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THE STORY OF THE ATLANTIC TELEGRAPH
by
HENRY M. FIELD
* * * * *
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* * * * *
[Illustration: Cyrus W. Field.]
THE STORY OF THE ATLANTIC TELEGRAPH
by
HENRY M. FIELD
"Since the discovery of Columbus, nothing has been done in any degree
comparable to the vast enlargement which has thus been given to the
sphere of human activity."
--THE TIMES, August 6th, 1858.
New York
Charles Scribner's Sons
1898
Copyright, 1892, by
Henry M. Field.
Press of J. J. Little & Co.
Astor Place, New York
PREFACE
The recent death of Mr. Cyrus W. Field recalls attention to the great
enterprise with which his name will be forever associated. "The Atlantic
Telegraph," said the late Chief Justice Chase, "is the most wonderful
achievement of civilization, and entitles its author to a distinguished
rank among public benefactors. High upon that illustrious roll will his
name be placed, and there will it remain while oceans divide, and
telegraphs unite, mankind." The memory of such an achievement the world
should not let die. The story of its varied fortunes reads like a tale
of adventure. From the beginning it was a series of battles, fighting
against the elements and against the unbelief of men. This long struggle
the new generation may forget, profiting by the result, but thinking
little of the means by which it was attained. What toil of hand and
brain had gone before; what days and nights of watching and weariness;
how often hope deferred had made the heart sick: how year after year had
dragged on, and seen the end still afar off--all that is dimly
remembered, even by those who reap the fruits of victory. And yet in the
history of human achievements, it is necessary to trace these
beginnings step by step, if we would learn the lesson they teach, that
it is only out of heroic patience and perseverance that anything truly
great is born.
Twelve years of unceasing toil was the price the Atlantic Telegraph cost
its projector; and not years lighted up by the assurance of success, but
that were often darkened with despair: years in which he was restlessly
crossing and recrossing the ocean, only to find on either side, worse
than storms and tempests, an incredulity which sneered at every failure,
and derided the attempt as a delusion and a dream. Against such
discouragements nothing could prevail but that faith, or fanaticism,
which, believing the incredible, achieves the impossible. Such a tale,
apart from the results, is in itself a lesson and an inspiration.
In attempting to chronicle all this, the relation of the writer to the
prime mover has given him facilities for obtaining the materials of an
authentic history; but he trusts that it will not lead him to overstep
the limits of modesty. Standing by a new-made grave, he has no wish to
indulge in undue praise even of the beloved dead. Enough for him is it
to unroll the canvas on which the chief actor stands forth as the
conspicuous figure. But in a work of such magnitude there are many
actors, and there is glory enough for all; and it is a sacred duty to
the dead to recognize, as he did, what was due to the brave companions
in arms, who stood by him in disaster and defeat; who believed in him
even when his own countrymen doubted and despaired; and furnished anew
men and money and ships for the final conquest of the sea. If history
records that the enterprise of the Atlantic Telegraph owed its inception
to the faith and daring of an American, it will also record that all his
ardor and activity would have been of no avail but for the science and
seamanship, the capital and the undaunted courage, of England. But when
all these conditions were supplied, it is the testimony of Englishmen
themselves that his was the spirit within the wheels that made them
revolve; that it was his intense vitality that infused itself into a
great organization, and made the dream of science the reality of the
world. This is not to his honor alone: it is a matter of national pride;
and Americans may be pardoned if, in the year in which they celebrate
the discovery of the continent, they recall that it was one of their
countrymen whom the Great Commoner of England, John Bright, pronounced
"the Columbus of our time, who, after no less than forty voyages across
the Atlantic in pursuit of the great aim of his life, had at length by
his cable moored the New World close alongside the Old." How the miracle
was wrought, it is the design of these pages to tell.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I. Page 1
Discovery of the New World by Columbus. Relative Position
of the Two Hemispheres. Nearest Points--The Outlying
Islands, Ireland and Newfoundland. Shorter Route to Europe
suggested by Bishop Mullock. The Electric Telegraph Company
of Newfoundland. Project of Mr. F. N. Gisborne. Failure of
the Company
CHAPTER II. Page 15
Mr. Gisborne comes to New York. Is introduced to Cyrus W.
Field, who conceives the Idea of a Telegraph across the
Atlantic Ocean. Is it Practicable? Two Elements to be
mastered, the Sea and the Electric Current. Letters of
Lieutenant Maury and Professor Morse
CHAPTER III. Page 24
Mr. Field enlists Capitalists in the Enterprise. Commission
to Newfoundland to obtain a Charter. The New York,
Newfoundland, and London Telegraph Company
CHAPTER IV. Page 38
The Land-Line in Newfoundland. Four Hundred Miles of Road
to be built, a Work of Two Years. Attempt to lay a Cable
across the Gulf of St. Lawrence, in 1855, fails. A Second
Attempt, in 1856, is successful
CHAPTER V. Page 51
Deep-Sea Soundings by Lieutenant Berryman in the Dolphin in
1853, and the Arctic in 1856, and by Commander Dayman, of
the British Navy, in the Cyclops, in 1857. The Bed of the
Atlantic. The Telegraphic Plateau
CHAPTER VI. Page 69
Mr. Field in London. The English Engineers and
Electricians. Result of Experiments. The Atlantic Telegraph
Company organized. Applies to the Government for Aid.
Contract for a Cable
CHAPTER VII. Page 91
Mr. Field returns to America. Seeks Aid from the
Government. Opposition in Congress. Bill passed
CHAPTER VIII. Page 112
Return to England. The Niagara--Captain Hudson. The
Agamemnon. Expedition of 1857 sails from Ireland. Speech of
the Earl of Carlisle. The Cable broken
CHAPTER IX. Page 142
Preparations for an Expedition in 1858. Mr. Field is made
the General Manager of the Company. The Squadron assemble
at Plymouth, and put to Sea, June 10. New Method of laying
Cable, beginning in Mid-Ocean. The Agamemnon in Danger of
being Foundered. The Cable lost Three Times. The Ships
return to England. Meeting of the Directors. Shall they
abandon the Project? One Last Effort
CHAPTER X. Page 165
Second Expedition Successful. Cable landed in Ireland and
Newfoundland
CHAPTER XI. Page 188
Great Excitement in America. Celebration in New York and
other Cities
CHAPTER XII. Page 213
Sudden Stoppage of the Cable. Reaction of Public Feeling.
Suspicions of Bad Faith. Did the Cable ever work?
CHAPTER XIII. Page 229
Attempts to revive the Company. The Government asked for
Aid, but declines to give an Unconditional Guarantee.
Failure of the Red Sea Telegraph. Scientific Experiments.
Cables laid in the Mediterranean and the Persian Gulf.
Brief History of the next Five Years
CHAPTER XIV. Page 241
The Enterprise renewed. Improvement on the Old Cable. The
Great Eastern and Captain Anderson. Expedition of 1865.
Twelve Hundred Miles laid safely, when the Cable is broken
CHAPTER XV. Page 293
Formation of a New Company, the Anglo-American. New Cable
made and shipped on Board the Great Eastern
CHAPTER XVI. Page 306
The Expedition of 1866. Immense Preparations. Religious
Service at Valentia. Sailing of the Fleet. Diary of the
Voyage. Cable landed at Heart's Content
CHAPTER XVII. Page 347
Return to Mid-Ocean to search for the Cable lost the Year
before. Dragging in the Deep Sea. Repeated Failures. Cable
finally recovered and completed to Newfoundland
CHAPTER XVIII. Page 376
The Afterglow. Honors conferred in England and America.
Commercial Revolution wrought by the Cable. Mr. Field and
the Elevated Railroads in New York City. Tour round the
World. Last Years. Death in 1892
STORY OF THE ATLANTIC TELEGRAPH
CHAPTER I.
THE BARRIER OF THE SEA.
When Columbus sailed from the shores of Spain, it was not in search of a
New World, but only to find a nearer path to the East. He sought a
western passage to India. He had adopted a traditionary belief that the
earth was round; but he did not once dream of another continent than the
three which had been the ancient abodes of the human race--Europe, Asia,
and Africa. All the rest was the great deep. The Florentine sage
Toscanelli, from his knowledge of the world so far as then discovered,
had made a chart, on which the eastern coast of Asia was represented as
lying opposite to the western coast of both Europe and Africa. Accepting
this theory, Columbus reasoned that he could sail direct from Spain to
India. No intervening continent existed even in his imagination. Even
after he had crossed the Atlantic, and descried the green woods of San
Salvador rising out of the western seas, he thought he saw before him
one of the islands of the Asiatic coast. Cuba he believed was a part of
the mainland of India; Hayti was the Ophir of King Solomon; and when,
on a later voyage, he came to the broad mouth of the Orinoco, and saw it
pouring its mighty flood into the Atlantic, he rejoiced that he had
found the great river Gihon, which had its rise in the garden of Eden!
Even to the hour of his death, he remained ignorant of the real extent
of his magnificent discovery. It was reserved to later times to lift the
curtain fully from the world of waters; to reveal the true magnitude of
the globe; and to unite the distant hemispheres by ties such as the
great discoverer never knew.
It is hard to imagine the darkness and the terror which then hung over
the face of the deep. The ocean to the west was a Mare Tenebrosum--a Sea
of Darkness, into which only the boldest voyagers dared to venture.
Columbus was the most successful navigator of his time. He had made
voyages to the Western Islands, to Madeira and the Canaries, to Iceland
on the north, and to the Portuguese settlements in Africa. But when he
came to cross the sea, he had to grope his way almost blindly. But a few
rays of knowledge glimmered, like stars, on the pathless waters. When he
sailed on his voyage of discovery, he directed his course, first to the
Canaries, which was a sort of outstation for the navigators of those
times, as the last place at which they could take in supplies; and
beyond which they were venturing into unknown seas. Here he turned to
the west, though inclining southward toward the tropics (for even the
great discoverers of that day, in their search for new realms to
conquer, were not above the consideration of riches as well as honor,
and somehow associated gems and gold with torrid climes), and bore away
for India!
From this route taken by the great navigator, he crossed the ocean in
its widest part. Had he, instead, followed the track of the Northmen,
who crept around from Iceland to Greenland and Labrador; or had he
sailed straight to the Azores, and then borne away to the north-west, he
would much sooner have descried land from the mast-head. But steering in
darkness, he crossed the Atlantic where it is broadest _and deepest_;
where, as submarine explorers have since shown, it rolls over mountains,
lofty as the Alps and the Himalayas, which lie buried beneath the
surface of the deep. But farther north the two continents, so widely
sundered, incline toward each other, as if inviting that closer relation
and freer intercourse which the fulness of time was to bring.
As the island of Newfoundland is to stand in the foreground of our
story, we observe on the map its salient geographical position. It holds
the same relation to America that Ireland does to Europe. Stretching far
out into the Atlantic, it is the vanguard of the western continent, or
rather the signal-tower from which the New World may speak to the Old.
And yet, though large as England, and so near our coast, few Americans
ever see it, as it lies out of the track of European commerce. Our
ships, though they skirt the Banks of Newfoundland, pass to the south,
and get but occasional glimpses of the headlands. Even what is seen
gives the country rather an ill reputation. It has a rockbound coast,
around which hang perpetual fogs and mists, through which great icebergs
drift slowly down, like huge phantoms of the deep, gliding away to be
dissolved by the warm breath of the Gulf Stream: dangers that warn the
voyager away from such a sea and shore.
Sailing west from Cape Race, and making the circuit of the island as far
as the Straits of Belle Isle, one is often reminded of the most northern
peninsula of Europe. The rocky shores are indented with numerous bays,
reaching far up into the land, like the fiords along the coast of
Norway; while the large herds of Caribou deer, that are seen feeding on
the hills, might easily be mistaken for the flocks of reindeer that
browse on the pastures and drink of the mountain torrents of ancient
Scandinavia.
The interior of the island is little known. Not only is it uninhabited,
it is almost unexplored, a boundless waste of rock and moor, where vast
forests stretch out their unbroken solitudes, and the wild bird utters
its lonely cry. Bears and wolves roam on the mountains. Especially
common is the large and fierce black wolf; while of the smaller animals,
whose skins furnish material for the fur-trade, such as martins and
foxes, there is the greatest abundance. But from all pests of the
serpent tribe, Newfoundland is as free as Ireland, which was delivered
by the prayers of St. Patrick. There is not a snake or a frog or a toad
in the island!
Yet, even in this ruggedness of nature, there is a wild beauty, which
only needs to be "clothed upon" by the hand of man. Newfoundland, in
many of its features, is not unlike Scotland, even in its most desolate
portions, where the rocky surface of the country, covered with thick
moss, reminds the emigrant Scot of the heather on his native moors. In
the interior are lakes as long as Loch Lomond, and mountains as lofty as
Ben Lomond and Ben Nevis. There are passes as wild as the Vale of
Glencoe, where one might feel that he is in the heart of the Highlands,
while the roar of the torrents yet more vividly recalls the
Land of the brown heath and shaggy wood,
Land of the mountain and the flood.
Yet in all this there is nothing to repel human habitation. By the hand
of industry, these wild moors might be transformed into fruitful fields.
We think it a very cold country, where winter reigns over half the year,
as in Greenland; yet it is not so far north as Scotland, nor is its
climate more inhospitable. It only needs the same population, the same
hardy toil: and the same verdure would creep up its hill-sides, which
now makes green and beautiful the loneliest of Scottish glens.
But at present the country is a _terra incognita_. In the interior there
are no towns and no roads. As yet almost the whole wealth of the island
is drawn from the sea. Its chief trade is its fisheries, and the only
places of importance are a few small towns, chiefly on the eastern side,
which have grown up around the trading posts. Besides these, the only
settlements are the fishermen's huts scattered along the coast. Hence
the bishop of the island, when he would make his annual visit to his
scattered flock, is obliged to sail around his diocese in his yacht,
since even on horseback it would not be possible to make his way through
the dense forests to the remote parts of the island. This first
suggested the idea of cutting across the island a nearer way, not only
for internal intercourse, but for those who were passing to and fro on
the sea.
It was in one of these excursions around the coast that the good Bishop
Mullock, the head of the Roman Catholic Church in Newfoundland, when
visiting the western portion of his diocese, lying one day becalmed in
his yacht, in sight of Cape North, the extreme point of the province of
Cape Breton, bethought himself how his poor neglected island might be
benefited by being taken into the track of communication between Europe
and America. He saw how nature had provided an easy approach to the
mainland on the west. About sixty miles from Cape Ray stretched the long
island of Cape Breton, while, as a stepping-stone, the little island of
St. Paul's lay between. So much did it weigh upon his mind that, as soon
as he got back to St. John's, he wrote a letter to one of the papers on
the subject. As this was the first suggestion of a telegraph across
Newfoundland, his letter is here given in full:
_To the Editor of the Courier_:
Sir: I regret to find that, in every plan for transatlantic
communication, Halifax is always mentioned, and the natural
capabilities of Newfoundland entirely overlooked. This has been
deeply impressed on my mind by the communication I read in your
paper of Saturday last, regarding telegraphic communication
between England and Ireland, in which it is said that the
nearest telegraphic station on the American side is Halifax,
twenty-one hundred and fifty-five miles from the west of
Ireland. Now would it not be well to call the attention of
England and America to the extraordinary capabilities of St.
John's, as the nearest telegraphic point? It is an Atlantic
port, lying, I may say, in the track of the ocean steamers, and
by establishing it as the American telegraphic station, news
could be communicated to the whole American continent
forty-eight hours, _at least_, sooner than by any other route.
But how will this be accomplished? Just look at the map of
Newfoundland and Cape Breton. From St. John's to Cape Ray there
is no difficulty in establishing a line passing near Holy-Rood
along the neck of land connecting Trinity and Placentia Bays,
and thence in a direction due west to the Cape. You have then
about forty-one to forty-five miles of sea to St. Paul's
Island, with deep soundings of one hundred fathoms, so that the
electric cable will be perfectly safe from icebergs. Thence to
Cape North, in Cape Breton, is little more than twelve miles.
Thus it is not only practicable to bring America two days
nearer to Europe by this route, but should the telegraphic
communication between England and Ireland, sixty-two miles, be
realized, it presents not the least difficulty. Of course, we
in Newfoundland will have nothing to do with the erection,
working, and maintenance of the telegraph; but I suppose our
Government will give every facility to the company, either
English or American, who will undertake it, as it will be an
incalculable advantage to this country. I hope the day is not
far distant when St. John's will be the first link in the
electric chain which will unite the Old World and the New.
J. T. M.
St. John's, November 8, 1850.
This suggestion came at the right moment, since it quickened, if it did
not originate, the first attempt to link the island of Newfoundland with
the mainland of America. For about the same time, the attention of Mr.
Frederick N. Gisborne, a telegraph operator, was attracted to a similar
project. Being a man of great quickness of mind, he instantly saw the
importance of such a work, and took hold of it with enthusiasm. It might
easily occur to him without suggestion from any source. He had had much
experience in telegraphs, and was then engaged in constructing a
telegraph line in Nova Scotia. Whether, therefore, the idea was first
with him or with the bishop, is of little consequence. It might occur
at the same time to two intelligent minds, and show the sagacity of
both.
But having taken hold of this idea, Mr. Gisborne pursued it with
indomitable resolution. As the labors of this gentleman were most
important in the beginning of this work, it is a pleasure to recognize
his untiring zeal and energy. In assurance of this we could have no
higher authority than the following from the late Mr. E. M. Archibald,
who was at the time Attorney-General of Newfoundland, and afterwards for
many years British Consul at New York:
"It was during the winter of 1849-50, that Mr. Gisborne, who
had been, as an engineer, engaged in extending the electric
telegraph through Lower Canada and New Brunswick to Halifax,
Nova Scotia, conceived the project of a telegraph to connect
St. John's, the most easterly port of America, with the main
continent. The importance of the geographical position of
Newfoundland, in the event of a telegraph ever being carried
across the Atlantic, was about the same time promulgated by Dr.
Mullock, the Roman Catholic Bishop of Newfoundland, in a St.
John's newspaper.
"In the spring of the following year (1851), Mr. Gisborne
visited Newfoundland, appeared before the Legislature, then in
session, and explained the details of his plan, which was an
overland line from St. John's to Cape Ray, nearly four hundred
miles in length, and (the submarine cable between Dover and
Calais not having then been laid) a communication between Cape
Ray and Cape Breton by steamer and carrier-pigeons,
eventually, it was hoped, by a submarine cable across the Gulf
of St. Lawrence. The Legislature encouraged the project,
granted L500 sterling to enable Mr. Gisborne to make an
exploratory survey of the proposed line to Cape Ray, and passed
an act authorizing its construction, with certain privileges,
and the appointment of commissioners for the purpose of
carrying it out. Upon this, Mr. Gisborne, who was then the
chief officer of the Nova Scotia Telegraph Company, returned to
that province, resigned his situation, and devoted himself to
the project of the Newfoundland telegraph. Having organized a
local company for the purpose of constructing the first
telegraph line in the island, from St. John's to Carbonear, a
distance of sixty miles, he, on the fourth of September, set
out upon the arduous expedition of a survey of the proposed
line to Cape Ray, which occupied upward of three months, during
which time himself and his party suffered severe privations,
and narrowly escaped starvation, having to traverse the most
rugged and hitherto unexplored part of the island.[A] On his
return, having reported to the Legislature favorably of the
project, and furnished estimates of the cost, he determined to
proceed to New York, to obtain assistance to carry it out....
Mr. Gisborne returned to St. John's in the spring of 1852,
when, at his instance, an act, incorporating himself (his being
the only name mentioned in it) and such others as might become
shareholders in a company, to be called the Newfoundland
Electric Telegraph Company, was passed, granting an exclusive
right to erect telegraphs in Newfoundland for thirty years,
with certain concessions of land, by way of encouragement, to
be granted upon the completion of the telegraph from St. John's
to Cape Ray. Mr. Gisborne then returned to New York, where he
organized, under this charter, a company, of which Mr. Tebbets
and Mr. Holbrook[B] were prominent members, made his financial
arrangements with them, and proceeded to England to contract
for the cable from Cape Ray to Prince Edward Island, and from
thence to the mainland. Returning in the autumn, he proceeded
in a small steamer, in November of that year, 1852, to stretch
the first submarine cable, of any length, in America, across
the Northumberland Strait from Prince Edward Island to New
Brunswick, which cable, however, was shortly afterward broken,
and a new one was subsequently laid down by the New York,
Newfoundland, and London Telegraph Company. In the spring of
the following year, 1853, Mr. Gisborne set vigorously to work
to complete his favorite project of the line (which he intended
should be chiefly underground) from St. John's to Cape Ray. He
had constructed some thirty or forty miles of road, and was
proceeding with every prospect of success, when, most
unexpectedly, those of the company who were to furnish the
needful funds dishonored his bills, and brought his operations
to a sudden termination. He and the creditors of the company
were for several months buoyed up with promises of forthcoming
means from his New York allies, which promises were finally
entirely unfulfilled; and Gisborne, being the only ostensible
party, was sued and prosecuted on all sides, stripped of his
whole property, and himself arrested to answer the claims of
the creditors of the company. He cheerfully and honorably gave
up every thing he possessed, and did his utmost to relieve the
severe distress in which the poor laborers on the line had been
involved."
This is a testimony most honorable to the engineer who first led the way
through a pathless wilderness. But this Newfoundland scheme is not to be
confounded with that of the Atlantic Telegraph, which did not come into
existence until a year or two later. The latter was not at all included
in the former. Indeed, Mr. Gisborne himself says, in a letter referring
to his original project: "My plans were to run a subterranean line from
Cape Race to Cape Ray, fly carrier-pigeons and run boats across the
Straits of Northumberland to Cape Breton, and thence by overland lines
convey the news to New York." He adds however: "Meanwhile Mr. Brett's
experimental cable between Dover and Calais having proved successful, I
set forth in my report, [which appeared a year after his first
proposal], that 'carrier-pigeons and boats would be required only until
such time as the experiments then making in England with submarine
cables should warrant a similar attempt between Cape Ray and Cape
Breton.'" But nowhere in his report does he allude to the possibility of
ever spanning the mighty gulf of the Atlantic.
But several years after, when the temporary success of the Atlantic
Telegraph gave a name to everybody connected with it, he or his friends
seemed not unwilling to have it supposed that this was embraced in the
original scheme. When asked why he did not publish his large design to
the world, he answered: "Because I was looked upon as a wild visionary
by my friends, and pronounced a fool by my relatives for resigning a
lucrative government appointment in favor of such a laborious
speculation as the Newfoundland connection. Now had I coupled it at that
time with an Atlantic line, all confidence in the prior undertaking
would have been destroyed, and my object defeated." This may have been a
reason for not announcing such a project to the public, but not for
withholding it from his friends. A man can hardly lay claim to that
which he holds in such absolute reserve.
However, whether he ever entertained the _idea_ of such a project, is
not a matter of the slightest consequence to the public, nor even to his
own reputation. Ten years before Professor Morse had expressed, not a
dreamer's fancy, but a deliberate conviction, founded on scientific
experiments, that "a telegraphic communication might with certainty be
established across the Atlantic Ocean;" so that the idea was not
original with Mr. Gisborne, any more than with others who were eager to
appropriate it.
It is a part of the history of great enterprises, that the moment one
succeeds, a host spring up to claim the honor. Thus when, in 1858, the
Atlantic Telegraph seemed to be a success, the public, knowing well who
had borne the brunt and burden of the undertaking, awarded him the
praise which he so well deserved; but instantly there were other
Richmonds in the field. Those who had had no part in the labor, at least
claimed to have originated the idea! Of course, these many claims
destroy each other. But after all, to raise such a point at all is the
merest trifling. The question is not who first had the "idea," but who
took hold of the enterprise as a practical thing; who grappled with the
gigantic difficulties of the undertaking, and fought the battle through
to victory.
As to Mr. Gisborne, his activity in the beginning of the Newfoundland
telegraph is a matter of history. In that preliminary work, he bore an
honorable part, and acquired a title to respect, of which he cannot be
deprived. All honor to him for his enterprise, his courage, and his
perseverance!
But for the company of which he was the father, which he had got up with
so much toil, it lived but a few months, when it became involved in debt
some fifty thousand dollars, chiefly to laborers on the line, and ended
its existence by an ignominious failure. The concern was bankrupt, and
it was plain that, if the work was not to be finally abandoned, it must
be taken up by stronger hands.
FOOTNOTES:
[A] "On the fourth day of December, I accomplished the survey through
three hundred and fifty miles of wood and wilderness. It was an arduous
undertaking. My original party, consisting of six white men, were
exchanged for four Indians; of the latter party, two deserted, one died
a few days after my return, and the other, 'Joe Paul,' has ever since
proclaimed himself an ailing man."--_Letter of Mr. Gisborne._
[B] Horace B. Tebbets and Darius B. Holbrook.