Paxson—Early Railways of the Old Northwest. 265 
from 1861 to 1865. Hever before bad the function of the 
railway as a military agent been imagined or realized. The 
Northwest now was the possessor of a completed equipment, 
whose ultimate influences may as yet be only hinted at. The 
section was bound together, so that physical and intellectual 
unity were possible; the physical presence of the system pro¬ 
vided an alternative for moving the crops, when war closed the 
outlet of the Mississippi ; 2 it facilitated the mobilization and 
distribution of instruments of war. Had the secession move¬ 
ment of 1850 grown into war, none of these factors would have 
been effective, and success for separation could hardly have 
2 Fite, E. D., Social and Industrial Conditions in the North during 
the Civil War, (New York, Macmillan, 1910), ch. 3. 
