Excerpt from A History of Transportation in the Eastern Cotton Belt: To 1860 American history is largely the record of the adjustment of a migrating people to their new environment and the modification of the environment to subserve the greater welfare and comfort of the people. Popular self-government has been a means of facilitating that adjustment; and the work of parties and statesmen has been in large part to readjust the people to the environment and the several groups of the people to one another. Captains of industry and captains of transportation rank in substantial importance near the political leaders of similar merit and service; and the promotive campaigns for "internal improvements" bear as much significance in the general development of the nation as do many of the campaigns of president-making. Transportation facilities and traffic play a very large part in the life of any modern people, and the study of this theme of development, along with many others, is an essential for thorough historical knowledge and understanding. To me the ante-bellum South is the most interesting theme in the history of this continent. I seek to understand the history of the South, and hope to explain it. The economic and social aspects seem to offer the best line of approach to the general problem, and hence my attention to the present subject along with others parallel, such as the plantation system. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

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This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

Includes information on stage coaches, stage lines, etc.

Railroading in its heyday

Bonded Leather binding

Among the grand antebellum plans to build railroads to interconnect the vast American republic, perhaps none was more ambitious than the Louisville, Cincinnati & Charleston. The route was intended to link the cotton-producing South and the grain and livestock growers of the Old Northwest with traders and markets in the East, creating economic opportunities along its 700-mile length. But then came the Panic of 1837, and the project came to a halt. H. Roger Grant tells the incredible story of this singular example of "railroad fever" and the remarkable visionaries whose hopes for connecting North and South would require more than half a century—and one Civil War—to reach fruition.