Society, Manners and Politics in the United States / Being a Series of Letters on North America

by Michel Chevalier

Sect. III. Lines of Communication along the Atlantic.

First Line. Inland Channels by the Sounds and Bays along the Atlantic.

Upon examining the coast of the United States from Boston to Florida, it will be seen that there is almost a continuous line of inland navigation, extending from northeast to southwest in a direction parallel to that of the coast, formed, in the north by a series of bays and rivers, and in the south, by a number of long sounds, or by the narrow passes between the mainland and the chain of low islands that lie in front of the former. The necks of land that separate these bays, rivers, and lagoons, are all flat and of inconsiderable breadth. From Providence (42 miles south of Boston) to New York are Narragansett Bay and Long Island Sound, together 180 miles in length. Thence to reach to the Delaware you go to New Brunswick at the head of the Raritan Bay, where you encounter the New Jersey isthmus, a level tract, not more than 40 feet above the level of the sea, or than 35 to 40 miles in width. This neck is now cut across by the Raritan and Delaware Canal, a fine work, navigable by the small coasting craft, and 43 miles in length, exclusive of a navigable feeder 24 miles, all lately executed by a company, in less than three years, at a cost of about 2,500,000 dollars.[CB]

This canal terminates at Bordentown, on the Delaware. Hence the navigation is continued to Delaware City, 70 miles below Bordentown, and 40 below Philadelphia. There, the isthmus which divides the Delaware from the Chesapeake, is cut through by a canal, of which the summit level is only 12 feet above the surface of the sea; this is the Chesapeake and Delaware canal, like the last mentioned of dimensions suited to coasting vessels. The cost was very great, about 2,600,000 dollars; length 13 1-2 miles. Having entered the Chesapeake, the voyage may be continued to Norfolk about 200 miles. Thence, to the series of sounds and inland channels on the coast of North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia, extends the Dismal Swamp Canal, whose length is 20 miles, and whose summit level is only 10 feet above the level of the sea; this is also adapted for coasting vessels. The works intended to continue the navigation beyond the sounds connected with the Dismal Swamp canal, have not been completed, and to the south of the Chesapeake the line is, therefore, imperfect; but steamboats run from Charleston to Savannah, by the channels and lagoons between the mainland and the low islands which yield the famous long-staple cotton.

Second Line. Communication between the North and South by the Maritime Capitals.

Parallel to the preceding line which is designed for the transportation of bulky articles, is another further inland for the use of travellers, and the lighter and more valuable merchandise, on which steam is becoming the only motive power, both by land and by water; by land on railways, and by water in steamboats. You go from Boston to Providence by a railroad, 42 miles in length, which cost 1,500,000 dollars, or 33,000 dollars a mile. From Providence to New York, passengers are carried by the steamboats in from 14 to 18 hours; some boats have made the passage in 12 hours. In passing from Narragansett Bay to the Sound, it is necessary to double Point Judith, where there is commonly a rough sea, to avoid which a railway is now in progress from Providence to Stonington, a distance of 47 miles. A third railroad, of which the utility seems questionable (since the boats in the Sound move at the rate of 15 miles an hour), is projected from a point on Long Island opposite Stonington to Brooklyn, a distance of 88 miles.

Between New York and Philadelphia, you go by steamboat to South Amboy on Raritan Bay, 28 miles, whence a railroad extends across the peninsula to Bordentown, and down along the Delaware to Camden, opposite Philadelphia. In summer a steamboat is taken at Bordentown, but in winter the Delaware is frozen over, and the railway is then used through the whole distance to transport the crowd that is always going and coming between the commercial and financial capitals of the United States, between the great mart and the exchange of the Union, between the North and the South. An ice-boat lands the traveller in Philadelphia, a few minutes after he has left the cars at Camden. This railroad is 61 miles in length, and cost 2,300,000 dollars, or 38,000 dollars a mile. It has but one track most of the way. I met many persons at Philadelphia, who remembered having been two, and sometimes three long days on the road to New York; it is now an affair of seven hours, which will soon be reduced to six. Two railroads belonging to a different group, of which one is completed, and the other nearly so, will form, with the exception of an interval of several miles, a second line across the peninsula, from New York to Philadelphia. The one extends from Philadelphia to Trenton, 26 miles; the other from Jersey City, opposite New York to New Brunswick, 30 miles; if, therefore, rails were laid between New Brunswick and Trenton, a distance of 28 miles, over a perfectly level plain, the land communication between New York and Philadelphia would be complete; but the State of New Jersey has hitherto refused to authorise this connection, because it received a considerable sum from the Camden and Amboy company for the monopoly of the travel.[CC]

From Philadelphia to Baltimore, the route is continued by a steamboat to Newcastle, and a railroad from thence to Frenchtown, across the peninsula, 16 1-4 miles long, whence another steamboat takes the traveller to Baltimore, in 8 or 9 hours after starting from Philadelphia. The Newcastle and Frenchtown railroad cost 400,000 dollars, or 24,500 dollars a mile. The navigation of the Chesapeake and Delaware is sometimes interrupted by ice, and it has, therefore, been thought that it would be useful to have a continuous railroad from Philadelphia; there would also be a saving of time, for the present route is somewhat circuitous. Different companies have undertaken different portions of this work, which will pass by Wilmington and Havre de Grace, at the mouth of the Susquehanna.

The whole distance by this route is only 93 miles, instead of 118, the distance by the present line, and the passage will occupy five or six hours, instead of eight or nine. From Baltimore southwardly two routes offer themselves; you may take the steamboat to Norfolk, a distance of 200 miles, which is accomplished in 18 or 20 hours, whence another boat ascends the James River to Richmond still more rapidly, the distance of about 135 miles being passed over in 10 hours; or you may go from Norfolk to Weldon on the Roanoke by a railroad 77 miles in length, of which two thirds are completed.[CD]

From Baltimore you may also go to Washington, by a branch of the Baltimore and Ohio railroad, and thence by steamboat down the Potomac to a little village, 15 miles from Fredericksburg, from which a railroad is now in progress to Richmond. It will be 58 miles in length, and will cost but 12,000 dollars a mile, including the engines, cars, and depots. From Petersburg, 20 miles from Richmond, a railroad extends to Blakely on the Roanoke, 60 miles, and the interval between Petersburg and Richmond will soon be filled up. The Petersburg and Roanoke railroad, which is shorter than the post-road, follows with very little deviation an old Indian trail, a remarkable fact, which was told me by the able engineer Mr Moncure Robinson. It extends, almost entirely on the surface of the ground and without embankments, through the sandy, uncultivated plains, intersected by pools of stagnant water, which uniformly border the sea from the Chesapeake to Cape Florida, and are annually infested by the fever of the country. The whole region is most admirably adapted for railroads, which are constructed almost wholly of wood. The surface is graded by nature, and the sandy soil offers an excellent foundation for the wooden frame on which the rails are placed. The still virgin forests, consisting of pine and oak, afford an inexhaustible supply of timber for the construction of the railways, free to whoever wishes to use it. But if the nature of the country is well suited to this object, the condition of the population is far from being so. In this sterile tract, the inhabitants are thinly scattered over the surface, and there are only a few villages here and there on the rivers. Large towns, in which alone the necessary capital would be found, do not exist, and the aid of Northern capitalists has been necessarily resorted to. Philadelphia capital has been largely employed in the construction of the Petersburg and Richmond railroads, and without it, the great line between the South and the North, will not be continued across North Carolina, one of the poorest States in the confederacy, and connected with the works completed or in progress in Georgia and South Carolina.

There is, therefore, a great void of 325 miles, between the Roanoke and Charleston, the chief city of South Carolina, or rather of 275 miles between the Roanoke and Columbia, the capital of that State.[CE] From Charleston, a railroad 136 miles in length, extends through the uncultivated and feverish zone of sand and pine-barrens to the cotton-region; it terminates at Hamburg, on the River Savannah, opposite Augusta, which is the principal interior cotton-market; the cost of this work was only about 9,500 dollars a mile including some cars, &c. Its construction is peculiar in this respect, that where its level is above that of the surface, recourse has been had to piles instead of embankments; the railway, thus perched upon stilts from 15 to 25 feet high, certainly leaves something to be desired in regard to the safety of travellers, but it was necessary to construct it, and to do so with a very small capital, and in this respect it has been successful. The receipts have already been sufficiently large to permit the company gradually to substitute embankments of earth for the frail props on which it formerly rested. Another singular circumstance about it is, that it was constructed almost entirely by slaves. This road was undertaken with the purpose of diverting the cotton, which descended the river Savannah to the town of the same name, from that place to Charleston, and it has fully answered the expectations of its projectors.

From Augusta, the Georgia railroad has lately been begun, and will traverse some of the most fertile cotton districts in the State; it will extend to Athens, a distance of 115 miles. To continue the line from North to South, or from Boston to New Orleans, it would be necessary that this railroad should be prolonged in the direction of Montgomery, Alabama, whence a steamer takes the traveller to Mobile, on the River Alabama.[CF] Between Mobile and New Orleans, there are regular lines of steamboats running through Mobile Bay, Pascagoula Sound, and Lakes Borgne and Pontchartain. The four last miles, between the latter lake and New Orleans, are passed over in a quarter of an hour on a railroad, which the Louisiana legislature calls in its bad French chemin à coulisses. Such is the line between the North and South, of which the execution is the most advanced; it will not be the only one, but as civilisation establishes itself further west and capital multiplies, several new routes will be formed, receding more and more from the coast.

The Baltimore and Ohio railroad is connected at Harper's Ferry with the Winchester railroad, 30 miles in length, which runs up the bed of one of those long valleys that separate the successive ridges of the Alleghany Mountains from each other. That in which Winchester stands, is one of the most regular and fertile of these great basins, and is celebrated under the name of the Virginia Valley. Although, therefore, the Winchester railroad was constructed only for the purpose of giving the produce of Winchester and its vicinity an easy access to the market of Baltimore, yet it may one day become a link in the great chain of communication extending through the Valley from north to south. A company has already been chartered for continuing the work to Staunton, a distance of 96 miles. Another line from the South to the North, which will, perhaps, be connected with that of the great Valley, has been projected at New Orleans, and authorised by the legislatures of Louisiana and the other States through which it will pass; it is a railroad from New Orleans to Nashville, the capital of Tennessee, and I am assured that the work will soon be commenced. This line aspires to nothing less than a competition with the magnificent river lines of the Ohio and the Mississippi, in the transportation of passengers and cotton.