CHAPTER XX. BUILDING THE UNION PACIFIC RAILROAD. The Story of the
Building of the Union Pacific Railroad--Extract from General Sherman's
Memoirs--General Dodge's Description of the Country when he first
saw it--Explorations for a Route--Conference with President Lincoln--
Location of the Military Post of D. A. Russell and the Town of Cheyenne
--Driving the Last Spike.

FOOTNOTES.

PUBLICATION INFORMATION.





CHAPTER I.
EXPLORING EXPEDITIONS.



As early as a hundred and thirty-five years ago, shortly after England
had acquired the Canadas, Captain Jonathan Carver, who had been
an officer in the British provincial army, conceived the idea of
fitting out an expedition to cross the continent between the forty-third
and forty-sixth degrees of north latitude. His intention was to
measure the breadth of North America at its widest part, and to find
some place on the Pacific coast where his government might establish
a military post to facilitate the discovery of a "northwest passage,"
or a line of communication between Hudson's Bay and the Pacific Ocean.