GRAND RECONNAISSANCE

Grand Reconnaissance recounts the largely untold story of the Pacific Railroad Surveys (PRRS) of 1853-1854 that ended the era of continental reconnaissance begun by Lewis and Clark 50 years earlier... Led by the Army corps of Topographical Engineers, the topogs, hundreds of soldiers, along with surveyors, scientists, engineers, naturalists, artists, and guides fanned out across the vast territory of the trans-Mississippi in the largest peacetime expeditionary force the U.S. had deployed "to ascertain the most practicable and economical route for a railroad from the Mississippi River to the Pacific Ocean."... Personal Finance, Business and financial journalist/writer. Author of Grand Reconnaaissance / Pacific Railroad Surveys