manufacturing districts, to be consumed, in the Valley of the Mississippi south of the mouth of the Ohio, as well as for western produce, to be distributed over its entire line. By steamer from New York to Charleston you have the cheapest transportation for a like distance known. The time is two and a half days; the distance by this line to Memphis is six hundred and sixty-five miles, and could be run in two and a half days by a day and night freight schedule, allowing twenty-four hours for transfer at Charleston, and you have six days between New York and Memphis, and the shortest rail line that can ever be had between the points named. The time and the price would settle competition for all eastern goods to be consumed on the line, as well as at Memphis or south of that point, as low as the mouth of the Arkansas River.

.

"From St. Louis to Memphis is two days' run of steamer; goods can be placed on the cars at Memphis from St. Louis at twenty cents per hundred pounds; from that to Charleston the time would be two and a half days; allowing twelve hours for transfer, would give five days between St. Louis and Charleston. The time and price here would again give you loaded cars going East, every mile of the line requiring Western produce. These lines would all be then in one interest, and would be worked as one company, without change of cars-another great inducement, as it adds facility to transportation, saves labor and liability to damage and pillaging while transferring. The distance being sixteen miles nearer from Atlanta to Savannah than Charleston, the same advantages would accrue to you for the trade of that line. If this line was com

pleted, the distance from Memphis to Atlanta would be three hundred and fifty-eight miles against four hundred and forty-seven, via Chattanooga. The distance by rail from Louisville to Atlanta is four hun: dred and seventy-four miles. Should Cincinnati ever build a line direct to Chattanooga, it will be at least four hundred and fifty miles from Cincinnati to Atlanta.

"I cannot urge upon you too strongly the importance of this connection, even if you had to build it unaided, whenever your finances would admit of it. The line is a practical one, and most of it can be built cheap, and when built, secures yours as one of the heaviest freight lines south of the Potomac and Ohio Rivers, and gives permanence to the value of your property, and secures your power as the great through line between the Atlantic Ocean and the Mississippi River, without a successful rival. The investment is bound to be profitable, and no fears need be entertained on that subject.

"New sources of labor and wealth will be established; your lands will be divided up into smaller plantations, accommodating a much larger population that will cultivate them to greater advantage, producing double what they now do, and supporting double the population; your rich mineral resources will invite capital from the North and elsewhere to develop your iron and coal fields, equalled in quantity, quality, or the ease and cheapness with which they can be worked, by none on this continent; your splendid water power, abundant provisions and healthy climate, will invite the cotton and woollen manufacturer to such points as

Shoal Creek and Cypress Creek, and the Muscle Shoals on the Tennessee, to build up manufacturing establishments, where the raw material and provisions can be grown within sight of the factory, and a home market for everything you produce be provided, thereby saving the heavy cost of transportation now paid to get the raw material to the factory and to return the manufactured product to the consumer, as well as the cost of transportation of provisions to feed the operatives. These inducements will soon produce the results named, and prosperity will spring up from all quarters. We will be astonished at the vast recuperative energies of a country and people who have so recently been overrun and their country desolated by the ruthless hand of war. Eventually your property will recover from its immense losses, and be much more valuable and permanently profitable than before the war; and finally, it is to be hoped, it will be proved to us that Providence, in its wisdom, has sent to us our misfortunes as blessings in disguise; and if we are not permitted to enjoy them ourselves, our children will be. Let us all go to work in good earnest; act our part well, and in good faith; do our duty to ourselves as well as others, and leave the consequences to Him who rules our destiny."

The officers of the Company are: Samuel Tate, President; W. J. Ross, General Superintendent; James L. Meigs, Chief Engineer.

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CHAPTER XXXV

ORANGE AND ALEXANDRIA RAILROAD.

THIS road extends from Alexandria, in Virginia (near Washington), to Lynchburg, in the same State, a distance of one hundred and seventy-eight miles. It forms a part of the great through route between New York and New Orleans, by way of Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington, Gordonsville, Knoxville, Chattanooga, Grand Junction, and Jackson, in Mississippi. The Company was chartered by the State of Virginia in March, 1848; and an extension of the charter was made in 1852. The branch road to Warrenton, which was very much needed, was completed in 1852, and proved of great benefit to the inhabitants. The road was finished from Alexandria to Gordonsville in 1854; and from Gordonsville to Lynchburg in January, 1860. The capital stock of the Company is two million sixty-three thousand six hundred and fifty-nine dollars. At Gordonsville, the road connects with the Virginia Central Railroad, running from Richmond to Covington, by way of Charlottesville and Staunton. At Lynchburg, the termination of the road, it connects with the Virginia and Tennessee Railroad for Knoxville; and with the Petersburg and Lynchburg Railroad for Richmond and Norfolk. It will also connect at Lynchburg with the Lynchburg and Danville Rail

road, when the latter is completed to Danville, and will thus form an almost air-line route from Alexandria to Charlotte in North Carolina.

This railroad was of immense advantage to the Confederates during the recent war, as it enabled them to transport rapidly large bodies of troops from all points in the south to the line of the Potomac, which was, for so long a period, the frontier between the two contending parties. To destroy and cripple this road, therefore, became an object of the first importance on the part of commanders of the Federal troops. But, as the Confederates retained possession of the country between the Potomac and Rappahannock (except in the immediate vicinity of Washington) during the greater part of the time until General Grant began his overland campaign, there was no very favorable opportu nity for extended destruction. On one or two occasions, indeed, parties of cavalry succeeded, in a few hours, in destroying several miles of the track, as well on this road as on the Virginia Central and the Petersburg and Richmond roads. But these occurrences were always provided for in advance. Supplies of new rails, and of all materials needed for repairs, were kept constantly on hand. Construction trains were instantly put in motion, and in a few days all the damage was repaired, and trains were running as usual.

The country through which the Orange and Alexandria Railroad runs was the great battle-ground of the war, during almost the whole contest, from the first of May, 1861, until the summer of 1864. On the 21st of July, 1861, the first battle of Bull Run was