II

HOW HE MADE A ROAD AND MAP, DISCOVERING A PRACTICABLE RAILROAD ROUTE TO THE PACIFIC, YEARS BEFORE ANY OTHER; AND HOW HE MADE A NEW SOUTHERN BOUNDARY OF THE UNITED STATES

No commander could have more multiplied and anxious cares than the lieutenant-colonel of this battalion, without instruction, but undertaking a fearful task. But with all his labors, he took upon himself another, viz.: to make a map of the country and road as he passed.*

A pocket compass, pencil, and a small, ruled blank-book constituted all the appliances; the distance of ruled lines gave the scale of miles; an old habit of estimating distances marched by the watch and hourly rate had given him great accuracy, and thus he completed the dead reckoning. The notes were mostly taken on muleback.

From the point where General Kearny left the Rio Grande, about two hundred and twenty-eight miles below Santa Fé, and where our routes diverged, I made, as described, a map or sketch. Captain Emory, Topographical Engineers, of General Kearny's staff, had the special duty of making a map, with the use, of course, of the best instruments. Afterward, when Captain Emory was making over his map, in Washington, my sketch was put in his hands; he expressed great surprise at its accuracy, and copied it on his official map. It appeared on numerous maps and atlases as Lieutenant-Colonel Cooke's wagon road." The treaty of peace and boundaries with Mexico established the Gila River as part of the boundary. A new administration, in which southern interests prevailed, and with the great problem of the practicability of a transcontinental railroad still unsolved, had the map of this route and the report of the whole march before them, in a congressional document. These gave exactly the solution of the problem; relieved the great apprehensions of the lofty Rocky Mountains and Sierra Nevada, and of their snows; for here no important obstacle existed.

The new Gadsden Treaty was the result; it was signed December 30, 1853. Accordingly it is found that the new boundary is constituted of arbitrary right lines and angles, with no mentioned or actual natural object or feature; only it makes the most southern line a tangent to the great southern bend of my road; that accomplished, a right line, to the west and north, to the Colorado, some ten miles below my crossing, completes the new boundary, which embraces the whole route. The territory gained is

*The Conquest of New Mexico and California, Putnam's Sons, New York.

not all rainless or waterless or mountainous, and it includes a frontier garrison town, Tucson.

Explorations and surveys were made, even after the new treaty; five special routes were examined and reported upon-one near 47th and 49th parallels of latitude, another near the 41st and 42d, one near the 35th parallel, and one near the 32d-in part the route of the battalion.

In February, 1855, the Secretary of War reported to Congress these explorations and surveys, and he expressed the decided opinion that the so-called 32d parallel route "was the most practicable and economical route for a railroad from the Mississippi River to the Pacific Ocean." This is the present "Southern Pacific."

III

AND HOW HIS BATTALION PUT AN END TO THE FREMONT MUTINY

After putting the battalion in camp at San Diego Mission I rode six miles to San Diego and reported to General Kearny.

General Kearny, accompanied by Commodore Stockton, whom he had persuaded that it was his duty to use his marine force by land against the Californians who were in arms and in large force, had marched from San Diego for Pueblo de los Angeles December 29. On January 8 and 9 he had defeated the insurgents, and on the 11th occupied that capital.

Colonel Fremont had been marching his mounted men to meet these enemies for six weeks-three hundred and fifty-four miles in all; this rate, of about eight miles a day, was not hastened by daily news received, and even official notice, of the approaching conflicts. Accordingly, when the capital surrendered he was a few miles off, and, with a governor de facto, and a legal governor (and general officer) at the head of troops in the capital which they had just captured, made a treaty of capitulation and peace with the insurgent commander!

This last signed himself " Andrew Pico, Commandant of Squadron, Chief of the National Forces of California." Fremont signed himself "Military Commandant of California." The document is made to appear executed at Los Angeles, January 16, when Stockton and Kearny were both present! + Strange use of falsehood, that does not deceive.

On Lieutenant-Colonel Fremont's meeting General Kearny, at Los Angeles, he refused to obey him, and to put the "battalion " under his orders.

* See General O. M. Poe's able report on Transcontinental Railways, in General Sherman's last annual report, 1883.

+ Stockton forwarded it to the Secretary of the Navy on the 15th!

General Kearny, on the 18th, set out with his sixty dismounted dragoons to return to San Diego.

January 14, Lieutenant-Colonel Fremont marched his battalion into Los Angeles. Commodore Stockton appointed Fremont governor of California, January 19.

General Kearny was on the eve of embarking on a ship of war for Monterey, when I reported to him. He instructed me to march to San Luis Rey, a fine large mission in good preservation, fifty-three miles on the Los Angeles road, and there take quarters, and await events; but to exercise such authority or power as might become necessary, in my judgment. Commodore Shubrick was then expected at Monterey as Commander of the Pacific Squadron.

Colonel Fremont was now at Los Angeles, and his battalion in a neighboring strong mission.

It seems difficult to name or characterize this body of mountain and prairie wanderers collected by Colonel Fremont. They had never been mustered in United States service-had never done any service; there was no one of them (lieutenant-colonel included) who could give the first lesson of any kind of military instruction; from all the revolutionary skirmishes at the North they seem to have been notably absent. But they were hirelings, and of a man who they believed had great backing, and to support his mutiny was as dignified and military a part as they had yet performed.

Colonel Fremont's "Secretary of State" paid his respects at San Luis Rey, on his way to" represent the government" at Commodore Stockton's 228 February ball at Monterey. He gave out that the "Governor" would resist by force any attack made to displace him; that two companies of Californians had been raised for service; and that "a thousand Californians would rise to support him," etc. But I considered this "representa

tive's" opinions and assertions equally unreliable.

I find, taken from a journal, the following somewhat humorous entry for March 1. "For forty days I have commanded the legal forces in California, the war still existing; and, not pretending to the highest authority of any sort, have had no communication with any higher, or any other, military, naval, or civil. . I have put a garrison in San Diego, the civil officers, appointed by a naval officer, otherwise refusing to serve, while a naval officer ashore is styled by some 'Governor of San Diego.'

"General Kearny is supreme somewhere up the coast; Colonel Fremont supreme at Pueblo de los Angeles: Commodore Stockton is 'Commander-in-Chief' at San Diego; Commodore Shubrick the same at Monte

rey, and I at San Luis Rey; and we are all supremely poor, the government having no supplies, money, or credit, and we hold the territory because Mexico is poorest of all.”

Whether or not from poverty, my battalion had for several weeks been wholly without rations-save beef, the drug of the country.

(An officer was sent to the Sandwich Islands, for specie and rations.) March 14, Major H. S. Turner, aid-de-camp of General Kearny, arrived at the mission. He bore an announcement of Commodore Shubrick, “Commander-in-Chief of the Naval Forces," and General Kearny, as governor, all by government assignment; also a proclamation of Governor Kearny.

Major Turner delivered to Lieutenant-Colonel Fremont an order to disband his battalion; but those of them that desired it should be mustered into public service. He also delivered an order placing LieutenantColonel Cooke in command of the southern half of California.

Lieutenant-Colonel Cooke sent a courier to Lieutenant-Colonel Fremont to ascertain what number of the men had been mustered into service.

An answer came from a "Governor" by his “Secretary of State," that none had consented to enter the public service; but, as rumors of insurrection were rife, it was not deemed safe to disband them. He asked for no assistance, but added the "battalion would be amply sufficient for the safety of the artillery and ordnance stores."

But Lieutenant-Colonel Cooke immediately broke up at San Luis Rey, and marched for Los Angeles, where he arrived March 23. He was met very politely by Major Gillespie, and informed that Colonel Fremont had left for Monterey the day before.

NOTES FROM HARVARD COLLEGE

ITS PHYSICAL BASIS AND INTELLECTUAL LIFE

"How many acres in that college quadrangle at Harvard Square?" "About a hundred and fifty," answered one of the divinity-school men. "No, not less than six hundred," rejoined another. Their answers show our need of definite knowledge.

The little quadrangle in question contains about twenty-three acres. It carries five ample dwelling-houses, two chapels, seven big dormitories, five large buildings full of lecture-rooms or laboratories, besides the old Dane Law School building, and the huge granite library building known as Gore Hall. These are about half of the college buildings. Others are scattered here and there. Across the road to the south and west are other dormitories. Beyond the roads to the north are Memorial Hall, gymnasiums, the new Law School, the Divinity Hall, with its new library, the Scientific School, and the museums. A mile to the west are the Observatory and the Botanic Garden; while the Medical School and Dental School are three miles away, in Boston, and the Farm School, with the School of Veterinary Medicine, is three or four miles farther off, at Jamaica Plain.

The fact that the college works with so many hands and covers so much ground is what keeps her so wretchedly poor. For, to suppose that Harvard is just rolling in wealth and doesn't know what to do with her cash, is about as correct as that divinity-school estimate of the college quadrangle. Harvard would be rich if she were not ambitious. Lazy colleges grow rich. But at Cambridge some very live men know that power means duty that money brings opportunity and responsibility. If they see anything good in "Fair Harvard," they see nothing to make men vain, but only the good beginning of something which they intend to make better. Harvard is still growing. It has a future as well as a past, and the most remarkable thing about its life to-day is the pluck, the true grit, with which its sons face the music of the present.

The school needs about five million dollars to set it well upon its feet, and to make it the great university it is destined to be. But those millions are sure to come, as others have come, because these live men believe in that practical sense which vigorously abandons the methods of the darker ages and faces the future. The administration of President Eliot, when it