The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 62, July 1958 - April, 1959 Page: 188

                                
Southwestern Historical Quarterly

classic description in his Commerce of the Prairies. Had he done
so, he would have seen that the unusually conscientious observer,
Gregg, had placed the southern boundary of New Mexico "not
far north of Robledo," which was south of the Jornado del
Muerto sixty-eight miles north of El Paso.90 It is hard to believe
that the topographical engineers, Emory, Graham, and Whipple,
had not been aware of Gregg's allusion to that traditional bound-
ary. This significant omission can, perhaps, be seen as part of a
larger pattern of evidence which indicates the part played by the
topographical engineers in attempting to secure the railroad route
for the United States. On April 2, 1849, Emory had written to
Secretary of State Buchanan proposing that the survey of the
boundary line be made from east to west rather than vice versa
because it would then strike a tributary of the Gila River far
enough south to secure the railroad route. He also added that if
the commissioners negotiated a line at the thirty-second parallel
of latitude, the desired route would also be secured."' Later, he
admitted that he had written the letter "in the hope that the
United States Commissioner might succeed in torturing the
treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo to embrace a practicable [railroad]
route."D2 Thus is indicated that Emory, at least, was willing to
use questionable methods in obtaining the desired national ends.
Still later, when he despaired of securing the route, he advocated
taking it by force.98 It is difficult to say just how closely he was
working with the Texan expansionists because his views on the
proper location for the route were extremely vacillating and often
inconsistent with those of the expansionists. In his 1846 recon-
naissance, he had explored the Gila River and declared a route
to exist in its vicinity.94 This had resulted in Trist's securing a
provision in the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo for the laying out
9oJosiah Gregg (Max Moorhead, ed.), Commerce of the Prairies (Norman, 1954),
271.
91Emory, "Report on the United States and Mexican Boundary Survey," House
Executive Documents, 34th Cong., Ist Sess. (Serial No. 861), Document No. 135,
pp. 5-6.
92Ibid., 51.
9aEmory to Volney Howard, Fort Duncan [Eagle Pass], November 7, 1852 (MS.,
Yale Collection of Western Americana, Emory Papers, Sterling Memorial Library,
Yale University), folder XIII, October-December, 1852.
94Empry, "Notes of a Military Reconnaissance," Senate Executive Documents,
30oth Cong., Ist Sess. (Serial No. 505), Document No. 7, p. 36.

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