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