American Civil War Battlemap Software Suggestion Needed

[1864arkansas]

I am new to this forum and would appreciate any guidance and/or suggestions.

As a hobby, I have written and published a couple of books related to Civil War battles that occurred in my native state of Arkansas. My mapmaker has unexpectedly passed away and I am in need of a set of maps for my newest book on the Battle of Poison Spring, Arkansas fought in April of 1864.

What I am looking for is a software program that would enable me to create basic black and white maps that would illustrate specific troop movements to correspond with the narrative.

I am attaching a copy of one of the maps that appeared in my first book on the Battle of Jenkins' Ferry, Arkansas.

Basic maps are acceptable but it's imperative the reader is able to follow the action of the conflict.

Any suggestions would be most appreciated.

[ChickPea]

You could probably do something like this quite easily in Inkscape. You can download it for free at inkscape.org

It's a vector program, which will allow you to scale your images to any size you need without loss of quality. You'd create the images in Inkscape then export in PNG or probably PDF for a printer. As with all new software, there's a bit of a learning curve, though once you the hang of the basics, it's quite straightforward for simple stuff. I suggest watching some 'beginner guide' tutorials on Youtube to get an idea of the basic tools. I like this guy's tutorials. He's got some beginner/intro tutorials as well as more advanced stuff.

If you want something a bit more artistic, Gimp (free) or Photoshop (not free) are packages to consider. There's also Affinity Photo and Designer, which are modestly priced and might do what you need.