TO FREDERICKSBURG. 
47 
I selected the following gentlemen for the advance 
party. 
Thomas H. Webb, 
Robert C. Murphy, 
George Thurber, 
Theodore F. Moss, 
John C. Cremony, 
Edward C. Clark, 
Sec. to the Joint Commission. 
Asst. Secretary and Clerh. 
Botanist and Commissary. 
Geologist. 
Interpreter. 
Quartermaster. 
Robert E. Matthews, Assistants in the Engineer and 
John B. Stewart, “ Surveying Corps. 
Thomas Thompson, ‘‘ “ “ 
S. P. Sandford, “ “ “ 
J. Thomas McDuffie, “ “ “ 
Thomas Dunn, “ “ “ 
George G. Garner, “ “ “ 
J. E. Weems, Jr., “ 
Clement Young, “ “ “ 
C. Neville Simms, “ “ “ 
George S. Peirce, “ “ “ 
A. P. WiLBAR, “ “ “ 
R. B. Smith, Mason ; G. W. Miller, Blachsmith ; Wm. 
Garratt, Harness-maker ; William Ferguson, Carpen- 
ter j Thomas Briggs, Tailor. These with cooks.^ serv- 
ants., hunters., and teamsters., making altogether thirty 
persons, constituted the party. 
The main body of the Commission, which did not 
leave until several days later, intended taking the 
Southern route, which had been more travelled and 
was better known than the Northern one, by the way 
of Fredericksburg. But with the advice of those who 
had lately come over the Northern route, I determined 
to take that. The distance was said to be about thirty 
