Congress and business desired transcontinental routes to the Pacific coast to facilitate access to the opulent commerce of the Far East. Albright described the three main routes: extreme north, central, and extreme south and their explorers.

Excerpt from Official Explorations for Pacific Railroads, 1853-1855 An episode in the development of the trans-mississippi West to which but scant attention has been given in any history is the Pacific railroad survey of 1853 - 1855. This great reconnais sance deserves attention as the first attempt of the government at a comprehensive, systematic examination of the vast region lying between the Mississippi River and the Pacific Ocean. It is not intended to minimize in any way the labors of the fur-traders, the travelers, and the earlier government explorers, of whom Emory, Stansbury, and Sitgreaves must stand side by side with Fremont. Through their efforts there existed a good general knowledge of the West; but when it was proposed to locate a transcontinental railroad, the dearth of accurate scientific infor mation was well recognized. All preexisting knowledge was brought to bear upon a few routes which were advocated in definite plans. For that reason I have seen fit to discuss rather fully the different plans in order to show their intimate connec tion with the railroad explorations. My study has been based almost entirely upon the government documents, and an attempt has been made to study every document bearing upon the subject. The orthography of place names is usually that of the documents. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

This book examines the complex and changing relationship between the U.S. Army and American railroads during the nineteenth century.

“Isaac Stevens was most often in the center of activity, providing leadership, spewing out orders and ideas, shaping events, or creating controversy. He was a man either loved or hated.”--Kent D. Richards. Washington Territory's first governor remains as controversial today as he was to his frontier contemporaries during the Pacific Northwest's most turbulent era--the mid-1850s. Indian wars, martial law, and bitter political disputes, as well as the establishment of a new, sound governmental system, characterized Isaac I. Stevens's years as governor (1853-1857). Richards's definitive biography is one of the essential works on the history of early Washington, as well as northern Idaho and western Montana. An 1839 West Point graduate, Stevens pursued an exciting and useful career for his country. He was as much at ease on horseback in the wilderness as he was in government halls at the nation's capitol. With the possible exception of the Flathead Council, Richards counters the popular misconception that Stevens acted with haste in forcing treaties on regional tribes, thus precipitating the hostilities in 1855. In addition to serving as Washington's territorial governor, superintendent of Indian affairs, and, eventually, delegate to the U.S. Congress, Stevens also distinguished himself in the Mexican War, the Coast Survey, and as head of the Northern Pacific transcontinental railroad survey. In the early years of the Civil War, he was appointed a major general in the Union Army. Dying as flamboyantly as he had lived, Stevens fell while charging with banner in hand toward rebel fortifications on the very battlefield where his son lay wounded. He left an indelible mark on the destiny of the Pacific Northwest. This revised edition offers a new preface.