solutions to the
state's delegation in Congress, imploring not only that the Daily Stage
be retained, but that the Pony Express be reestablished. The stage was
continued but the pony line was never restored.

As a financial venture the Pony Express failed completely. To be sure,
its receipts were sometimes heavy, often aggregating one thousand
dollars in a single day. But the expenses, on the other hand, were
enormous. Although the line was so great a factor in the California
crisis, and in assisting the Federal Government to retain the Pacific
Coast, it was the irony of fate that Congress should never give any
direct relief or financial assistance to the pony service. So completely
was this organization neglected by the government, in so far as
extending financial aid was concerned, that its financial failure, as
foreseen by Messrs. Waddell and Majors, was certain from the beginning.
The War Department did issue army revolvers and cartridges to the
riders; and the Federal troops when available, could always be relied
upon to protect the line. Yet it was generally left to the initiative
and resourcefulness of the company to defend itself as best it could
when most seriously menaced by Indians. The apparent apathy regarding
this valuable branch of the postal service can of course be partially
excused from the fact that the Civil War was in 1861 absorbing all the
energies which the Government could summon to its command. And the war,
furthermore, was playing havoc with our national finances and piling up
a tremendous national debt, which made the extension of pecuniary relief
to quasi-private operations of this kind, no matter how useful they
were, a remote possibility.

That the stage lines received the assistance they did, under such
circumstances, is to be wondered at. Yet it must be borne in mind that
at the outset much of the political support necessary to secure
appropriations for overland mail routes was derived from southern
congressmen who were anxious for routes of communication with the West
coast, especially if such routes ran through the Southwest and linked
the cotton-growing states with California.

At the very beginning, it cost about one hundred thousand dollars to
equip the Pony Express line in those days a very considerable outlay of
capital for a private corporation. Besides the purchase of more than
four hundred high grade horses, it cost large sums of money to build and
equip stations at intervals