A FORGOTTEN CONNECTION: Military Road And The American Civil War
In 1857 the US Congress, at the urging of then Secretary of War Jefferson Davis, approved $35,000 for the construction of a road to move men and supplies between Fort Steilacoom (near present-day Tacoma) and a planned fort near Bellingham. Army personnel and local guides surveyed the densely forested terrain and constructed a narrow route that meandered from one lake to another, to provide refueling spots for horsedrawn buggies. Among the junior officers posted in Washington Territory and involved in the construction of Military Road were Ulysses Grant, Philip Sheridan, George McClellan and George Pickett. 1860 saw the completion of Steilacoom-Seattle portion of the road – and the election of Abraham Lincoln as President. When war broke out the following year, Grant, Sheridan and McClellan assumed posts in the Union Army, Grant eventually rising to the rank of General, while Pickett, a Southerner, joined the Confederate Army. The US Secretary of War, Jefferson Davis, became President of the Confederacy.
