INSTRUCTIONS TO LIEUTENANT SAXTON. 
39 
You will press on, carrying out my instructions of tlie 8th instant, with all your vigor, and 
reach Saint Mary’s at the earliest practicable moment. If I do not arrive within three days, 
organize your parties to explore, and survey routes to the Columbia, directing more especially 
towards and beyond Fort Colville, to meet Captain McClellan, and establish the Saint Mary’s 
post under Lieutenant Milllan, with a force of ten to twenty, consisting of the seven soldiers of 
the 4th infantry, and such employes and voyageurs of the original party, operating from the 
Mississippi, as may consent to remain with their present pay, and of an experienced meteorolo¬ 
gist, and, if practicable, a good topographer. Lieutenant Mullan has had verbal instructions 
from me as to his duties, and you will, on conference with him, have all the information to en¬ 
able you to give the necessary written instructions. 
I shall endeavor to leave this place in six days, and hope to reach St. Mary’s within three 
days after your arrival. 
Yours, truly, 
ISAAC I. STEVENS, 
Governor of Washington Territory, in Charge of Exploration. 
Lieutenant A. J. Donelson, 
Corps of Engineers. 
No. 10. 
Northern Pacific Eailroad Exploration and Survey, 
Fort Benton, September 19, 1853. 
Dear Sir: You are instructed to take charge of the enlisted men who have reported to you 
to be returned from this point, and, with the keel-boat which has been purchased on account of 
the quartermaster’s department, proceed down the Missouri with the greatest possible despatch, 
in execution of the following duties: 
First. To return the enlisted men to their appropriate army service, either at Fort Leaven¬ 
worth or at St. Louis, as may be deemed by you the more advisable; and in like manner to dis¬ 
charge and pay off the employes of the quartermaster’s department—affording, however, to all 
who may desire it, transportation to St. Louis. 
Second. To turn over the keel-boat for the service of the quartermaster’s department at Fort 
Leavenworth, or dispose of the same by sale, as the public interest may require. 
Third. To proceed to Washington, organize your office force, which will consist of your as¬ 
sistant in the quartermaster’s department, Mr. Hoyt and Sergeant Collins, of the detachment 
of sappers and miners. This report you are requested to prepare with great care, and to send 
it at the earliest possible period to me at Olympia; at the same time you will send a copy of 
it in my name to the Secretary of War. 
It is suggested that in this report you give in separate chapters the results of your observa¬ 
tions in botany, natural history, and geology, and you are requested not only to report, in great 
detail, your experience with the Indians, but to enter fully into the several questions of Indian 
policy, especially those relating to their being reclaimed from a wandering life to permanent 
homes. 
Fourth. Sergeant Collins, of the detachment of sappers and miners, is assigned to duty as an 
assistant in the work, and on resuming the survey ; and you are authorized to continue Mr. 
Hoyt in the service of the expedition for the same purpose. 
Fifth. One of your most important duties in Washington will be to afford information to the 
departments and to Congress as to this hitherto unexplored region of country, and to show 
how the interests and the honor of the country require the continuance of three great geograph¬ 
ical explorations. 
Sixth. You have had opportunities to observe the Indian tribes, and your experience, in con- 
