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ment to ensure its commencement and completion. He said it was a military necessity that the road should be built.

From Washington I proceeded to New York, and after consulting there with the parties who had the question before them, the bill of 1864 was drawn. In due time it passed, and under it the Union and Central Pacific railroads, constituting one continuous line, were built.

In the fall of 1864, after the fall of Atlanta, and while on my re turn from City Point, where I had been to visit General Grant for a couple of weeks, the Commander-in-Chief sent me back by the way of Washington to see the President.

While the President referred to the Pacific road, its progress and the result of my former visit, he gave it very little thought, apparently, and his great desire seemed to be to get encouragement respecting the situation around Richmond, which just then was very dark. People were criticizing Grant's strategy, and telling how to take Richmond. I think the advice and pressure on President Lincoln were almost too much for him, for during my entire visit, which lasted several hours, he confined himself, after reading a chapter out of a humorous book (I believe called the "Gospel of Peace"), to Grant and the situation at Petersburg and Richmond.

After Atlanta, my assignment to a separate department brought the country between the Missouri river and California under my command, and then I was charged with the Indian campaigns of 1865 and 1866. I traveled again over all that portion of the country I had explored in former years, and saw the beginning of that great future that awaited it. I then began to comprehend its capabilities and resources; and in all movements of our troops and scouting parties I had reports made upon the country-its resources and topography; and I, myself, during the two years, traversed it east and west, north and south, from the Arkansas to the Yellowstone, and from the Missouri to the Salt Lake basın.

It was on one of these trips that I discovered the pass through the Black Hills, and gave it the name of Sherman in honor of my great chief. Its elevation is 8,236 feet, and for years it was the highest point reached by any railroad in the United States. The circumstances of this accidental discovery may not be uninteresting to you.

While returning from the Powder river campaign I was in the

habit of leaving my troops and train, and, with a few men, examining all the approaches and passes from Fort Fetterman south over the secondary range of mountains known as the Black Hills, the most difficult to overcome with proper grades of all the ranges, on account of its short slopes and great height. When I reached the Lodge Pole creek, up which went the overland trail, I took a few mounted men-I think, six-and with one of my scouts as guide, went up the creek to the summit of Cheyenne Pass, striking south along the crest of the mountains to obtain a good view of the country, the troops and trains at the same time passing along the east base of the mountains on what was known as the St. Vrain and the Laramie trail.

About noon, in the valley of a tributary of Crow creek, we discovered Indians, who, at the same, discovered us. They were between us and our trains. I saw our danger and took means immediately to reach the ridge and try to head them off, and follow it to where the cavalry could see our signals. We dismounted and started down the ridge, holding the Indians at bay, when they came too near, with our Winchesters. It was nearly night when the troops saw our smoke-signals of danger and came to our relief; and in going to the train we followed this ridge out until I discovered it led down to the plains without a break. I then said to my guide that if we saved our scalps I believed we had found the crossing of the Black Hills-and over this ridge, between the Lone Tree and Crow creeks, the wonderful line over the mountains was built. For over two years all explorations had failed to find a satisfactory crossing of this range. The country east of it was unexplored, but we had no doubt we could reach it.

In 1867, General Augur, General John A. Rawlins, Colonel Mizner and some others crossing the plains with me, reached the point where I camped that night. We spent there the 4th of July, and General Rawlins made a remarkable speech commemorating the day. We located there the post of D. A. Russell and the city of Cheyenne. At that time the nearest settlement was at Denver, one hundred and fifty miles away; and while we lay there the Indians swooped down on a Mormon train that had followed our trail, and killed two of its men; but we saved their stock, and started the graveyard of the future city.

The explorations by the government for a Pacific railroad are all matters of official report, long since published and open to all.

They were the basis for the future explorations of all the transcontinental lines, except the Union Pacific, then known as that of the 42d parallel of latitude. That line, and the country from the Arkansas to the Yellowstone, was explored and developed mainly by private enterprise, and it is by far the most practicable line crossing the continent-the shortest, quickest, of lightest curvature and lowest grades and summits. It is not, in an engineering point of view, the true line from the Atlantic to the Pacific, but in a commercial point of view it is.

In an engineering point of view we demonstrated, before the year 1860, that the true line was up the Platte to its forks, to which point the Union Pacific is now built, then up the North Platte and Sweetwater to the South pass, and then down the Snake river (where the Oregon Short Line now runs), to the Columbia and then to tide-water at Portland. The Union and Central were built for commercial value, and to obtain the shortest and quickest line from ocean to ocean.

The line of the Central was controlled almost entirely by the development of the mining industries in California and Nevada until it reached the Humboldt; then its natural course would be to reach Salt Lake and the Mormon settlements. The Union Pacific objective point was the Pacific coast by way of the Great Platte valley and Salt Lake.

Every mile of the Pacific roads that received subsidies from the government had to have the approval of the government three different times, through its selected officers, before one cent could be received or one acre of land certified.

1st. The preliminary survey, showing the general route of the line, had to be accepted as in compliance with the law and satisfactory to the President.

2d. As each section of 50 or 100 miles was finally located on the ground, this being the actual line to be built upon, which could not be deviated from, it had to be filed in the Interior Department, receive the approval of its Secretary, and the Great Seal of the country.

Finally, when a section of 20 or more miles was completed and equipped as required by law, the United States sent out three expert commissioners, who examined again, not only all materials put in it, its method of construction and its road as constructed, but went behind all other approvals that had been made, and as

sumed the right of might, not law, to disapprove what had before been approved, and upon which approval the road had been constructed.

For the sake of peace and to avoid delays, we submitted and made any changes demanded, which, to their credit, I must say, were very few. The grades, the road-beds, the cuts, fills, bridges, ties, rails, spikes, joints-everything had to be put up to the standard adopted by the government, a standard adopted on the advice, in several cases, of people who had never seen the country. And after the road was completed, in many cases it had to be changed to overcome one great obstacle that one unacquainted with the country would never dream of-the question of snow. We had to study every summit, every mountain side, every valley, to find from the currents which was the snowy side and which the barren; and over the whole 1,500 miles of line located for the Union Pacific, for three winters we kept engineers in tents or dug-outs watching from four to six months the drift of the snow and water to be overcome, and the safest, surest and most effectual methods of doing it.

The charter of 1884 provides that the loan in bonds shall change from $16,000.00 a mile to $32,000.00 at the east base of the Rocky mountains and the west base of the Sierra Nevada.

When we reached the mountains a series of questions arose as to how this base should be determined. The eastern base was determined by Mr. Blickensderfer, who was appointed by the government. After examining the country, he declared it to be right at the foot of the mountains, where the heavy grades to overcome the first range, the Black Hills, were made necessary-a very proper decision.

The west base of the Sierra was located near Sacramento, where the drift of the mountains reached into the valley, or where, you might say, the first approach to the mountains begins, but long before the heavy grades commenced.

A good story is told, the truth of which I will not undertake to vouch for, in relation to the fixing of the base.

By the original railroad act, as we have noticed, the President was to fix the point where the Sacramento valley ended and the foot-hills of the Sierra Nevada began. Chief Engineer Judah, in his report, had designated Barmore's, thirty-one miles from Sacramento, as the beginning of the mountains. This corresponded

with a decision of the Supreme Court of the United States, made in April, 1864, in the case of the Leidesdorff grant. This grant. by Mexican authority, was bounded by the foot-hills on the east. The contestants of the grant attempted to fix the eastern boundaries at Alder creek, eight miles nearer Sacramento. The Supreme Court decided the foot-hills commenced about thirty miles from that city. Several attempts were made by Mr. Sargent, then a member of Congress and since United States Senator, soon after the passage of the original act, to bring the attention of President Lincoln to this subject, but the President's constant occupation with weightier duties forced upon him by the great war prevented his action. The time, however, came when it could no longer be delayed.

Owing to the increase of subsidy among the hills and mountains, it was important to the railway company that the foot-hills should begin as near as possible to Sacramento. The Senator claims the credit of moving the mountains from Barmore's to Arcade creek, a distance of twenty-four miles. His relation of the affair to his friends is this; Lincoln was engaged with a map, when the Senator substituted another, and demonstrated by it and the statement of some geologist that the black soil of the valley and the red soil of the hills united at Arcade. The President relied on the statements given him, and decided accordingly. "Here, you see," said the Senator, "how my pertinacity and Abraham's faith removed mountains."

Reconnoissances made in 1862-63-64 had demonstrated that a serious question would arise in reaching the Humboldt valley from the western foot of the Wahsatch mountains in the Salt Lake basın. Should the line go north or south of the lake? The Mormon church and all of its followers, a central power of great use to the trans-continental roads, were determinedly in favor of the south line. It was preached from its pulpits, and authoritatively announced that a road could not be built or run north of the lake. But our explorations in an earlier day unqualifiedly indicated the north side, though an exhaustive examination was made south and only one line run north, it being our main line to the California State line surveyed in 1867.

The explorations by parties south of the lake, and the personal examinations of the chief engineer, determined that it had no merits as compared with the north line; and on such report

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