The Louisville, Cincinnati & Charleston Rail Road: Dreams of Linking North and South

Preface

ix Professional historians and interested amateurs have long explored a variety of railroad topics, including the organization and construction of the earliest American lines. This interest in the Demonstration Period of steam railways, which spanned the 1830s and 1840s, may be attributed to that human desire to know about the beginnings of things. This is more than an idle curiosity, being a valuable way to learn howremoteeventsshapedlatercultural,economic,political,andphysical environments. The antebellum era was an exciting and expansive time in the nation’s history, including the transport sector, when the agrarian republic was evolving into an industrialized nation. It would be railroads, rather than canals, roads, and waterways, that created a remarkable revolution in domestic transportation. Although aspects of the proposed link between Charleston and Cincinnati have been discussed in scholarly monographs, doctoral dissertations , and masters’ theses, no book-length study consolidates the pertinent primary and secondary sources. This ambitious–perhaps too ambitious–Louisville, Cincinnati & Charleston Rail Road (LC&C) of the late 1830s and early 1840s deserves attention. After all, this projected railroad was one of the first seriously attempted trans-Appalachian interregionalprojects .Itheldacloseconnectiontowhatwasbrieflythelongest railroad in the world under a single management, the 136-mile trans-state South-Carolina Canal & Rail-Road. Opened in 1833, this pioneer carrier demonstrated the practicability of an infant railroad technology. If the LC&C had begun operations as planned, it would have been both America’s longest railway and its largest single private corporation. Even though only about 10 percent of the hoped-for LC&C was completed by the mid-nineteenth century, a direct route between the southern Atlantic Ocean coast and the mid–Ohio River valley was eventually established under a single management, attesting to the soundness of that audacious initial proposal. Preface • P r e fa c e x If this most daring project of the 1830s had been completed by the 1840s or somewhat later, it surely would have had a wide-ranging impact on its service area. As a path-breaking developmental railroad, the LC&C wouldhavebolsteredeconomiesofthethreecitiesatitsextremities,most of all Charleston. The road also could have altered the political landscape of the nation, even affecting southern secession. Strong, enduring bonds of commitment might have been forged by a carrier that created and sustained rapid, safe, and predictable commercial intercourse between the Old South and the Old Northwest (or what contemporaries called the “West”). Moreover, patterns of interstate migration may have been changed significantly, allowing whites from the Old Northwest and other northern areas, who frequently held antislavery views, to relocate to border and southern states. Some of these new residents might be attracted initially by railroad construction jobs and then operating, maintenance, andmanagementpositions,andotherswouldseizeopportunitiesinfarming ,lumbering,mining,andcommercialandprofessionalendeavors.But, alas, that did not happen; the iron rails of the LC&C became only one part of an extensive network of intrastate South Carolina lines. As with most railroads, whether early or late, large or small, successful or not, several individuals sparked the drive. For the LC&C its greatest champion was the nationally prominent Robert Y. Hayne, a man with a passion for a Charleston-to-Cincinnati railroad. No wonder this beloved South Carolina politician played a pivotal role in organizing the greatest railroad convention in the South prior to the Civil War. In July 1836 hundreds of delegates from multiple states assembled in Knoxville, Tennessee ,toconsiderthisnearly700-mileproposition.Thisrailroadconvention became a widely discussed and long-remembered event. The Louisville, Cincinnati & Charleston faced numerous and ultimately fatal obstacles. Without question, the courageous efforts to turn the ocean-to-river plan into reality graphically reveals that railroad undertakingswerecapitalintensive ,potentiallycontroversial,andextremely risky. A perfect storm of sorts derailed completion, most notably a deep and long-lasting depression triggered by the Panic of 1837, Hayne’s own unexpected death, and growing opposition from Kentuckians, some influential South Carolinians, including John C. Calhoun, and others. Ultimately, though, a railroad, the Cincinnati Southern, constructed by the municipal government of Cincinnati, Ohio, spanned part of the distance envisioned by proponents of the LC&C, and the remainder of the Charleston-Cincinnati-Louisville trackage came about from several separate undertakings. After 1894 the Southern Railway, then newly organized , gained control of this route between Charleston and Cincinnati, effectively realizing those dreams conceived at the dawn of the Railway Age. The labors of the Knoxville Railroad Convention therefore were 8.188.108.54] Project MUSE (2024-04-25 15:35 GMT) P r e fa c e xi not discarded into the trash bin of history. Even a dozen years after the Knoxville assemblage, a meeting of internal proponents recognized the significance of the grand Atlantic...