10 CONCLUSION OF THE OFFICIAL REVIEW, ETC. 



8ea. Assigning but a moderate limit to this period, the expense would yet be enormous. The 

 fortifications, depots, and storehouses, would necessarily be on the largest scale, and the cost 

 of placing supplies there for five years would amount to nearly one hundred millions of dollars. 



In many respects, the cost during peace would be equivalent to that during war. The perish- 

 able character of many articles would render it perhaps impracticable to put provisions in 

 depot for such a length of time ; and in any case, there would be deterioration amounting to 

 some millions of dollars per year. 



These considerations, and others of a strictly military character, cause the IJepartment to 

 examine with interest all projects promising the accomplishment of a railroad communication 

 between the navigable waters of the Mississippi and those of the Pacific ocean. As military 

 operations depend in a greater degree upon rapidity and certainty of movement than upon any 

 other circumstance, the introduction of railway transportation has greatly improved the means 

 of defending our Atlantic and inland frontiers ; and to give us a sense of security from attack 

 upon the most exposed portion of our territory, it is requisite that the facility of railroad 

 transportation should be extended to the Pacific coast. Were such a road completed, our 

 Pacific coast, instead of being further removed in time, and less accessible to us than to an 

 enemy, would be brought within a few days of easy communication, and the cost of supplying 

 an army there, instead of being many times greater to us than to him, would be about equal. 

 We would be relieved of the necessity of accumulating large supplies on that coast, to waste, 

 perhaps, through long years of peace ; and we could feel entire confidence that, let war come 

 when and with whom it may, before a hostile expedition could reach that exposed frontier, an 

 ample force could be placed there to repel any attempt at invasion. 



From the results of the surveys authorized by Congress, we derive at least the assurance 

 that the work is practicable ; and may dismiss the apprehensions which, previously, we could 

 not but entertain as to the possibility of defending our Pacific territory through a long war 

 with a powerful maritime enemy. 



The judgment which may be formed as to the prospect of its completion must control our 

 future plans for the military defence of that frontier ; and any plan for the purpose which 

 should leave that consideration out of view, would be as imperfect as if it should disregard all 

 those other resources with which commerce and art aid the operations of armies. 



Whether we shall depend on private capital and enterprise alone for the early establishment 

 of railroad communication, or shall promote its construction by such aid as the general govern- 

 ment may constitutionally give ; whether we shall rely on the continuance of peace until the 

 increase of the population and resources of the Pacific States shall render them independent of 

 aid from those of the Atlantic slope and Mississippi valley, or whether we shall adopt the 

 extensive system of defence above referred to, are questions of public policy which belong to 

 Congress to decide. 



Beyond the direct employment of such a road for military purposes, it has other relations to 

 all the great interests of our confederacy, political, commercial, and social, the prosperity of 

 which essentially contributes to the common defence. Of these it is not my purpose to treat, 

 further than to point to the additional resources which it would develop, and the increase of 

 population which must attend upon giving such facility of communication to a country 

 so tempting to enterprise, much of which having most valuable products, is beyond reach of 

 market. 



