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The first advantage of these canals to the United States would be, then, the avoidance of those otherwise unavoidable evils. A second advantage would be found in our ability to make one fleet answer for two. A third advantage would be, that we could build vessels on the Ohio, Mississippi, Missouri, Illinois, Hudson, and along the lines of the canals, free from all danger of attacks, and where labor and materials would be abundant and cheap. A fourth advantage would be equally decided; instead of being useless to the United States, except upon the lakes where built, the digging of the canals would enable our war vessels on the lakes, in ten days after the receipt of orders, to make their appearance at New Orleans or Mobile for naval movements in the West Indies, or at New York to operate in the North Atlantic, two thousand miles further to the northeast. The possession of the power to transfer a blockaded fleet by a safe inland route from New York to New Orleans, or from New Orleans to New York, is, of itself, an incalculable advantage in times of war with a strong maritime power. A fifth advantage might arise in this wise: should the British fleet winter at the naval depot, under the protection of the fortress, as its safety and convenience would dictate, our fleet, long after the British fleet was ice-bound, could pass down the Mississippi and aid our forces in the Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean sea a third of the year, and yet be back to its station before the enemy could sail from its ice-bound harbor.

The last advantage which your committee will name at this time is the facilities the canals would afford, in times of peace, to agriculture, commerce, manufactures, and the mechanic arts. Practically the navigable channel of the Hudson is extended to the Mississippi. The steamship loaded at St. Paul, Omaha, St. Louis, Louisville, Memphis, or Chicago, would transport its thousand, fifteen hundred, or two thousand tons of produce to New York, Boston, or Philadelphia, or any other point on the entire coast, at the pleasure of its owners, and exchange it for every fabric known to the merchant and the artisan. This would infuse new vigor into all industrial pursuits, and benefit all portions of this great country. It is believed that if eighty-ton horse boats can afford to pay tolls high enough to support shallow canals, two thousand-ton steamboats, being subjected to less expense per ton, can afford to pay enough higher tolls to support deeper canals of greater cost; especially, considered in connexion with the far larger amount of business the deep canal could transact. They ought, within a reasonable time, to reimburse their first cost. Hence no reason is perceived, from the money point of view, why these exceedingly important military channels should not be dug.

These and other considerations which need not be enumerated, most of which relate directly to the military value of these avenues, induce your committee to urge the construction of the canal from the foot of Lake Michigan to the Mississippi river and around the Falls of Niagara, connecting the upper and the lower lakes. It is not doubted that the great resources of the State of New York, and the interest of that State and its commercial capital, (which is also the commercial capital of the nation,) will supply the means and a motive

for the enlargement of the Erie canal on a scale equal to the other works, and as soon as they can be completed by the general govern

ment.

This chain of interior water communications, which can so easily be established from the bay of New York and of the St. Lawrence, stretching through the lakes, and by their union with the Mississippi river, to New Orleans, to St. Paul, Pittsburg, and the foothills of the Rocky mountains, discloses a remarkable feature in the geographical formation of our country, and brings to mind another equally singular and important fact often referred to by our engineers, and worthy of consideration in this connexion. It is what might be called a second coast-line, created by making a navigable channel near to and parallel with the coasts on the Atlantic and Gulf, and having numerous connexions with those waters. Such channel would possess two very valuable properties; it would enable the United States to transfer our ships-of-war, by a safe and speedy route, in the presence of a superior naval force, from any one point on our coast to any other, and it would preserve our vast coasting trade in unimpaired activity. throughout the war. The military value of this measure was urged by the engineers more than forty years ago, but of late years Congress seems to have forgotten its importance. Now that the coasting trade has an annual value of more than three hundred millions of dollars, and it has come to be well understood that unless a belligerent power can maintain its trade and commerce, money to carry on the war will be found scarce and dear, it is to be hoped earnest consideration will be bestowed upon the importance of an intra-coast channel. An interior channel, beginning in the Mississippi river, above New Orleans, opening up the bed of the Ibberville river, (closed by General Jackson in 1812-15, and not since opened,) may be continued along the coast between the islands and the main land, via Mobile and Pensacola, (crossing Florida with a ship canal,) Savannah, Charleston, Beaufort, Norfolk, near Baltimore, Philadelphia, New Brunswick, and New York, (through Long Island sound, Narraganset and Buzzard's bays, and by a short canal,) to Massachusetts bay. Such is the opinion of the engineers.

Without, at this time, entering into the details of the feasibility and cost of this valuable means of defence, your committee will be content to call attention to a practical point or two. There is at this time in operation, between the lower waters of New York harbor and the Delaware river, a canal-Delaware and Raritan-forty-three miles long and seven feet deep. It is navigated by small propellers and sloops. The Chesapeake and Delaware canal connects Philadelphia, on the Delaware, and Baltimore, on the Chesapeake. It is only thirteen and a half miles long, and is ten feet deep. The Dismal Swamp canal is twenty-two miles long, and connects Chesapeake bay with Albemarle sound.

Here, then, is an interior channel which, when the coasts have been put into a defensible condition, will be a safe one along an extensive and exceedingly important part of our coast, from New London to Beaufort, directly communicating with several of our largest States and cities. To make this extensive channel available both in

peace and in war requires an enlargement of three short and inexpensive canals, of an aggregate length of but seventy-eight and a half miles.

Another interior channel of similar importance can be had (by means of the Ibberville river and Lakes Mauripas, Pontchartrain, and Borgne) from the Mississippi river to Pensacola. This would connect all of the cities of the west with all of the cities of the Gulf by an interior and protected channel. The cost of this would be even less than the other, and both might ultimately be extended so as to become one. Thus, with a few slight interruptions where it might be necessary to venture upon the open sea, an interior line of water communications can be established from New Orleans to New York and to Boston. These interruptions, even, could be protected by powerful floating batteries, and our commerce in time of war, even with the most powerful maritime nations, could make a secure and peaceful circuit around the country.

The enterprise of individuals has provided us with this almost complete water line along the coast-we can safely look to the same source for the accomplishment of much more where nature has done. so great a share. The government may never be called to do more than sanction by its authority, in order to insure the completion of this grand design; and yet the very struggle which we are now enduring against the disseverance of the Union, marks the conviction of the mass of our countrymen of the essential unity of our country, and the dependence of the whole upon every part; and the same energy, inspired by the same sentiment, will some day bind this new ligament of strength around the nation to make its Union perpetual.

DEFENCE OF THE PACIFIC COAST.

5. In addition to good harbor and other defences upon the Pacific coast, the Pacific States and Territory, to be defensible against the attack of a powerful nation, must be connected with the States lying to the east of their mountains by a good military road-by a firstclass, faithfully-constructed railroad, competent to the ready transportation of the heaviest ordnance, as well as large bodies of troops and their indispensable supplies. The present population is too small, and too much scattered, to be able to defend so extensive a frontier against the attacks of a well-organized naval and land force. Their frontier extends from the thirty-second to the forty-ninth parallel of latitude, seventeen degrees, excluding the indentations and windings of the coast. To defend it is not within the physical power of so few persons. Many years hence things will be much changed. The war of 1812-'15 called forth considerable effort; yet we then had eight millions of people. A powerful nation could easily detail for an attack upon the Pacific States a much larger force than was employed against us in 1812.

It is not wise, therefore, to stake the safety and independence of the Pacific States and Territory upon their infant resources; nor is it prudent for us to rely upon our ability to send them troops

and supplies by sea, around Cape Horn, or across the Isthmus through the territory of a foreign nation. Such a reliance would. subject us to too much delay and expense, and expose our re-enforcements to too many casualties, of all kinds. A good road would be self-sustaining, and ultimately might, under judicious management, reimburse a portion of its first cost. It is reassuring to reflect that, if its great cost is evident, so the numerous benefits which would flow from the road are equally indisputable. Instead of repining at the necessity which demands the construction of three canals and a railroad to render our national defences efficient, the nation has great cause for self-gratulation at having occasion to construct so few-has great reason to be proud of that individual enterprise and energy, which, without national aid, has created so many thousand miles of commercial communications of the first order of completeness and efficiency, not only for the purposes of commerce, but also so admirably adapted for the military purposes of the government. The unstimulated efforts of peaceful citizens for peaceful ends have created for the United States a greater and more complete system of communications, well located and well suited for military purposes, than any created by the mightiest military nations led and stimulated by the mightiest warriors of any age of the world.

While so much has been done for the government by its citizens, and so much more is likely hereafter to be done by them, directly available for military purposes, the government has abundant cause of thankfulness that so little of consequence remains to be done by itself, and should proceed to the execution of its task with unhesitating alacrity.

The building of a great road from St. Louis to San Francisco consolidates the power of the United States; it mobilizes the power of the United States. Not only so, but it would speedily cause to be populated those numerous fertile valleys existing amid those wonderful mountain ranges which our maps erroneously represent as one vast area of desolation; it would thus seriously aid in providing hardy mountaineers not likely to assist at a surrender of the keys of the Golden Gate. From every reason that can be properly urged in favor of placing a country in a state of defence, your committee urge the early construction of a good and reliable road from the Missouri river to the bay of San Francisco.

It may be proper to say, before leaving the subject of coast defences. on the Pacific, that your committee consider good defensive works on Puget sound and its tributary waters, and on the Rio Colorado, at the head of the Gulf of California, as indispensable to a successful defence of the immediate Pacific coast. Judicious measures calculated to secure permanent settlements in the fertile valleys of the Colorado of the west, and upon the waters of Puget sound, are also imperatively demanded by the military interests of this interesting ocean frontier. Those flank defences, supported by populations of respectable numbers, would, in the event of a large war, possess great value to the defenders of the coast on the Pacific ocean. Of similar value would be a railroad from Los Angelos, via the Tulare and San Joaquin valleys, to San Francisco, with a branch from a point a few miles east

of San Francisco, along the banks of the Sacramento, and northerly as far as the configuration of the country will allow, and business and population would justify; such a road would greatly increase the defensive ability of California, by conferring on it the power to quickly assemble and transfer its forces to repel assaults; it would be second in importance only to the road to the Missouri river, and is well worthy of government aid should the people of that State decide to build it.

INCREASE OF ARMS.

6. The events of the late Russian and Austrian wars, as well as those of our own, reveal to us in a striking light the necessity of a decided increase of the capacity of the several navy yards, and the establishment of one upon the lakes; the establishment of a few firstclass arsenals of construction at points as safe from hostile approach as is the arsenal at Watervliet, and yet accessible by both boats and railroad alike from the interior, and from each of the several frontiers; a good national foundery, as securely located and as accessible as the arsenals of construction; another national armory, located as above described; a large increase in the number, quality, weight, and range of orduance for arming forts and vessels; a large increase in the number, quality, and range of our rifles, muskets, carbines, and pistols; an increased capacity of arsenals of repair and of deposit. A marked increase in the weight and range of ordnance made for use in fortifications and on shipboard is particularly desirable, and, it is thought by many who have given the subject much attention, is easily attainable. If good twenty-inch guns can be fabricated, it is seriously doubted whether ships can be built which could sustain, for any considerable time, the concentrated fire of a large fort armed with them. Balls of a half ton weight, thrown with the proper velocity, several striking at the same moment, would probably soon destroy any vessel hitherto devised. Special experiments with this class of ordnance, and with improved projectiles, should be authorized by Congress. The knowledge which our officers on land and sea are now gaining relative to the power and value of the several classes of improved ordnance, specially qualifies them to pass upon the merits of rival guns and projectiles very intelligently. They have passed from the theories of the closet to the practical tests of the battle-field, and will return with matured opinions as to the actual value of the several leading features which distinguish the best of the new inventions. Solid progress has been made, and we must avail ourselves of it in all that we do hereafter. Not a gun should be made, nor a ship nor a fortification built, but in strict accordance with the rules of the military art, as modified by the recent revelations of experience. All else is waste.

MILITARY AND NAVAL OFFICERS.

7. In addition to the construction of fortifications and ships and the accumulation of approved arms and of munitions of war, we

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