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, the Fort Hunt
residential area of Fairfax County, 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
--
Joyce A. McMullin, Manager
Alexandria Library, Special Collections
717 Queen Street
Alexandria, VA 22314 USA
Phone: 703.838.4577 x 211
FAX: 703.706.3912
Special Collections Gateway:
http://www.alexandria.lib.va.us/lhsc/special_collections_home.html
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