Historically Speaking
James Hervey Simpson at 200
M
Library of Congress
arch 9 marks the 200th birthday of
By BG John S. Brown
to water routes in Ohio and Wisconsin,
U.S. Army retired
BG James Hervey Simpson. Alreflected this primacy of water-borne
though his memory has been eclipsed by
transportation.
the battlefield successes of Civil War colleagues, he epitoIn 1849, Simpson deployed west to survey the route from
mizes a different kind of contribution of the U.S. Army to Fort Smith, Ark., to Santa Fe, N.M. He then served as the
the welfare of our country. Simpson made his greatest con- chief topographical engineer of New Mexico. In that capactributions as an explorer and engineer. His achievements ity, he engaged artists to capture the frontier Southwest and
included mapping much of the American West, cataloging the Navajo lands in paintings, drawings and maps. His Jourthe untamed continent and coordinating mammoth engi- nal of a Military Reconnaissance, from Santa Fé, New Mexico, to
neering efforts necessary to tame it. As rightly proud as the the Navajo Country proved of great interest to the practical
Army is of its battlefield successes, it also can take pride in and the romantic alike. Myth and hearsay were replaced
the contributions it has made through peaceful pursuits.
by fact and scientific observation. The Southwest moved
Simpson was born in New Brunswick, N.J., and gradu- ever closer in the national orbit. The official discoveries of
ated from the U.S. Military
Inscription Rock in Valencia
Academy at West Point,
County, N.M., and the
N.Y., in 1832. He was comCanyon de Chelly in Chinle,
missioned into the artillery
Ariz., both now national
and served in the second
monuments, are attributed
Seminole War in Florida. In
to Simpson.
1838, he transferred into the
From 1851 to 1856, Simpnewly organized Corps of
son oversaw the construction
Topographical Engineers. At
of roads in Minnesota and
the time, West Point was the
opened up a wilderness of
premier engineering school
forest and prairie to promote
in the country and generated
settlement. From 1856 to 1858
much-needed talent in the
he conducted a coastal suryoung republic. The Corps
vey of Florida, in which he
of Topographical Engineers
identified potential routes
was without peer and withand harbors along that comout counterpart, assuming
plicated coastline. In 1858,
a broad range of missions
he returned to the West with
across the country.
the Utah Expedition of COL
In his first 10 years of serAlbert Sidney Johnston to
vice with the Corps of Topofight against Mormon setgraphical Engineers, Simpson
tlers. Once this conflict was
assisted in harbor construcresolved, he continued on to
tion on Lake Erie, supervised
explore a new route from
road construction in Florida,
Salt Lake City, Utah, to Caliconducted hydrological and
fornia. His so-called Central
lake surveys in Ohio and
Route shaved several hunWisconsin, and managed the
dred miles from previous apport of Erie itself.
proaches to the West Coast.
Since railroads were in
The Central Route soon became vital to the economy of
their infancy, canals—such as
California as traffic in mail,
the recently opened Erie
freight and passengers poured
Canal—trumped them as a
across it. The Pony Express
means of internal mass
followed its course, as did the
transportation. Simpson’s
COL James Hervey Simpson, who served with the Fourth
first transcontinental teleprolonged service on Lake
New Jersey Volunteers during the Civil War, made his
greatest contributions as an explorer and engineer.
graph line in 1861. The reErie, as well as his attention
March 2013 ■ ARMY
77
Among his engineering responsibilities, Simpson oversaw the
construction of the Transcontinental Railroad, the completion
of which was celebrated by the
Golden Spike Ceremony at
Promontory, Utah, in May 1869.
cently organized Wells Fargo
and Company parlayed successful exploitation of the
route for express service into
an important feature of its expanding commercial empire.
impson’s early Civil War
service as colonel of the
4th New Jersey Volunteers
did not go well. He was captured in 1862 during the
Peninsula Campaign. When
released, he gave up his commission in the volunteers and returned to the Regular
Army—and to engineering. He soon became the chief engineer of the Army of the Ohio and took charge of fortifications, among other engineering projects, throughout Kentucky. He also supervised other engineering operations
throughout the rest of the theater. Simpson excelled in all of
these endeavors and, by the end of the war, he was brevetted brigadier general.
Following the Civil War, Simpson served as the chief engineer of the Department of the Interior. His particular responsibilities included overseeing the activities of the
Union Pacific Railroad and the construction of the
Transcontinental Railroad. These mammoth enterprises
sought nothing less than to tie the continent together from
coast to coast with ribbons of steel. Construction entailed
arduous work and recurrent dangers in difficult terrain
and all types of weather. Irish immigrants and Chinese laborers provided a substantial component of the labor force.
Civil War veterans from both sides were ubiquitous as
well. Many of the engineers had learned their trade under
the auspices of the U.S. Army. When the railroad was complete, passengers enjoyed an eight-day, $65 trip across the
country instead of months of travel by ship around Cape
Horn or wagon train. Further transcontinental rail lines
followed, and the nation pulled itself together as a whole.
BG John S. Brown, USA Ret., was chief of military history at the
U.S. Army Center of Military History from December 1998 to
October 2005. He commanded the 2nd Battalion, 66th Armor, in
Iraq and Kuwait during the Gulf War and returned to Kuwait as
commander of the 2nd Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division, in 1995.
He has a doctorate in history from Indiana University. He is the
author of Kevlar Legions: The Transformation of the U.S.
Army, 1989–2005.
78 ARMY ■ March 2013
National Archives
S
Simpson continued to design and engineer railroads,
roads, harbors and fortifications until his retirement in
1880. He died in St. Paul, Minn., in 1883. The Simpson
Mountains in Utah and the Simpson Park Mountains in
Nevada bear his name.
James Hervey Simpson was born into a nation of eight
million people largely clinging to the East Coast. He died in
a nation of 55 million people, which was truly transcontinental in its proportions. National infrastructure more than
kept pace with this dramatic growth, bringing Americans
together with expansive networks of railroads, roads, canals
and harbors where mere trails—or nothing—had existed before. National wealth and national revenue exploded. Enabled by adequate transportation, an industrial revolution
transformed the nation. James Hervey Simpson and his colleagues were crucial to this advance. The U.S. Army Corps
of Engineers perpetuates their legacy. Soldiers serve their
countrymen with broad portfolios, answering where they
are called. The U.S. Army has been instrumental not only in
defending this country but also in building it.
✭
Recommended Reading:
Coffman, Edward M., The Old Army: A Portrait of the
American Army in Peacetime, 1784–1898 (New York:
Oxford University Press, 1988)
Goetzmann, William H., Army Exploration in the American West 1803–1863 (Austin: Texas State Historical
Association, 1991)
Petersen, Jesse G., Route for the Overland Stage: James
H. Simpson’s 1859 Trail Across the Great Basin (Salt Lake
City: Utah State University Press, 2008)