Four years ago there appeared in this magazine two articles upon the
Great Lakes and their Harbors.[E] In these papers the commercial
importance of the Lakes was set forth, and it was shown that their
commerce was at that time nearly equal in amount to the whole foreign
trade of the country. Within those four years the relative value of
these two branches of commerce has greatly changed. The foreign trade,
under the efforts of open foes and secret enemies, has fallen off very
largely. A committee of the New York Board of Trade, in an appeal to the
Secretary of the Navy for protection against British pirates, made the
statement, that the imports into that port during the first quarter of
1860, in American vessels, were $62,598,326,--in foreign vessels,
$30,918,051; and that in 1863, during the same period, the imports in
American vessels were $23,403,830,--in foreign vessels, $65,889,853;--in
other words, that in three years of war, our navigation on the ocean had
declined more than one half, and that of foreign nations had increased
in nearly the same proportion.
The two great branches of internal trade before the war consisted of the
trade of the Lakes and the canals leading from them to the seaboard, and
the trade of the Mississippi and its tributaries. The latter branch
being interrupted or destroyed by the Rebellion, it follows that at the
present time the principal commerce left to the Atlantic cities is that
of the Great Lakes and the States about them, usually known as the
Northwest.
This commerce amounts at present to at least twelve hundred millions of
dollars annually, and increases so rapidly that all estimates of its
prospective value have hitherto fallen far short of the truth. It
employs about two thousand vessels and twenty thousand sailors, besides
four great lines of railroad. It sends to the seaboard one hundred
million bushels of grain, two million hogs, and half a million of
cattle, composing the principal part of the food of the Atlantic States,
(it being well known that the wheat crop of New York would hardly feed
her people for one third of the year, and that that of New England is
sufficient for only about three weeks' consumption,) and affording a
large surplus for exportation.
In a memorial of the Hon. S. B. Ruggles of New York to President
Lincoln, on the enlargement of the New York canals, he says,--"The
cereal wealth yearly floated on these waters now exceeds one hundred
million bushels. It is difficult to present a distinct idea of a
quantity so enormous. Suffice it to say, that the portion of it (about
two thirds) moving to market on the Erie and Oswego Canals requires a
line of boats more than forty miles long to carry it." On the Lakes it
requires a fleet of five thousand vessels carrying twenty thousand
bushels each. If loaded in railroad-cars of the usual capacity, it would
take two hundred and fifty thousand of them, or a train more than one
thousand miles in length. The four great lines from the Lakes to the
seaboard would each have to run four hundred cars a day for half the
year to carry this grain to market. Speaking of the grain-trade, Mr.
Ruggles says,--"Its existence is a new fact in the history of man. In
quantity, it already much exceeds the whole export of cereals from the
Russian Empire, the great compeer of the United States, whose total
export of cereals was in 1857 but forty-nine million bushels, being less
than half the amount carried in 1861 upon the American Lakes. It was the
constant aim of ancient Rome, even in the zenith of its power, to
provision the capital and the adjacent provinces from the outlying
portions of the empire. The yearly crop contributed by Egypt was fifteen
million bushels. Under the prudent administration of the Emperor
Severus, a large store of corn was accumulated and kept on hand,
sufficient to guard the empire from famine for seven years. The total
amount thus provided was but one hundred and ninety million bushels. The
product of 1860 in the five Lake States of Ohio, Michigan, Indiana,
Illinois, and Wisconsin, was three hundred and fifty-four million
bushels."
Another branch of the Lake trade, which is yet in its infancy, but which
promises to reach vast proportions in a few years, is the iron and
copper trade of Lake Superior. In 1864 about two hundred and forty-eight
thousand tons of iron ore and seventeen thousand tons of copper ore and
metal were shipped from that lake,--enough to load thirteen hundred and
twenty-five vessels of two hundred tons burden. This trade has wholly
grown up within the last ten years.
Let the Erie and Oswego Canals be again enlarged, as advocated so ably
by Mr. Ruggles, let the railroad lines be equipped with double tracks,
and this trade of the Lake country will still follow them up and
outstrip their efforts. The man is now living in Chicago, hardly past
middle age, who, less than thirty years ago, shipped the first invoice
of grain from that city which now ships fifty millions; and should he
live to the common age of mankind, he will probably see the shipment of
a hundred millions from that port alone.
The population of Illinois has doubled in each of the last two decades,
and there is no reason why it should not continue to do so in the next.
That would give it in 1870 about three and a half millions of people,
most of them farmers and producers, and farmers who, by help of their
fertile soil, the ease of its cultivation, and the general use of
agricultural machinery, are able to produce a very large amount of grain
or meat to the working hand.
These fleets of sail-vessels and steamers, and these railroad-trains
which go Eastward thus loaded with grain and provisions, return West
with freight more various, though as valuable. The teas, silks, and
spices of India, the coffee of Brazil, the sugar and cigars of Cuba, the
wines and rich fabrics of France, the varied manufactures of England,
and the products of the New England workshops and factories, all find a
market in the Northwest.
What, then, is the proper and sufficient outlet of this commerce? The
Canadians, although their share of it is only one quarter as large as
our own, have shown us the way. They have constructed canals connecting
Lakes Erie and Ontario, and others around the rapids of the St.
Lawrence. Let us do the same on the American side, so that vessels may
load in Chicago or Milwaukee, and deliver their cargoes in New York,
Boston, or Liverpool, without breaking bulk. To Europe this is the
shorter route, as the figures will show:--
Distance from Chicago to New York
by lakes, canal, and river 1,500 miles
Distance from New York to Liverpool 2,980 "
-----
4,480 "
Distance from Chicago to Montreal by
Welland Canal 1,348 miles
Distance from Montreal to Liverpool 2,740 "
-----
4,088 "
The St. Lawrence River is the natural outlet of the Lakes, and, if
rendered accessible to us by canals, must be the cheapest outlet. It is
well known that a few years ago corn was worth on the prairies of
Illinois only ten cents per bushel, when the same article was selling in
New York at seventy cents, six sevenths of the price being consumed in
transportation. The consequence was, that many farmers found it more for
their interest to use their surplus corn for fuel than to sell it for
ten cents. The great disturbance in values caused by the war, and the
vast demand for grain and forage for the army, have reduced this
disproportion in prices very much for the time, but it may be looked for
again on the return of peace.
Now it would seem that one of the most important questions to be
settled in this country is how to cheapen food. If, by the construction
of these canals to give access to the St. Lawrence, grain can be laid
down in New York ten cents a bushel cheaper than it now is done, the
saving on the present shipments of breadstuffs from the Lakes would be
ten millions of dollars annually. It is probable, however, that the
saving in freight would be much greater than this, if the canals were
built of sufficient capacity to admit the largest class of Lake vessels.
This direct trade between the Upper Lakes and Europe was commenced a few
years before the breaking out of the Rebellion, and was beginning to
assume important proportions, when the war put a stop to it, as it has
to so much of our foreign commerce.
While the present article was in preparation, the bill for the
construction of these canals passed the House of Representatives, as
also one for the deepening of the Illinois and Michigan Canal,
concerning which the report of the Hon. Isaac N. Arnold of Illinois,
chairman of the committee of the House on the defence of lakes and
rivers, thus remarks:--"The realization of the grand idea of a
ship-canal from Lake Michigan to the Mississippi, for military and
commercial purposes, is the great work of the age. In effect,
commercially, it turns the Mississippi into Lake Michigan, and makes an
outlet for the Great Lakes at New Orleans, and of the Mississippi at New
York. It brings together the two great systems of water communication of
our country,--the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence, and the canals
connecting the Lakes with the ocean on the east, and the Mississippi and
Missouri, with all their tributaries, on the west and south. This
communication, so vast, can be effected at small expense, and with no
long delay. It is but carrying out the plan of Nature. A great river,
rivalling the St. Lawrence in volume, at no distant day was discharged
from Lake Michigan, by the Illinois, into the Mississippi. Its banks,
its currents, its islands, and deposits can still be easily traced, and
it only needs a deepening of the present channel for a few miles, to
reopen a magnificent river from Lake Michigan to the Mississippi."
It is a very important point, in considering this question of the
enlargement of existing canals and the construction of new ones, that
they have, under the new conditions of naval warfare, come to be an
important element in the harbor defences of the Lakes. We have the
testimony of Captain Ericsson himself, whose Monitor vessels have
already done so much for the country, as to this availability. He
writes,--"An impregnable war-vessel, twenty-five feet wide and two
hundred feet long, with a shot-proof turret, carrying a gun of fifteen
inch calibre, with a ball of four hundred and fifty pounds, and capable
of destroying any hostile vessel that can be put on the Lakes, will
draw, without ammunition, coal, or stores, but six feet and six inches
water, and consequently will need only a canal wide and deep enough to
float a vessel of those dimensions, with locks of sufficient size to
pass it."
Great Britain has already secured to herself the means of access to the
Lakes by her system of Canadian canals, and the Military Committee of
the House express the opinion, that, in case of a war with that power,
"a small fleet of light-draught, heavily armed, iron-clad gunboats,
could, in one short month, in despite of any opposition that could be
made by extemporized batteries, pass up the St. Lawrence, and shell
every city and village from Ogdensburg to Chicago. At one blow it could
sweep our commerce from that entire chain of lakes. Such a fleet would
have it in its power to inflict a loss to be reckoned only by hundreds
of millions, so vast is the wealth thus exposed to the depredations of a
maritime enemy." We were saved from such a blow, a few months ago, only
by the failure of the Rebel agents in Canada to procure, either by
purchase or piracy, a swift armed steamer.
Ever since the War of 1812, England has been preparing, in the event of
another war, to strike at this, our vital point. In 1814 the Duke of
Wellington declared "that a naval superiority on the Lakes is a _sine
qua non_ of success in war on the frontier of Canada." Years before,
William Hall, Governor of the Northwestern Territory, made the same
declaration to our Government, and the capture of Detroit by the British
in 1812 was due to their failure to respond to his appeal for a naval
force. In 1817 the Lakes were put on a peace establishment of one gun on
each side, which was a good bargain for England, she having at that time
larger interests on the Lakes than the United States. Now ours exceed
hers in the ratio of four to one.
What said the London "Times" in January, 1862, in reference to the Trent
excitement? "As soon as the St. Lawrence opens again there will be an
end of our difficulty. We can then pour into the Lakes such a fleet of
gunboats, and other craft, as will give us the complete and immediate
command of those waters. Directly the navigation is clear, we can send
up vessel after vessel without any restriction, except such as are
imposed by the size of the canals. The Americans would have no such
resource. They would have no access to the Lakes from the sea, and it is
impossible that they could construct vessels of any considerable power
in the interval that would elapse before the ice broke up. With the
opening of spring the Lakes would be ours."
This is just what the English did in the War of 1812. They secured the
command of the Lakes at the beginning of the war, and kept it and that
of all the adjacent country, till Perry built a fleet on Lake Erie, with
which he wrested their supremacy from them by hard fighting. Let us not
be caught in that way a second time.
There is a party in the country opposed to the enlargement of these
canals. It is represented in Congress by able men. Their principal
arguments are the following: First, that there is no military necessity
for the enlargement; that materials for building gunboats can be
accumulated at various points on the Lakes, to be used in the event of
war. Secondly, that by sending a strong force to destroy the Canadian
canals, the enemy's gunboats can be prevented from entering the Lakes. A
third argument is, that it is useless to attempt to contend with
England, the greatest naval power in the world; that we shall never have
vessels enough to afford a fleet on the coast and one on the Lakes; that
England would never allow us to equal her in that respect, and that it
would be changing the entire policy of the nation to attempt it. A
fourth argument which we have seen gravely stated against the canal
enlargements is, that the mouth of the St. Lawrence is the place to
defend the Lakes, and that, if that hole were stopped, the rats could
not enter.
In reply to the first of these arguments, the above quotation from the
London "Times" shows that the British Government well know the
importance of striking the first blow, and that long before our gunboats
could be launched that blow would have been delivered.
As to the second, we may be sure that the Canadian canals would be
defended with all the power and skill of England; and we know, by the
experience of the last four years, the difference between offensive and
defensive warfare, both sides being equally matched in fighting
qualities.
The third argument is the same used by Jefferson and his party before
the War of 1812. He thought that to build war vessels was only to build
them for the British, as they would be sure to take them. As to changing
the policy of the nation, by increasing our navy, let us hope that it is
already changed, and forever. Its policy has heretofore been a Southern
policy, a slaveholders' policy; it has discouraged the navy, and kept it
down to the smallest possible dimensions, because a navy is essentially
a Northern institution. You cannot man a navy with slaves or mean
whites; it must have a commercial marine behind it, and that the South
never had. Our navy ought never again to be inferior in fighting
strength to that of England. In that way we shall always avoid war.
As to the plan of defending the Lakes at the mouth of the St. Lawrence,
we would ask this question: If the blockade of Wilmington was a task
beyond the power of our navy, how would it be able to blockade an
estuary from fifty to a hundred miles in width?
With these enlarged canals, by which gunboats and monitors could be
moved from the Atlantic and the Mississippi to the Lakes, and _vice
versa_, and by the system of shore defences recommended some years ago
by General Totten, namely, strong fortifications at Mackinaw, perfectly
commanding those straits, and serving as a refuge to war steamers, works
at the lower end of Lake Huron, at Detroit, and at the entrance of
Niagara River, these waters will be protected from all foreign enemies.
Lake Ontario will also need a system of works to protect our important
canals and railroads, which in many places approach so near the shore as
to be in danger from an enterprising enemy. It is recommended by the
Military Committee, that a naval depot should be established at Erie, as
the most safe and suitable harbor on the lake of that name.
If, as is probable, a naval station and depot should be thought
necessary on the Upper Lakes, the city of Milwaukee has strong claims to
be chosen for its site. There is the best and safest harbor on Lake
Michigan, so situated as to be easily defended, in the midst of a
heavily timbered country, accessible to the iron and copper of Lake
Superior and the coal of Illinois. Milwaukee enjoys one of the cheapest
markets for food, together with a very healthy climate. Finally, she is
connected by rail with the great Western centres of population, so that
all the necessary troops for her defence could be gathered about her at
twenty-four hours' notice.
It may be well here to remark, that as yet the Northwest has had little
assistance from the General Government. Large sums of money have
annually been laid out in the defences of the seaboard, both North and
South, while this immense Lake region has had the annual appropriation
of one eighteen pounder! Every small river and petty inlet on the
Southern coast, whence a bale of cotton or a barrel of turpentine could
be shipped, has had its fort; while the important post of Mackinaw, the
Gibraltar of the Lakes, is garrisoned by an invalid sergeant, who sits
solitary on its ruinous walls.
The result at which we arrive is, that these canal enlargements would at
once be valuable, both as commercial and military works. They have a
national importance, in that they will assist in feeding and defending
the nation. The States interested in them have a population of ten
millions, they have seventy-one representatives in Congress, and they
have furnished fully one half the fighting-men who have gone to defend
our flag and protect our nationality in the field. How that work has
been done, let the victorious campaigns of Grant and Sherman attest.
Those great leaders are Western men, and their invincible columns, who,
from Belmont to Savannah, have, like Cromwell's Ironsides, "never met an
enemy whom they have not broken in pieces," are men of Western birth or
training.