Congress authorized the Pacific Railroad Expedition’s 13-volume report, edited by Smithsonian Institution Secretary Joseph Henry and Assistant Secretary Spencer Baird. The report went beyond the Expedition’s main purpose of identifying a railroad route: it constituted the most comprehensive information source on the American West in the mid-19th century. Twelve volumes are shown here.
Law Library, Library of Congress
Reports of Explorations and Surveys (13 volumes), 1855–1861
Debating the Rail Route
In 1853 Congress authorized funds for the Army Corps of Engineers to survey four possible routes for a railway from the Mississippi River to the Pacific Ocean. Members of Congress recognized the potential for commerce and development that a transcontinental railway would bring, and they advocated strenuously for their own regions. Senator Thomas Hart Benton of Missouri was an outspoken proponent of a central route. Secretary of War Jefferson Davis, a former and future senator from Mississippi, favored a southern route.
Congress authorized the Pacific Railroad Expedition’s 13-volume report, edited by Smithsonian Institution Secretary Joseph Henry and Assistant Secretary Spencer Baird. The report went beyond the Expedition’s main purpose of identifying a railroad route: it constituted the most comprehensive information source on the American West in the mid-19th century. Twelve volumes are shown here.
Law Library, Library of Congress
