SURVEYS AND EXPLORATIONS.
For more than half a century before the building of the great Pacific railways, engineer officers were engaged in making surveys and explorations in the great unknown country west of the Mississippi River, and the final map of that country was literally covered with a network of trails made by them. Several of these officers lost their lives in such expeditions, while others lived to become more famous as commanders during the great rebellion. Generals Kearney, J.E. Johnston, Pope, Warren, Fremont and Parke, and Colonels Long, Bache, Emory, Whipple, Woodruff and Simpson, Captains Warner, Stansbury, Gunnison and many other officers, generally in their younger days, contributed their quota to the geographical knowledge of the country, and made possible the wonderful network of railways guarded by military posts that has followed their footsteps. Their reports fill twelve large quarto volumes.