Vanguard of Expansion Army Engineers in the Trans-Mississippi West, 1819-1879

1. Robert E. Riegel, The Story of the Western Railroads (New York: Macmillan, 1926), pp. 4, 6, 19; Robert T. Russel, Improvement of Communication with the Pacific Coast as an Issue in American Politics 1783-1864 (Cedar Rapids: Torch Press, 1948), p. 95.

2. Russel, Improvement of Communication, pp. 96-99; Allan Nevins, Ordeal of the Union, II (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1947), p. 87; Carter Goodrich, Government Promotion of American Canals and Railroads 1800-1890 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1960), pp. 179, 182.

3. Grant County (Wisconsin) Herald, quoted in Goodrich, Government Promotion, p. 179.

4. Riegel, Western Railroads, p. 15; Goodrich, Government Promotion, p. 179.

5. Heinrich B. Mollhausen, Diary of a Journey from the Mississippi to the Coast of the Pacific, ed. by Peter A. Fritzell, I (New York: Johnson Reprint Corp., 1969), p. 11.

6. Russel, Improvement of Communication, pp. 100, 107-08; Goetzmann, Army Exploration, p. 262; 10 Stat. 219 (3 March 1853).

7. Russel, Improvement of Communication, p. 174; Goetzmann, Army Exploration, pp. 274-75; Ryan, "War Department Topographical Bureau," p. 185.

8. Goetzmann, Army Exploration, p. 267.

9. Russel, Improvement of Communication, p. 168.

10. Hazard Stevens, The Life of Isaac Ingalls Stevens, I (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, 1900), p. 307; Goetzmann, Army Exploration, p. 281; Oscar O. Winther, "Early Commercial Importance of the Mullan Road," Oregon Historical Quarterly, 46 (March 1945), 22.

11. Isaac I. Stevens, Report of Exploration of a Route for the Pacific Railroad, Near the Forty-Seventh and Forty-Ninth Parallels, from St. Paul to Pu get Sound, 33d Cong., 1st sess., House of Representatives Executive Document 129, I, pp. 4-5.

12. George Suckley to Rutsen Suckley, 9 December 1853, Suckley Papers, Yale University.

13. Quoted in Hazard Stevens, Isaac Ingalls Stevens, I, p. 290.

14. Hazard Stevens, Isaac Ingalls Stevens, I, pp. 290-91.

15. Isaac Stevens, Report, pp. 11, 49-50.

16. Suckley to John Suckley, 25 January 1854, Suckley Papers.

17. Suckley to Rutsen Suckley, 9 December 1853, Suckley Papers.

18. Edwards, ed., The Whipple Report, pp. 61-62.

19. Edward G. Beckwith, Report of Exploration of a Route for the Pacific Railroad, near the 38th and 39th Parallels of Latitude, From the Mouth of the Kansas to Sevier River, in the Great Basin, 33d Cong., 1st sess., House of Representatives Executive Document 129, II, pp. 4-6, 22, 24.

20. Jacob H. Schiel, Journey Through the Rocky Mountains and the Humboldt Mountains to the Pacific Ocean, ed. by Thomas N. Bonner (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1959), pp. 25, 29; Beckwith, Exploration near the 38th and 39th Parallels, p. 35; Frederick Kreutzfeldt, "Memorandum Book of Mr. Kreutzfeldt," trans. by Sylvia Envers, Kreutzfeldt Papers, Smithsonian Institution.

21. Beckwith, Exploration near the 38th and 39th Parallels, pp. 35-36, 39-43; Kreutzfeldt, "Memorandum Book"; Forbes Parkhill, "Antoine Leroux," in The Mountain Men and the Fur Trade of the Far West, ed. by Leroy R. Hafen, IV (Glendale, Calif.: Arthur H. Clark, 1966), pp. 177-83.

22. Schiel, Journey Through the Rocky Mountains, pp. 43-45.

23. Beckwith, Exploration near the 38th and 39th Parallels, pp. 56-73.

24. Kreutzfeldt, "Memorandum Book."

25. Schiel, Journey Through the Rocky Mountains, p. 54.

26. Kreutzfeldt, "Memorandum Book."

27. Kreutzfeldt, "Memorandum Book"; Beckwith, Exploration near the 38th and 39th Parallels, pp. 79-82.

28. Beckwith, Exploration near the 38th and 39th Parallels, pp. 81-83; Hine, Edward Kern, pp. 96-97; Schiel, Journey Through the Rocky Mountains, p. 67.

29. Beckwith, Report of Explorations for the Pacific Railroad On the Line of the Forty-first Parallel of North Latitude, 33d Cong., 1st sess., House of Representatives Executive Document 129, II, pp. 5, 13-15, 18, 41, 72; Goetzmann, Army Exploration, pp. 285-86; Goetzmann, Exploration and Empire, p. 388.

30. Amiel W. Whipple, Report of Exploration fora Railway Route, Near the Thirty-fifth Parallel of Latitude, from the Mississippi River to the Pacific Ocean, 33d Cong., 1st sess., House of Representatives Executive Document 129, II, p. 7, 10, 21; Mollhausen, Diary, I, p. 15; Spencer F. Baird to Scientific Men throughout North America, 31 May 1853, Baird Papers, Smithsonian Institution.

31. Whipple, Report, pp. 23, 27, 32; Mollhausen, Diary, I, p. 331; Robert Taft, Artists and illustrators of the Old West, 1850-1900 (New York: Bonanza Books, n. d.), pp. 26-27.

32. Whipple, Report, pp. 34-40, 82-83, 86.

33. W. Eugene Hollon, The Southwest: Old and New (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1968), p. 15; W. Eugene Hollon, Beyond the Cross Timbers, The Travels of Randolph B. Marcy, 1812-1887 (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1955), pp. 69-70; Martin Crimmins, "Captain John Pope's Route to the Pacific," The Military Engineer, 23 (March-April 1931), 158; John Pope, Report of Exploration of a Route for the Pacific Railroad, Near the Thirty-second Parallel of Latitude, From the Red River to the Rio Grande, 33d Cong., 1st sess., House of Representatives Executive Document 129, II, pp. 72, 92, 94-95.

34. Pope, Report, pp. 15, 48-49; Goetzmann, Exploration and Empire, p. 274; Newberry, "Geological Report," p. 51.

35. John G. Parke, Report of Explorations for Railroad Routes from San Francisco Bay to Los Angeles, California, West of the Coast Range, and from the Pimas Villages on the Gila to the Rio Grande, Near the 32d Parallel of North Latitude, 33d Cong., 2d sess., Senate Executive Document 78, VII, pp. 3, 20; Goetzmann, Army Exploration, p. 290; Wallace, The Great Reconnaissance, p. 198.

36. Robert S. Williamson, Report Upon the Routes in California to Connect with the Routes near the Thirty-fifth and Thirty-second Parallels, 33d Cong., 2d sess., Senate Executive Document 78, V, pp. 7, 9, 27, 30-32, 34-36, 39; Goetzmann, Army Exploration, pp. 292-93.

37. Henry L. Abbot, Report of Lieut. Henry L. Abbot, Corps of Topographical Engineers, Upon Explorations for a Railroad Route, from the Sacramento Valley to the Columbia River, 33d Cong., 2d sess., Senate Executive Document 78, VI, pp. 9-10, 59, 62. The following account of the Abbot expedition is based on this report. Footnotes are provided only for portions quoted in the text.

38. Abbot, From the Sacramento Valley to the Columbia, p. 66.

39. Abbot, From the Sacramento Valley to the Columbia, p. 90.

40. Goodrich, Government Promotion, p. 332; The Statistical History of the United States from Colonial Times to the Present (Stamford, Conn.: Fairfield Publishers, 1965), p. 711. Whipple's estimate was later found to be excessive and was halved. Goetzmann, Army Exploration, p. 312.

41. Goetzmann, Army Exploration, pp. 295, 298, 300, 303-04; Goetzmann, Exploration and Empire, p. 292; Oscar O. Winther, The Transportation Frontier, Trans-Mississippi West, 1865-1890 (New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1964), p. 99.

42. Goetzmann, Army Exploration, pp. 307, 312, 336; Taft, Artists and illustrators, p. 5; George P. Merrill, First One Hundred Years of American Geology, pp. 310-11.

43. Dupree, Science in the Federal Government, p. 95.

44. Henry L. Abbot, "Memoir of Gouverneur Kemble Warren, 1830-1832," Warren Papers, New York State Library, Albany.

45. Goetzmann, Army Exploration, p. 313; Gilbert, The Exploration of Western America, pp. 202-03; Wheat, "Mapping the American West, 1540-1857," pp. 164-65.