The Confiscation of Boschke’s Map. 157 
was thus in error by about eight feet. This small error is still in 
the map. 
The roads were meandered by two parties, one with transit 
and chain, the other with a level. Their results being platted, 
the plats were taken to the field and the contours and other 
details sketched in. 
The Virginian part of the District, it will be remembered, had 
been ceded back to Virginia in 1846. Boschke’s map did not, 
therefore, include any of the topography in Alexandria county. 
That which now appears on the so-called Boschke map was 
added by two Coast Survey officers, Messrs Dorr and Rockwell, 
in the first year of the war. At ae outbreak of the war Ne 
United States had no topographic map of the District, the only 
topographic map existing being the manuscript produced by 
Boschke. He sold his interest in it to Messrs Blagden, Sweeney, 
and McClelland. Mr McClelland is an engraver, now seventy- 
four years old, living in Le Droit park. Heengraved the Boschke 
map, which was executed on two plates. With his partners, he 
agreed to sell the manuscript and plates to the Government for 
$20,000. Secretary of War Stanton, not apparently understand- 
ing the labor and expense of a topographic map, thought that 
$500 was a large sum. There was, therefore, a disagreement as 
to price. After some negotiations, Mr McClelland and his part- 
ners offered all the material, copper-plates and manuscript, to 
the Government for $4,000, on condition that the plates, with 
the copyright, should be returned to them at the close of the war. 
This offer also was refused. There then appeared at Mr McClel- 
land’s house in Le Droit park a lieutenant, with a squad of 
soldiers and an order from the Secretary of War to seize all the 
material relating to thismap. Mr McClelland accordingly loaded 
all the material into his own wagon and, escorted by a file of 
soldiers on either side, drove to the War Department and left the 
material. While the war was still in progress, after further con- 
ference, Secretary Stanton agreed to refer the question of pay- 
ment for this property to the Committee on War Claims. That 
committee recommended a payment of $8,590, and the owners, 
regarding this amount in cash as worth more than future uncer- 
tainties, decided to accept it. Thus all the material became 
Government property at a cost of $8,500, and the plates, two in 
number, are now in possession of the War Department. Electro- 
plate copies of them are also in the possession of the Coast 
. 22—Nar, Geog. Maa., von. VI, 1894. > 
