SPECIAL ORDERS,
ADJUTANT- GENERAL'S OFFICE, Numbers 5.
Washington, January 5, 1861.

I. Bvt. Major D. C. Buell, assistant andjutant- general, will proceed to San Francisco, Cal., and relieve Major W. W. Mackall, of the same department of th staff at the headquarters of the Deaprtment of the Pacific, when the latter will repair to this place.

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By command of Lieutenant- General Scott:

S. COOPER,
Adjutant-General.

FORT WALLA WALLA, WASH. TER., January 5, 1861.

General JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON,

Quartermaster- General U. S . Army, Washington, D. C.:

GENERAL: I take the liberty and feel it my duty to call your attention tothe Fort Benton wagon road, as I believe from experience in the service, and crossing the plains fequently for the last thirty years, that the ocst of sending recruits or horses to this coast by that route will be ten times as much as by the route from Fort Leavenworth via Forts Kearny, Laramie, Hall, and Boise to this post; for by the boat to Benton each soldier will cost $100 and each wagon the same; then to get mules or oxen for the wagons would be double the cost that it would be at Leavenworth. Puchase your horses, wagons, and oxen or mules to transport your supplies at Leavenworth, and if the transportation is not needed here on its arrivcal, it can be sold at public auction for its full value int he States. By this mens each slodier will hardly cost $10, wheras by the Fort Benton route each one would cost $300 by his arrival here. One more suggeston. Could not the $100,000 already appropriated, and not yet expended, be trasferred to the old road I speak of! It is much the shortest and best route, and emigrants come through every season, arriving here by the end of Septemgbeer, their animals in very good condition. A post is to be established at Boise int he spring, and there will always b e troops at Fort Hall to protect emigration, and all that is needed are ferries at these posts, and very little work on the road. There will tahen be grass, water, and all that is requisite for a military or emigrant road. I do believe that if the $100,000 is expended and the Bento road finished, ataht not ten emigrants will travel it for twenty years to come. But suppose you make the road from Saint Paul to Bento; then you must extablish a line of posts through the Sioux and Blackfoot country requiring at least 1,500 soldiers at a cost of half a million annually, and there would be a war at a cost of $300,000,000 or $400,000,000 more. In a conversation with Major Blake, of me by the Benton route with 300 recruits last summer, he spoke favorable of the route, and said he would apply to bring over horses from Saint Paul via Benton to this department. Now, I am satisfied that the cost by that route will be ten times as much as by the route from Leavenworth, via Laramie, Hall, and Boise, and in addition the major['s route is much the longest, and int he months of May and June, from Saint Paul west, say 1,000 miles, yuou have much wet ane marshay prairie, which I consider impassable. Starting in July, then, you could not come through