The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 61, July 1957 - April, 1958 Page: 22
591 p. : ill., maps, ports. ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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Southwestern Historical Quarterly
of the southwestern boundary, and the defense of the frontier
by establishing army posts along the routes.
Army officers and civilian engineers were sent out to explore
and map the areas and locate roads. Parties of engineers were in
the field working along four possible routes for the location of a
transcontinental railroad. Reconnaissances were ordered to locate
wagon roads. Peace treaties were negotiated with friendly Indian
tribes, while preparations were made for the establishment of
army camps and stations along the frontier.
In 1849, two detachments of topographical engineers were
sent into the field to locate routes through West Texas, the first
moving from Galveston and Houston via Austin and Fredericks-
burg, the second from Indianola and Corpus Christi via San
Antonio and San Felipe Springs (Del Rio). Colonel Joseph E.
Johnston (later a general in the Confederate States Army)
supervised this work. In February, 1849, Lieutenant Walter F.
Smith, who started at San Antonio, passed through Fredericks-
burg, then went on to El Paso via the head of the San Saba Creek.
Still another reconnaissance was undertaken by Captain S. G.
French in the spring of 1849. In his report, French mentions Sab-
inal, Las Moras Creek, San Felipe Springs, and Howards Springs.
In 1850, Lieutenant William H. C. Whiting, another army
engineer, made a reconnaissance of routes between the Red
River and the Rio Grande, and a study of the Indian situation.
He recommended to the War Department that a chain of posts
be established from the mouth of the Little Washita River (on
the Red River) to the Rio Grande at Presidio del Norte, from
which line a better observation of the movements of the Co-
manche of the plains and the Apache of the Trans-Pecos country
could be maintained. Military posts were built along the San
Antonio-San Felipe Springs line, as the government favored the
locations recommended by Whiting because they would be on the
route of the South Texas-California road. Stations were built at
Fort Clark (Las Moras Springs) in 1852; Fort Davis in the
mountains north of Presidio del Norte (near the Comanche
Trail) in the fall of 1854; Fort Lancaster (at the junction of Live
Oak Creek and the Pecos River) in the summer of 1855; and
Camp Hudson (on the Devil's River about fifty miles northwest
of San Felipe Springs) in the summer of 1857.
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 61, July 1957 - April, 1958, periodical, 1958; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101164/m1/42/: accessed March 29, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.