REPORT 
CHAPTER I. 
From Fort Leavenworth , via Westport, Fort Riley , and SmoJcy Hill Fork , to Pawnee 
Fork j also , via Santa Fe Road to Council Grove and Walnut Creek.—June 15 to 
July 13, 1853. 
Allusion to the death of Captain Gunnison and his assistants.—Extract from instructions from the War Department to Captain 
Gunnison—Arrival at St. Louis. Kansas, and Fort Leavenworth.—Country from Fort Leavenworth to Westport.—Camp at 
Shawnee Mission, near Westport: its altitude above the Gulf of Mexico.—Arrival of the escort under Captain Morris.— 
Teamsters and mules.—First march.—Gentlemen composing the party.—Instruments provided.—The train: why used— 
Cedar creek: its timber.—Bull creek.—McClannahan and party, with stock for California.—Emigrants.—Division of party.— 
Route via Kansas river and Smoky Hill Fork.—Wahkarrussi bottom.—Timber.—Inviting appearance of the Kansas bottom: 
its fertility and railroad practicability.—Indian houses and grain fields—Delaware guides.—Uniontown.—Rocky hills.— 
Storm.—Country approaching Fort Riley.—Crossing the Kansas.—Fort Riley.—Crossing the Republican Fork or Pawnee 
river.—Valley of the Smoky Hill Fork: its fertility and timber.—Sycamore creek.—Wagon road route from Fort Riley 
west.—Sand-hills.—Crossing Nepeholla or Solomon’s Fork.—Short grass begins to appear.—Practicability of a wagon road 
to the Saline Fork.—Stream swollen: its passage and character.—First appearance of buffalo-grass.—Meadows .of the Saline 
and Kansas rivers.—Smoky Hill.—Buffalo sign.—Lone Oak ford of the Kansas.—Railroad line thence to the Huerfano.— 
Sandstone ridges or bluffs.—Character of the soil.—Chalybeate spring.—First buffalo.—Passing from the waters of the Smoky 
Hill to those of the Arkansas river.—Sand-banks on the Little Arkansas.—Large fields of helianthus.—-Indicated line for a 
wagon road west from Fort Riley.—Walnut creek.—Military parties and encampments.—Guides discharged.—Character of 
the country for roads of any kind.—Bridges.—Change in climate and character of the country.—Journal of the party following 
the Santa Fe road from Bull creek.—Black Jack creek.—Timber.—Bituminous coal.—Willow spring.—Stampede of emigrant 
horses.—Rock creeks.—One Hundred and Ten Mile creek.—Indian houses and fields.—Dwissler’s, Dragoon, and Prairie 
Chicken creeks.—Elm, Bluff, and Big Rock creeks.—Council Grove.—Timber and fields of corn.—Civil and military parties 
en route for New Mexico.—Incident in Governor Merriwether’s life.—Diamond spring.—Lost spring.—Scarcity of timber and 
monotonous character of the country.—Snipe Cottonwood creek.—Annoyance from flies and mosquitoes.—Turkey creek.— 
Miserable water.—Little Arkansas.—View of the Arkansas river bottom.—Owl and Cow creeks—Change in the character of 
the soil and vegetation of the country.—Dog towns.—Sand-hills.—Arkansas river.—Kansas, Osage, and Sac Indians.—Walnut 
creek.—Suffering from mosquitoes.—Site for a military post.—Timber on Walnut creek.—Pawnee Rock.—Ferruginous sand¬ 
stone.—Ash creek.—Grass and soil.—Pawnee Fork.—Timber.—Altitude of camp on Pawnee Fork above, and distance from 
th'at near Westport.—Osage and Kansas Indians. 
Sir: In order that you may be put in possession, at as early a day as practicable, of the result 
of the investigations of the exploring party organized under your order of the 20th of May, 1853, 
by the lamented Captain J. W. Gunnison, of the corps of Topographical Engineers, who was bar¬ 
barously massacred by the Pah Utah Indians, on the 26th of October, on the Sevier river, and 
near the lake of that name, in the Territory of Utah, while in the performance of the duty assigned 
to him, I deem it my duty, as his assistant, to report the same—a duty upon which I enter with 
unusual diffidence ; the more so as it is not contemplated, by the instructions referred to, that 
this duty should devolve upon me. There being with the party, however, no other person upon 
whom it can be devolved, and the importance of its being submitted within a specified time, 
seems to render this report necessary. But I should neither do justice to the memory of the 
dead, nor to my own feelings, in entering upon a report of the labors performed in their respect¬ 
ive departments by those who fell in the fatal affair referred to above, (which has been before, 
however, officially communicated to you,) were I thus to pass it by. With Captain Gunnison 
