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From: Leslie Morales <>
Subject: [VACALEXA] Alexandria Library-Rare CW Map Digitized & Online
Date: Fri, 31 Oct 2003 15:14:15 -0500


Alexandria Library-Rare CW Map Digitized & Online

Visitors to the Alexandria Library, Special Collections have long
admired the 1862 “Topographical Map of the Original District of Columbia

and Environs: Showing the Fortifications around the City of Washington”
by E. G. Arnold. Its pastel shades highlight the several wards of
Washington, DC, water courses, and the original boundary of the District

of Columbia including the 30 square miles of Northern Virginia that was
ceded back to the Commonwealth in 1846.

This is an exceptionally rare map; we had no idea how rare. According to

the Spring/Summer 2003 (Vol. 15, No. 1) issue of “Washington History,”
two days after the map went on sale in various shops in 1862, the U.S.
War Department confiscated most copies. The same fate befell the copper
plate that was used to print the original maps. In addition, the
Department obtained the names of purchasers and seized the maps from the

homes of private citizens to prevent it from falling into Confederate
hands. The map identifies and locates 51 forts that defended Washington,

DC during the Civil War. The legacy of these forts remains with such
local place names as Fort Totten, a station on Metrorail’s Red and Green

Lines, and Alexandria’s own Fort Ward Museum.

We were a little nervous letting our treasure out of its frame and out
of the Library, but a local printing company did an overhead color scan
for us to digitize it. The full size image file took an hour to open on
the printing company’s computer. We had them step it down to a 300 dpi
image at about 1/3 the size of the original. There are likely other
libraries with such rarities in their collections.

Want to see it online? Check out November’s Photo of the Month:
http://www.alexandria.lib.va.us/lhsc_online_exhibits/monthly/photo.html

--
Leslie Anderson Morales, Reference Librarian
Alexandria Library, Special Collections
717 Queen Street
Alexandria, VA 22314 USA
Phone: 703.838.4577 x 207
FAX: 703.706.3912
Special Collections Gateway:
http://www.alexandria.lib.va.us/lhsc/special_collections_home.html



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