r connection with the West, the one prized
asset which the project had held out, and her Potomac Valley rivals
would, on this contracted plan, be in a particularly advantageous
position to surpass her. But the last blow was yet to come. Engineers
reported that a lateral canal connecting the Potomac and Chesapeake
Bay was not feasible. It was consequently of little moment whether the
Chesapeake and Ohio Canal could be built across the Alleghanies or not,
for, even if it could have been carried through the Great Plains or
to the Pacific, Baltimore was, for topographical reasons, out of the
running.

The men of Baltimore now gave one of the most striking illustrations of
spirit and pluck ever exhibited by the people of any city. They refused
to accept defeat. If engineering science held a means of overcoming the
natural disadvantages of their position, they were determined to adopt
that means, come what would of hardship, difficulty, and expenditure. If
roads and canals would not serve the city on the Chesapeake, what of the
railroad on which so many experiments were being made in England?

The idea of controlling the trade of the West by railroads was not new.
As early as February, 1825, certain astute Pennsylvanians had advocated
building a railroad to Pittsburgh instead of a canal, and in a memorial
to the Legislature they had set forth the theory that a railroad could
be built in one-third of the time and could be operated with one-third
of the number of employees required by a canal, that it would never
be frozen, and that its cost of construction would be less. But these
arguments did not influence the majority, who felt that to follow the
line of least resistance and to do as others had done would involve the
least hazard. But Baltimore, with her back against the wall, did not
have the alternative of a canal. It was a leap into the unknown for her
or commercial stagnation.

It is regrettable that, as Baltimore began to break this fresh track,
she should have had political as well as physical and mechanical
obstacles to overcome. The conquest of the natural difficulties alone
required superhuman effort and endurance. But Baltimore had also to
fight a miserable internecine warfare in her own State, for Maryland
immediately subscribed half a million to the canal as well as to the
newly formed Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. In rival pageants, both
companies broke ground on July 4, 1828, and the race to the Ohio was
on.