LETTER TO THE SECRETARY OF WAR, 57 
9th May, when he received my instructions, and when, in conversation, Colville was referred to 
as a probable point where he would first get information of the eastern parties. We reached 
Colville the same day, the 18th October. 
You have already received a communication from Captain McClellan stating the principal 
facts in regard to the Nahchess and Snoqualme Passes, and his action in regard to the military 
road. Reserving to a future communication a more full report of his work, I will state that he 
found the country erroneously laid down on the maps, and that the country north of the Sno- 
qualme Pass is very rugged, the mountains in many cases extending to the Columbia river. 
Very little information of the country was obtained from the Indians as Captain McClellan 
went north; but all the streams were examined towards their sources till the ascent became 
several hundred feet per mile, and the ground thoroughly explored to above the 49th parallel. 
Good railroad crossings of the Columbia river have been found above the mouth of the Yakima, 
I apprehend no difficulty whatever in the Snoqualme Pass to the passage of a railroad; and 
from information I have received from old residents here, particularly from Major Golds- 
borough, a civil engineer who has examined carefully the country, it will be an easy matter to 
carry it to a good harbor on the sound. 
Through Garry, the Spokane chief, a man of education, of strict probity, and great influence 
over his tribe, I sent Indian runners to Lieutenant Donelson, appointing a little valley south 
of the Spokane river, near the junction of the routes from Colville and Lieutenant Donelson’s 
place of crossing Clark’s fork to Wallah-Wallah, as the place for bringing together both 
divisions ; designing, if the state of the animals and the condition of the instruments would 
authorize it, to continue, under the direction of Captain McClellan, the odometer survey over 
the Cascades to Puget sound, and submitting that portion of the route to the inspection and 
estimate of Mr. Lander, one of the civil engineers. It was also designed to send a small party 
across the Columbia a little above the mouth of the Snake river, and follow the north bank of 
the Columbia to the Dalles and Vancouver. The remainder of the party were to proceed to 
Wallah-Wallah and the Dalles, and then receive instructions as to the discharge of men and 
the arrangement for office-work. 
The juncture was effected on the 28th October, Captain McClellan and myself reaching the 
camp, which I named Camp Washington, only the day before Lieutenant Donelson ; and the 
greatest joy was in every heart at the unlooked for and extraordinary good fortune which had 
attended every step of the exploration. 
The meeting of parties from the Mississippi and the Pacific in the passes of the mountains 
and in the valleys of the interior, on the great railroad routes, each in the vigorous examina- 
tion of his part of the work, and to within a single day; the peaceful relations which had been 
established with all the Indian tribes, the health, good conduct, and harmony of action of all 
the men engaged in the difficult fields of this exploration, extending over a sphere of country 
two thousand miles long by two to four hundred wide, and the admirable and triumphant 
solution of the great railroad problem intrusted to our hands, repaid each man for his arduous 
labors, and relieved all minds of further doubt and anxiety. 
Two barometers only now remained, and the animals were thin and leg-weary from their 
long labors. The known want of grass for some three days, immediately west of the Cascades, 
required grain to be taken along, which could not be procured, and the lines, already extended 
through the two practicable passes, could be taken up on reaching Puget sound and carried to 
a good harbor. Accordingly, in an order which is marked 8 in the appendix, I sent the whole 
force to Wallah-Wallah and the Dalles. 
Lieutenant Donelson reports the route from the debouche of the pass at Hell Gate to the banks 
of the Spokane, at the junction of the route from Colville, and that one by the Coeur d’Alene 
mountains, taken by me as practicable for a road, involving no other difficulties than are usually 
met with in the Atlantic States, and that it will well connect with a route through the Marias 
Pass, should a practicable one be ascertained by Mr. Tinkham. The grass generally on his 
af 
