Soldier Artist Of The Great Reconnaissance: John C. Tidball and the 35th Parallel Pacific Railroad Survey

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Summary: Surveying the West along the 35th Parallel
Review: Founded on the high tide of the Enlightenment during the last quarter of the 18th Century by armed revolution, the United States was, by the middle of the 19th Century, riding the great waveof the industrial revolution of which there is perhaps no better exemplification than steam locomotion.

Although a transcontinental railroad was first proposed in 1844, the United States did not then have clear title to lands west of the Rockies nor any title at all to the lands it subsequently acquired by annexation of Texas, the Mexican cession, and the Gadsden Purchase. But by 1853
the situation had changed dramatically and serious interest in building a transcontinental line had developed as had sharp disagreement in Congress and elsewhere about its location.

In terms of climate and terrain there was much to recommend the southern or 32nd parallel route running from Shreveport to San Diego advocated by Southern interests, including Jefferson Davis, then Secretary of War. Undertaking to finesse the fact that Congress would not agree to a particular route, it was decided to survey all feasible routes and let science make the decision.

Four parties were sent into the field in 1853 to reconnoiter the routes that had dominated congressional debate: a northern route from St. Paul to Seattle, a central route from Kansas City
through the central West to California, a route along the 35th parallel from Fort Smith, Arkansas to Los Angeles, and the southern route along the 32nd parallel from Shreveport, Louisiana across Texas to San Diego.

"Soldier-Artist of the Great Reconnaissance" is the story of the survey along the 35th parallel as told by Eugene Tidball's distant relative, John C. Tidball, in his memoirs, diary, and marginal notes in his copy of the official report of the survey, augmented by the official and private journals
of Lt. Amiel Weeks Whipple, the leader of the expedition, the journals of certain other members, and the official report of the survey. John Tidball had then recently been promoted to First Lieutenant, married in the East, and stationed sans bride at Fort Defiance in New Mexico Territory.

The 35th parallel expedition pushed off from Fort Smith in July 1853. It comprised 110 men,including four commissioned officers, a dozen civilian scientists, enlisted escorts, herders, teamsters, drivers, packers, cooks, and orderlies, but not including Tidball who was then with his company at Fort Defiance, the most isolated post of the United States Army.

The progress of the expedition was relatively swift and uneventful over the flatlands from Fort Smith to Albuquerque, where it arrived on October 5. In Albuquerque Whipple heard unsettling stories about the territory ahead and requested an additional escort of 25 calvary. He was notified
that he could not have dragoons but could have mule-mounted infantrymen instead. The expedition moved on to Zuni which proved to be in the grip of an epidemic of smallpox. When it
left Zuni on November 29 several of its members were infected. The contagion afflicted members of the party for a time but appears to have run its course without serious consequences and is not mentioned in the official report of the expedition.

Lt. Tidball left Fort Defiance on December 3 with 25 infantrymen mounted on mules and a packer and caught up with the expedition on December 12 on the Little Colorado River east of San Francisco Mountain. The remainder of the trek from the Little Colorado to Los Angeles was considerably more arduous than had been the earlier part from Fort Smith. The expedition was now in uncharted hard-scrabble mountains in winter. Nevertheless, often on short rations, without water, and concerned about Indians, the members continued to do what they were there to do. They continued to study and sketch the flora, fauna, and geology, to collect specimens and to scout, measure, and sketch the way for a railroad. Balduin Mollhausen, the official artist of the expedition, was joined in the production of sketches and illustrations by Albert Campbell, engineer and surveyor, and by Tidball. Although most of the illustrations appearing in the official report are Mollhausen's, some are Campbell's and some are Tidball's, neither of whom was charged to produce art but both of whom were arguably better artists than Mollhausen.

Because its location was so poorly described, the expedition had difficulty finding the Bill William's Fork that it proposed to follow to the Colorado River. When the Colorado was finally
reached the rank and file of the party were extremely disappointed as they had been led to believe that California was a land of milk and honey and now the California side of the river appeared just as bleak, barren, and inhospitable as the New Mexico Territory side. But the prospect improved
remarkably the nearer they drew to Los Angeles.

Tidball left the expedition on the eastern side of the coast range and proceeded to the Army post at San Diego where he turned in his equipment and mules and from which he returned via Panama to the East Coast and his wife of less than a year. After an extended furlough, he was six days out from Fort Leavenworth, this time with his wife, on his way back to Fort Defiance when he received orders seconding him to the Coastal Survey. He spent the next five years on the East Coast during which time his company was reassigned, relieving Tidball of the anxiety of having to return to Fort Defiance.

The 35th parallel survey party, which had left Fort Smith with 110 men, 13 wagons, two carretellas, and 245 mules, having traversed 1,845 miles and lost but one man, arrived in Los
Angeles on March 21, 1854, with no wagons and one carretella but still with many of the mules.

Eugene Tidball poses the question whether the Pacific railroad surveys were a success. He points out that, while they found all the routes feasible (and robbed the southern route of its claim of peculiar suitability to the chagrin of Jeff Davis and company), they did not immediately result in the construction of a transcontinental railroad nor in allaying controversy about the appropriate route. The first transcontinental line was not finished until 1869, roughly on what was styled the
central route in 1853. Much later, the 35th parallel route became the Rock Island line from Memphis to Tucumcari, New Mexico, and westward from there the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa
Fe Railway to Los Angeles. But the success of the undertaking, Tidball asserts, is the reports of the surveys published in 12 volumes composing a lavishly illustrated encyclopedic compendium of western geography, geology, botany, zoology, archeology, and ethnology.

"Soldier-Artist of the Great Reconnaissance" is a valuable addition to the history of an undertaking that rivals in importance the explorations earlier in the century of the Corps of Discovery to our understanding of the American West in the 19th century. A great story of adventure, duty, dedication, and endurance.