The Story of the Pony Express | Page 2

The Story of the Pony Express

Chapter I

At A Nation's Crisis

The Pony Express was the first rapid transit and the first fast mail line
across the continent from the Missouri River to the Pacific Coast. It
was a system by means of which messages were carried swiftly on
horseback across the plains and deserts, and over the mountains of the
far West. It brought the Atlantic coast and the Pacific slope ten days
nearer to each other.
It had a brief existence of only sixteen months and was supplanted by
the transcontinental telegraph. Yet it was of the greatest importance in
binding the East and West together at a time when overland travel was
slow and cumbersome, and when a great national crisis made the rapid
communication of news between these sections an imperative
necessity.
The Pony Express marked the highest development in overland travel
prior to the coming of the Pacific railroad, which it preceded nine years.
It, in fact, proved the feasibility of a transcontinental road and
demonstrated that such a line could be built and operated continuously
the year around - a feat that had always been regarded as impossible.
The operation of the Pony Express was a supreme achievement of
physical endurance on the part of man and his ever faithful companion,
the horse. The history of this organization should be a lasting
monument to the physical sacrifice of man and beast in an effort to
accomplish something worth while. Its history should be an enduring

tribute to American courage and American organizing genius.
The fall of Fort Sumter in April, 1861, did not produce the Civil War
crisis. For many months, the gigantic struggle then imminent, had been
painfully discernible to far-seeing men. In 1858, Lincoln had
forewarned the country in his "House Divided" speech. As early as the
beginning of the year 1860 the Union had been plainly in jeopardy.
Early in February of that momentous year, Jefferson Davis, on behalf
of the South, had introduced his famous resolutions in the Senate of the
United States. This document was the ultimatum of the dissatisfied
slave-holding commonwealths. It demanded that Congress should
protect slavery throughout the domain of the United States. The
territories, it declared, were the common property of the states of the
Union and hence open to the citizens of all states with all their personal
possessions. The Northern states, furthermore, were no longer to
interfere with the working of the Fugitive Slave Act. They must repeal
their Personal Liberty laws and respect the Dred Scott Decision of the
Federal Supreme Court. Neither in their own legislatures nor in
Congress should they trespass upon the right of the South to regulate
slavery as it best saw fit.
These resolutions, demanding in effect that slavery be thus safeguarded
- almost to the extent of introducing it into the free states - really
foreshadowed the Democratic platform of 1860 which led to the great
split in that party, the victory of the Republicans under Lincoln, the
subsequent secession of the more radical southern states, and finally the
Civil War, for it was inevitable that the North, when once aroused,
would bitterly resent such pro-slavery demands.
And this great crisis was only the bursting into flame of many smaller
fires that had long been smoldering. For generations the two sections
had been drifting apart. Since the middle of the seventeenth century,
Mason and Dixon's line had been a line of real division separating two
inherently distinct portions of the country.
By 1860, then, war was inevitable. Naturally, the conflict would at
once present intricate military problems, and among them the retention
of the Pacific Coast was of the deepest concern to the Union. Situated
at a distance of nearly two thousand miles from the Missouri river
which was then the nation's western frontier, this intervening space
comprised trackless plains, almost impenetrable ranges of snow-capped

mountains, and parched alkali deserts. And besides these barriers of
nature which lay between the West coast and the settled eastern half of
the country, there were many fierce tribes of savages who were usually
on the alert to oppose the movements of the white race through their
dominions.
California, even then, was the jewel of the Pacific. Having a
considerable population, great natural wealth, and unsurpassed climate
and fertility, she was jealously desired by both the North and the South.
To the South, the acquisition of California meant enhanced prestige -
involving, as it would, the occupation of a large area whose soils and
climate might encourage the perpetuation of slavery; it meant a rich
possession which would afford her a strategic base for waging war
against her northern foe; it meant a romantic field in which opportunity
might be given to organize an allied republic of