Today in History:

461 Series I Volume L-I Serial 105 - Pacific Part I

Page 461 Chapter LXII. CORRESPONDENCE-UNION AND CONFEDERATE.

widely circulated, notify persons intending to emigrate of the arrangements to be made, and invite them to avail themselves of the means of protection the Government offers them. You will take care to start early enough to insure a timely arrival on the Pacific Slope, and will endeavor to concentrate the emigrants by the time they reach the mountians, so that they can travel within easy reach of each other. If, after passing the South Pass sufficiently far, the emigrants desire to divide and take different routes, you are authorized to divide the Protective Corps, and place detachments under your assistants to accompany the parties, giving them such instructions as may be required. If the number of emigrants should require, and the funds allow, you may increase the munber of the Protective Corps, employing, if possible, the emigrants themselves. You are also authorized to obtain a supply of goods for presents to Indians and compensation for their services in case you should find it necessary to employ them, but you will not expend a grater sum than $300 for this purpose. Having thus indicated generally the views of the Department, the execution and the arrangement of many of the details are left to your judgment, admonishing you that this is an exercise of the liberality and protection of the Government, which will be materially enhanced by an economical use of the means it has provided. After the emigrants have reached the settled parts of the Pacific coast you will disband the Protective Corps, and dispose of the property and material on the best terms you can obtain. You will then proceed to San Francisco, Cal., and thence by the Panama steamer to New York and this city, where you will close your accounts and report to this Department the material incidents and results of the expedition. The sum of $35,000 will be placed to your credit with the assistant treasurers of the United States, as follows:

Assistant treasurer at New York...............$5,000

Assistant treasurer at Saint Louis............20,000

Assistant treasurer at San Francisco..........10,000

35,000

You are hereby authorized to obtain from the quartermaster, commissary, ordnance officer, or sugeon at any military post such public stores, including medicines, as they may be able to furnish, paying for them the cost price and transportation to the place where you receive them. You will report direct to the Adjutant-General and keep [him] informed by every opportunity of the progress of the expedition. You will render your accounts quarterly to the Adjutant-General according to the forms specified in the General Regulations of the Army.

Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

SIMON CAMERON,

Secretary of War.

SPECIAL ORDERS, HDQRS. DEPARTMENT OF THE PACIFIC, Numbers 50.
San Francisco, April 8, 1861.

1. A detachment of two subalterns, two sergeants, two corporals, and ninety-six picked men will be selected from Companies A, C, I, and K, Ninth Infantry, at Fort Colville, and E and B, Ninth Infantry, at Fort Walla Walla, proportioned as follows, viz: From Colville, two subalterns, Second Lieutenant Nathaniel Wickliffe, and Bvt. Second Lieutenant Salem S. Marsh, three non-commissioned officers, and seventy-six men; and from Walla Walla, one sergeant and twenty men.


Page 461 Chapter LXII. CORRESPONDENCE-UNION AND CONFEDERATE.