WA TEE WA Y DEFENSES 



537 



For the first time in the history of these endeavors the question 

 had become a practical one — as to which of two routes was the superior 

 for both commerce and war. 



The second of the two maps shows at a glance the situation of the 

 two routes, especially the manifest advantage of the Sassafras, chiefly 

 on account of the greatly decreased distance from the* wharves of Balti- 

 more to a point at sea off the capes of the Delaware. 



But it is not with the commercial relations of any route that our 





interest lies; but rather that by the construction of a ship-canal 

 by one or the other, one link will be securely forged in that chain of 

 waterways by which so much is to be gained in ways of defense of our 

 Atlantic seaboard. Perhaps these defensive advantages could not be 

 better set forth than by quoting in full the ' expert ' opinion of General 

 William P. CraighilL former chief of engineers, TJ. S. A. 



Notes upon the Military Considerations concerning a Proposed Ship- 

 Canal from the Delaware to the Chesapeake. 



It will be doubted by no one that a deep-water communication between the 

 two bays would be of vast importance in the contingency of war with a mari- 

 time nation. Such a connection would provide a means of concentrating the 

 floating defenses of the two bays, and besides this would render more secure 

 the communication between the naval stations of Philadelphia and Norfolk 

 and Washington. Vessels defending a port have two offices to perform, the one 



