The Library's Geography and Map Division holds the largest collection of cartographic materials in the world, including an extraordinary selection of Civil War maps. Some of these maps were recently made available online in the new presentation "Civil War Maps, 1861-1865." When it is complete, the collective presentation will consist of 2,240 maps and charts and 76 atlases from the Library's Geography and Map Division collection; 200 maps from the Library of Virginia; and 400 items from the Virginia Historical Society.

The Library recently began a cooperative project with two Virginia libraries to make a major digital collection of Civil War cartographic materials available on the Library's Web site. Among the reconnaissance, sketch and theater-of-war maps are the detailed battle maps made by Major Jedediah Hotchkiss for Generals Lee and Jackson, General Sherman's Southern military campaigns and maps taken from diaries, scrapbooks and manuscripts -- all available for the first time in one place.

Most of the items presented here are documented in Civil War Maps: An Annotated List of Maps and Atlases in the Library of Congress, compiled by Richard W. Stephenson in 1989. Seven of Stephenson's essays are included here on such topics as "Union Mapping," "Confederate Mapping," "Official Battlefield Maps" and "Commercial Mapping." New Civil War selections will be added monthly.