Congress appropriates $150,000 for Army railroad surveys

FORT HUACHUCA, ARIZONA, UNITED STATES

02.27.2023

Courtesy Story

U.S. Army Intelligence Center of Excellence

by Erin E. Thompson, USAICoE Staff Historian

On March 3, 1853, the 32d Congress of the United States set aside $150,000 for a series of land surveys stretching from the Mississippi River to the West Coast. These surveys sought to identify the best location for a transcontinental railroad from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers organized the Topographical Bureau exactly forty years earlier, on March 3, 1813, specifically devoted to exploring the geographic landscape of the United States to produce maps for the Army. This action came in the middle of the War of 1812, when Congress recognized the military’s need for more detailed and accurate maps for the purpose of war planning. In 1838, West Point graduate and politician John James Abert succeeded in splitting the Corps of Topographical Engineers into an independent unit from the Corps of Engineers.

The Louisiana Purchase of 1803 vastly expanded the size of the United States, but topographers and engineers had studied very little of it by 1853. Seeing the potential for westward expansion for the booming populations on the East Coast, Congress determined the need for a new rail line to connect both coasts. To select the best place for such a railroad, Congress appropriated funds for a series of surveys to be completed throughout 1853. Congress approved a payment of $150,000 on 3 March 1853 to send out groups of surveyors and other Army personnel to gather this geographic information. The caveat of the appropriation was Congress’ decision to support the construction of only one transcontinental railroad, adding a level of competition for the surveyors to select the best location for expansion. As tensions between the states in the north and south picked up in the 1840s and 1850s, significant debates appeared in newspapers across the country about the railroad’s location. With the new budget, Secretary of War Jefferson Davis established the Office of Pacific Railroad Explorations and Surveys under Maj. William H. Emory.

Over the next year, several surveyor groups received backing by the War Department. Engineer Isaac I. Stevens’ group traveled along the forty-seventh and forty-eighth parallels in the north, from St. Paul, Minnesota, to Puget Sound. Capt. John W. Gunnison’s party traveled across the central United States along the thirty-eighth parallel, from the headwaters of the Arkansas River to the Great Salt Lake. Lt. Amiel W. Whipple surveyed the thirty-fifth parallel from Fort Smith, Arkansas, through Albuquerque to California. Finally, two survey teams, one under Lt. John Pope and one under Lt. John G. Parke, explored the thirty-second parallel through Texas and land acquired in the 1854 Gadsden Purchase. Lieutenant Parke and Lt. Henry L. Abbot and Lt. Robert S. Williamson also made separate surveys through the mountain passes in Oregon and California.

Although the scientific discoveries and extensive mapping contributed greatly to the Army’s understanding of the trans-Mississippi West, the railroad project stalled due to continued disagreements between southern and northern states in the legislature about the location of the railroad. When the Civil War began in 1861, the maps created during the railroad surveys no doubt contributed to battle planning for both the Union and Confederate armies.

Resumption of the transcontinental railroad project began in Congress with the Pacific Railroad Acts of 1862 and 1864. Without the dissenting voices of the southern states, the Union charged the Central Pacific and the Union Pacific Railroad companies with building the rail line from Sacramento, California, to Omaha, Nebraska. Construction finished in 1869, and the Army and Congress’ vision of a transcontinental railroad was complete.

• Date Taken: 02.27.2023
• Date Posted: 02.27.2023 11:58
• Story ID: 439268
• Location: FORT HUACHUCA, ARIZONA, US