tract by
"Casement Brothers" (General and Daniel) while Mr. H. M. Hoxie was
ubiquitous with the title of General Western Agent. Colonel Silas
Seymour of New York was Consulting Engineer and Mr. W. Snyder,
Assistant Superintendent and General Freight and Ticket Agent.

Another of the reasons for the slow progress made up to 1865 was the
scarcity of labor. The surrounding territory had no surplus workmen
and the East had not as yet grasped the idea that the road was
actually under construction. With the disbandment of the armies, both
North and South after the war, this situation was changed for the
better. Large numbers of the ex-soldiers drifted West and were glad to
find steady work at remunerative wages with the construction forces.

The Secretary of the Interior in his annual report for 1866 stated
that out of fifteen hundred laborers employed on the Pacific Railways,
three hundred were negroes and performed their duties faithfully and
well, and he recommended legislation looking to the employment of more
of the surplus freedmen on the same work. Among the officials,--engineers
and bosses,--there were many who were ex-officers in the army. Thus
the Chief Engineer had been a General, the Consulting Engineer, a
Colonel, the head of the track-laying force, a General. This can best
be explained by quoting from a paper on trans-continental railroads
read by General Dodge, before the Society of the Army of the Tennessee
at Toledo, Ohio, September, 1888.

"The work was military in character and one is not surprised to find
among the superintendents and others in charge, a liberal sprinkling
of military titles. Surveying parties were always accompanied by a
detachment of soldiers as a protection against Indians. The
construction trains were amply supplied with rifles and other arms and
it was boasted that a gang of track-layers could be transmuted into a
battalion of infantry at any moment. Over half of the men had
shouldered muskets in many a battle."

The same facts are brought out by the following extract from a
newspaper of that day.

"The whole organization of the road is semi-military. The men who go
ahead (surveyors and locators) are the advance guard, following them
is the second line (the graders) cutting through the gorges, grading
the road and building the bridges. Then comes the main body of the
army, placing the ties, laying the track, spiking down the rails,
perfecting the alignment, ballasting and dressi