10 
CONCLUSION OF THE OFFICIAL REVIEW, ETC. 
sea. 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 Department 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 milita^ 
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 upou giving such facility of communication to a country 
so tempting to enterprise, much of which having most valuable products, is beyond reach of 
market. 
