American surveyor and civil engineer in the 19th century. As an officer in the U.S. Army Corps of Topographical Engineers he specialized in mapping the United States border, including the Texas–Mexico border, and the Gadsden Purchase border, 1844–1855, and published lasting scientific reports on the border region.
context_section_description: Emory was born in Queen Anne's County, Maryland, on his family's "Poplar Grove" estate. He attended the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York, and graduated in 1831. Assigned as a second lieutenant, he served in the Fourth Artillery until he resigned from the service in 1836 to pursue civil engineering, but he returned to the service in 1838 as lieutenant in the newly formed Corps of Topographical Engineers.
  William H. Emory was most importantly a topographical engineer and explorer. From 1839 to 1842, he surveyed harbors and the Delaware River. In 1844, Emory served in an expedition that produced a new map of Texan claims westward to the Rio Grande, which brought him national attention as the war with Mexico seemed imminent. He next conducted a boundary survey of the Canada–United States border (1844–1846). His mapmaking skills were so superb and detailed with such great accuracy that he often made other maps obsolete, thus making him the authority of the trans-Mississippi west.
caption: Emory's 1844 Map of Texas and the Countries Adjacent
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