RETURN TO WASHINGTON.--REPORT OF EXPLORATION
Governor Stevens left Olympia on March 26, and, proceeding by way of the
Cowlitz to the Columbia, and by steamer down the coast, reached San
Francisco early in April. Here he found a group of his old friends and
brother officers, including Mason, Halleck, and Folsom, and how warmly
he was received by them, and how interesting they found his accounts of
the exploration, the Indians, and the many wild and new scenes he had
passed through, may be imagined. His arrival attracted much public
attention; his exploration was deemed a very important and remarkable
one, and one conducted with remarkable ability and success; and in Music
Hall, on Bush Street, April 13, before a crowded audience, and
introduced by Mayor Garrison, he gave an able address upon the Northern
route. In this address he boldly advocated three railroads across the
continent, declaring that the subject of internal communications was too
great to be treated from a sectional point of view. He demonstrated the
favorable character of the route and country he had explored, the
navigability of the upper Columbia and Missouri, and the little
obstruction from snows. The impression made by this address is reflected
in the editorial of the San Francisco "Herald:"--
"Of all the surveys ordered by the general government at Washington
with a view to the selection of a route for a railroad across the
continent, that intrusted to Governor Stevens is by far the most
satisfactory. He took the field in June last, having left the
Mississippi River on the 15th of that month, and, moving steadily
westward,--throwing out parties on the right and left of his line,
surveying every stream of any consequence, exploring every pass
again and again,--he has accomplished in that time the survey of a
belt extending two thousand miles from east to west, and from one
hundred and fifty to two hundred miles from north to south. In the
Rocky Mountains his explorations have extended over four hundred
miles from north to south, and in the Cascade Mountains over two
hundred and fifty miles. While the main work of reconnoissance was
going on, the auxiliary departments of geology, natural history,
botany, etc., were prosecuted with vigor and success. The results
obtained in so short a space of time are, as far as we are aware,
unparalleled.
"The route thus occupied by Governor Stevens and his party is the
route of the two great rivers across the continent, the Missouri and
Columbia. Their tributaries interlock; the whole mountain range is
broken down into spurs and valleys, and no obstruction exists from
snow. The whole route is eminently practicable. The highest grade
will be fifty feet to the mile. The summit level of the road will be
about five thousand feet above the sea. There will be but one
tunnel. The snows will be less than in the New England States. The
Missouri River has been surveyed, and found to be navigable for
steamers to the Falls, about seven hundred miles from Puget Sound,
and five hundred miles to the point where the main Columbia is first
reached by railroad from the East. This five hundred miles is in
part along Clark's Fork, affording one hundred miles navigable for
steamers.
"The results of the survey may be summed up as follows: Three lines
run from the Mississippi River to the Rocky Mountains; nine passes
explored in the Rocky Mountains; three lines run from the Rocky
Mountains to the Columbia River and Puget Sound; the Cascades
explored from the Columbia to the 49th parallel; Puget Sound
examined with reference to a railroad depot; the fact that not the
slightest obstruction will occur from snow established beyond
controversy."
After a short stay in San Francisco, Governor Stevens took the steamer
for the Isthmus, and reached New York in May, and the next morning had
a joyful reunion with his wife and little girls in Newport. After his
severe and long-continued labors, the sea voyage compelled him to a
much-needed rest. On such voyages he threw off his wonted intense, high
pressure mood of work, and, with mind relaxed, enjoyed the soothing
influence of old Neptune.
He proceeded immediately to Washington with his family, except his son,
who was at school at Phillips Academy in Andover, and who joined him
later at the summer vacation, and took rooms at the National Hotel on
Pennsylvania Avenue. A great deal was still to be done to complete the
report of the exploration, and with Tinkham, Osgood, and other
assistants he drove it with his accustomed vigor. On June 30 he
submitted it to the department, the first report of all the routes,
although it covered the greatest field, and was by far the most
comprehensive and exhaustive.
Secretary Davis, recognizing that in his measures for prosecuting the
survey Governor Stevens was actuated solely by zeal for the public
service, submitted an estimate to cover the deficiency, which was duly
appropriated, and the protested drafts were honored. General Hunt gives
the following incident, which shows the confidence Governor Stevens's
old friends had in his ability to carry his points:--
"I followed him in the thorough work he made of the Northern Pacific
Railway survey,--of his row with Jeff Davis for overrunning in his
expenditures the amount assigned him, and so preventing Jeff's
designs of defeating that road. In 1854 I had, at Fort Monroe,
occasion to describe your father to old Major Holmes, a classmate of
Jeff. He went to Washington, and on his return told me, 'Your friend
Stevens is ruined. Davis refuses to recommend to Congress to make
good the expenditures as contrary to orders. It will ruin Stevens.'
'Wait awhile,' said I; 'I see by the last "Union" that Stevens has
just arrived en route to Washington at Panama. He will leave Jeff
_nowhere!_' Soon after he arrived in Washington, was followed by an
appropriation covering all his bills, and so Jeff failed all round."
Secretary Davis was in fact astonished and deeply disappointed at the
results of the survey, and the very favorable picture of the Northern
route and country given in Governor Stevens's report. A leader among the
Southern public men, who were so soon to bring on the great rebellion,
of which he was to be the official head, he had set his heart upon the
Southern route, and was anxious to establish its superiority to all
others and secure its adoption as the national route, in order to
aggrandize his own section. He could ill brook, therefore, Governor
Stevens's clear and vivid description of the Northern route, showing its
great superiority in soil and climate, the easy grades, absence of snow,
and accessibility by inland river navigation. He chose to consider the
accounts overdrawn as the best way of sustaining his chosen route. In
his report to Congress, transmitting the surveys of the several routes,
he took great pains to belittle the results of Governor Stevens's labors
and disparage the Northern route. In his comparison of routes, he
arbitrarily increased the governor's estimate of cost from $117,121,000
to $150,871,000, or nearly $38,000,000; magnified the physical
difficulties; condemned the agricultural resources; declared that "the
country west of the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific slope may likewise be
described as one of general sterility," and that "the severely cold
character of the climate throughout the whole route, except the portion
west of the Cascade Mountains, is one of its unfavorable features." He
ignored the governor's statements, and Tinkham's reconnoissance as to
the snow in the Snoqualmie Pass, and the practicability of the latter,
and, quoting McClellan with approval, declared that "the snow is twenty
feet deep, the pass barely practicable, and the information now
possessed is sufficient to decide against this route." It is significant
that he pays a warm compliment to McClellan, remarking that "his
examination presents a reconnoissance of great value, and, though
performed under adverse circumstances, exhibits all the information
necessary to determine the practicability of this portion of the route."
And this of an officer who had consumed a whole month in moving one
hundred and eighty miles; lay another month in camp in the Yakima
valley, making only the most cursory examinations; found the passes
non-existent, or "impracticable;" reported the snow twenty to
twenty-five feet deep on the credit of Indians; ignobly quailed at
inclement weather and snows, which other men bravely faced and overcame;
and generally condemned the country, and vilified the hardy pioneers. In
sober truth McClellan found credit in the eyes of the Secretary, not for
what he accomplished, but for what he failed to accomplish, for his
unfavorable and condemnatory report on the route and the country, which
was precisely the kind of testimony the Secretary wanted. The country,
stigmatized as one of "general sterility," and which Governor Stevens
pronounced a fine, arable region of great fertility, is now one of the
great wheat-fields of the country, yielding twenty to thirty million
bushels a year.
Moreover, Mr. Davis manifested a dissatisfied and fault-finding spirit
towards the governor. On one occasion, when the latter was calling on
him, and asking his attention to some matter of importance connected
with the survey, Davis interrupted him with marked impatience, and
intimated that he had no time to hear him. "I do not come here to talk
with Jefferson Davis," exclaimed the governor with dignity, "but to
confer with the Secretary of War upon the public business intrusted to
my charge, and I demand his attention." The Secretary at once gave him
full and considerate hearing until the matter was fully gone into, and
as the governor took his leave, followed him to the door, and frankly
apologized for his momentary rudeness. Jefferson Davis was not without
generous and magnanimous traits, and appreciated the earnest and sincere
character of his caller. But he put a stop to further work on the
Northern route, prevented any more appropriations for it, and kept up
his fight against it. Some time afterwards, in speaking of the route to
a mutual friend,[8] he declared: "Governor Stevens is a man of great
ability, and of upright and high-toned character, but he has entirely
misconceived and exaggerated the agricultural resources of the Northern
route. The fact is, he has no knowledge of agricultural soils or
conditions." When this was repeated to the governor he remarked:
"Indeed, perhaps Mr. Davis does not know that I was brought up on a farm
until my seventeenth year."
But Governor Stevens indulged in no complaints at this unworthy
treatment. He knew that the information given in his report was too well
founded and abundant to be refuted by mere official rancor. Despite the
deprivation of funds, he continued the work of exploration, survey, and
observation for the next three years, making free use of the Indian
agents and volunteer troops under his command, and unsparing in his own
personal exertions, and on February 7, 1859, submitted to the War
Department "My final report of the explorations made by me and under my
direction in the years 1853, 1854, and 1855, to determine the
practicability of the Northern route for a railroad to the Pacific."
This report, published by order of Congress in two large quarto volumes,
as Parts I. and II., vol. xii., Pacific Railroad Reports, contains over
eight hundred pages, with plates, tables, and views, and most fully
sustains the earlier report, besides adding an immense amount of new
information. And this was Governor Stevens's answer to Secretary Davis.
But the governor found the sultry summer in Washington a very trying
one, in cramped quarters, overburdened with the voluminous data and
details of the report, and subject to many annoyances. Unfortunately,
the meteorological and astronomical observations, while in care of
Lieutenant Donelson, were lost, presumably on the Isthmus, by the
carelessness of the express company, and could not be recovered,
although that officer returned to San Francisco expressly in search of
them, and this loss caused serious embarrassment. The governor found,
too, that some of the scientific corps were proposing to publish as
their own separate work the materials gathered as members of the
exploration, and had to adopt decided and severe measures to prevent the
barefaced attempt. During great part of July he was seriously ill, and
incapacitated from work.
In addition to all these labors and cares, he obtained the sanction of
the government for holding the Blackfoot council he had so much at
heart, for which he was appointed a commissioner, and allotted $10,000
for assembling and bringing the western Indians to Fort Benton. His
views and recommendations in regard to treating with the Indians of
Washington Territory, and purchasing their lands, were also adopted, and
he was appointed the commissioner to make such treaties. As already
stated, his recommendations in regard to the claims of the Hudson Bay
Company were adopted by the Secretary of State. Congress appropriated
$30,000 for a wagon-road from Fort Benton to Walla Walla, a matter which
the governor strenuously urged; and also amended the land laws, created
the office of surveyor-general, and made appropriations for universal
surveys and mail service. To all these matters "Governor Stevens
addressed himself with the energy, ability, and straightforwardness
which were his characteristics, supplementing the feebler efforts of
Lancaster, and, with Lane of Oregon, coming to the rescue of the most
important bills for Washington, and really doing the work of the
delegate."[9] Notwithstanding Secretary Davis's attitude on the Northern
route, Governor Stevens seems to have lost none of his influence with
the administration. When about to return to the Pacific coast, President
Pierce invited him to write him personally and frequently.
FOOTNOTES:
[8] Major George T. Clark.
[9] Bancroft's _Pacific States_, vol. xxvi. p. 88.