Cleveland Salter Rockwell (November 24, 1837 – March 22, 1907) was an American topographical engineer, cartographer, military officer, investor, and landscape painter.

Rockwell conducted numerous coastal surveys and mapped harbors and river systems on the Atlantic and Pacific coasts of the United States.

Today, Cleveland Rockwell's topographical maps are important historical documents and his art work is well known in the Pacific Northwest.

[5] The 1861 the coastal survey projects along the South Carolina and Georgia coasts were canceled because of political tensions between southern states and the Federal Government.

His charts of Port Royal Sound allowed Captain Samuel Du Pont to replace the channel markers destroyed by Confederate forces prior to his naval bombardment of Fort Walker.

Shortly after the war began, he led a field survey of northern Fairfax County, Virginia adjacent to the Potomac River from Mount Vernon to Vienna.

The survey was requested by General Winfield Scott to help the Union Army site defensive positions around Washington.

In February 1863, Rockwell was assigned to work on a survey of the Neuse River in North Carolina, serving under Major General John G. Foster.

During this period, Rockwell was also called upon to conduct reconnaissance of inland road networks to support Union war plans.

[10][11] In June 1863, when Confederate General Robert E. Lee led the Army of Northern Virginia into Maryland and Pennsylvania, the Coastal Survey's Superintendent, Alexander Bache, offered to provide engineers to help the city of Philadelphia expand its defenses.

Rockwell was one of thirteen Coastal Survey engineers sent to map approaches to the city and help construct emergency fortifications.

After the Battle of Gettysburg, the danger to Philadelphia passed and Rockwell was sent to map the coastline near Winter Harbor, Maine.

In November, Rockwell was sent to support Major General Benjamin F. Butler, commander of Fortress Monroe near Norfolk, Virginia.

[10] The commission protected Rockwell from spying charges if he was captured while scouting roads and terrain out in front of the Army.

This seem to indicate he may have been on a secret mission, since it is unlikely that a valuable topographical engineer would have been left unused for such a long period of time with the war on-going.

[2][9][12] In August 1865, the President of Colombia requested the United States send a party of coastal engineers to examine a possible route for connecting Lake Santa Marta with the Magdalena River.

Secretary of State William H. Seward agreed and directed the Coastal Survey Superintendent to identify engineers to undertake the task.

The survey took about six months including a great deal of lost time caused by diplomatic wrangling as various Colombian officials tried to reduce the team's compensation and divert the engineers into other projects.

[15] During the winter of 1868 and the spring of 1869, Rockwell and his assistant surveyed and mapped Point Conception near Santa Barbara, California.

Then when the weather in the Pacific Northwest improved, he move north to conduct a survey of Puget Sound in Washington state.

For the next four years, he continued to shift from California to the Pacific Northwest, working the winter and spring months in the south and then moving north in May or June and staying through the fall.

The Russell family was not happy with the match because of Rockwell's Union Army service during the Civil War, so the couple married secretly on a ferry boat in San Francisco Bay.

After their marriage, Cornelia traveled with Rockwell, staying as close a practical given the outdoor nature of his field work.

He spent the next ten years working in the Pacific Northwest, making periodic trip to San Francisco where the Coastal Survey's west coast office was located.

In April and May 1884, Rockwell visited British Columbia and Alaska, filling his sketchbooks with scenes from his travels along the coast.

However, shortly after his arrival he was sent back to San Francisco to take charge of a survey party whose leader had died suddenly.

After retiring from the Coastal Survey, Rockwell opened an office in downtown Portland, taking work as a consulting engineer.

Shortly after Rockwell's death, his wife donated 36 volumes of topographic survey reports to the Oregon State Library.

[30] In addition, some of his hand-drawn maps still exist in the archives of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Washington, D.C.[2][31][32] Today, Rockwell's artwork is well known in the Pacific Northwest.