242 



BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



clomiiiioii of the world ; and it was from neglecting roads and from 

 making mere tributaries of conquered provinces that Greece failed 

 of universal empire. 



In our dsij, too, the influence of rapid communication upon the 

 fortune of war has been quite as forcibly illustrated. But for the 

 railroad and steamboat, with the telegraph to convey orders from 

 one end of the Republic to the other, instrumentalities by us used 

 for tli(! first time in the world's history upon a broad field of war-- 

 fare, the twenty odd millions of the .North could not have been 

 hurled, as they were, against the eight or ten millions of the 

 South, and secession would have triumphed. Steam locomotion 

 and the telegraph, however, brought the twenty millions face to 

 face with the ten millions, without waste of time or energy in long 

 marches or in the transportation of war material. A few days 

 placed in the same camp in the valley of the Shenandoah, or on 

 the banks of the Cumberland, the regiment from Maine and the 

 regiment from Minnesota. Tlie troops wlio had defeated Hood 

 before Nashville were ready, almost in the twinkling of an eye, to 

 move in the assault upon far away Fort Fisher. ITence in a com- 

 plete calculation of forces, where each party was equally brave 

 and equally resolved, the last result could not be doubtful even 

 from the beginning. Two against one settled the question.' But 

 the South, having no ample precedents from which it could esti- 

 mate the influence of steam locomotion and of the telegraph upon 

 military operations, confidently counted upon waging the war of 

 secession much as the Revolutionary Fathers waged the war of 

 Independence against King George. If necessary they would re- 

 treat to the mountains, patiently wait and endure, while the North 

 exhausted itself in long and weary marches. Never did it occur 

 to them that the use of steam and electricity would prove equiva- 

 lent to the reduction of the country to, perhaps, one-twentieth of 

 its territorial size, with the military conditions of the Revolution — 

 ■that both i)arties could be brouglit face to face with very little 

 loss of original strength, even by the one who had come the 

 farthest. 



Bnit, to return from uiir digression, the Romans did not stop 

 with their great military avenues, nor witli their great avenues 

 specially constructed for the use of commerce ; nor should we, 

 .any more, stop with our railroads, as we appear inclined to do. 

 The Romans bestowed equal care, perhaps, though of course not 

 the same expense, upon their innumerable minor roads. Com- 



