Rivers vs. Railroads

PETER ONUF: This is BackStory. I’m Peter Onuf.

ED AYERS: I’m Ed Ayers.

BRIAN BALOGH: And I’m Brian Balogh. Today we’re looking at the long, meandering history of the Mississippi River. We just heard about the near epidemic of steamboat accidents in the early days of river shipping. We’re going to take a closer look now at one of those accidents.

In 1857, the Rock Island Railroad Company was in need of a lawyer. They had just built a shiny new bridge over the Mississippi. The first bridge over the river, in fact, connected Davenport, Iowa with Rock Island, Illinois.

And almost immediately, a steamboat smashed into one of the bridge’s piers. The owners of the boat sued the railroad for damages. And so the railroad was on the lookout for someone to lead their defense, someone good.

ED AYERS: Abraham Lincoln is one of the best men to state a case forcibly and convincingly that I’ve ever heard. And his personality will appeal to any judge or jury.

PETER ONUF: By the late 1850s, Abraham Lincoln had argued plenty of suits for railroad companies. But something set this case apart. It pitted steam-powered trains against steam-powered boats, a battle between America’s two shipping powerhouses. One Chicago paper said the case would be “one of the most important ever to engage the attention of our courts.” And Lincoln signed one. Jess Engebretson has the story.

JESS ENGEBRETSON: It all started the year before. The steamboat Effie Afton, loaded with $1 million of cargo, slammed into one of the piers that supported the new bridge.

FEMALE SPEAKER: In her efforts to move away from the drawbridge pier, she swung around under the bridge, knocking down her chimneys and instantly setting the boat and bridge on fire.

JESS ENGEBRETSON: This is a report from an Iowan newspaper. Panicked passengers managed to crawl along a ladder onto the bridge. But the fire spread.

FEMALE SPEAKER: The bridge seemed burnt through, and fell into the river. The flames continued to rage with the greatest fury on the boat. There were a large number of cattle on board. And they were, with the exception of a cow, an ox, and a calf, burned up with the wreck.

JESS ENGEBRETSON: Amazingly, there were no human casualties. And maybe that stroke of luck helps explain the rivermen’s reaction.

FEMALE SPEAKER: There were about a dozen steamboats lying at the wharf. And they opened their whistles in a concert of music. It sounded like vast menagerie of elephants and hippopotamuses howling with rage.

JESS ENGEBRETSON: The steamboat captains weren’t howling with rage, though. In fact, they were thrilled that the bridge had burnt down. They were celebrating.

The people who lived along the river had hated the bridge since construction began three years earlier. They worried about what it meant for them. If eastern railroads could cross the Mississippi, would anything stop their spread? Would Americans even need the river trade a generation from now? One member of the Saint Louis Chamber of Commerce was not optimistic.

MALE SPEAKER: Here is the finest navigable stream in the world. And it is building up cities and villages every day on its banks. Suppose if this obstruction in our stream continues, where will we be in 10 years? Totally annihilated, our trade drawn off by the railroad.

JESS ENGEBRETSON: The case came to court in September 1857, a year and a half after the initial accident. And it hinged on one question. Was the bridge a material obstruction to river navigation? If so, it would have to go. Federal law guaranteed free navigation of the river.

More than 50 steamboat captains were on hand to testify for the prosecution. One by one, they lined up to explain how the bridge supports had created cross currents that made piloting a boat in that section nearly impossible.

MALE SPEAKER: This is a serious obstruction, a great obstruction, the worst obstruction on the Western waters.

JESS ENGEBRETSON: On the railroad side, Abraham Lincoln had lined up counter examples, locals who testified that the water ran smoothly between the supports, that there were no dangerous cross currents. One witness pointed out that in the 13 months since the bridge had been repaired, 958 boats had steamed passed it without any problem.

The testimony lasted two weeks. It took more than 1,000 pages to transcribe it all. And yet newspapers in Chicago and Saint Louis printed nearly the whole thing verbatim. And it’s not like it was a slow news week.

An American ship carrying 500 passengers and $1.6 million in gold had just sunk off the Carolina coast. But it was the Effie Afton trial that captured the country’s attention. Everybody was waiting to see whether the river or the railroads would come out on top.

MALE SPEAKER: There is a travel from east to west whose demands are not less important than those of the river.

JESS ENGEBRETSON: Here’s Lincoln, summing up the railroads position in his closing argument.

MALE SPEAKER: It is growing larger and larger, building up new countries with a rapidity never before seen in the history of the world. This current of travel has its rights, as well as that of North and South.

JESS ENGEBRETSON: The case ended in a hung jury, effectively a victory for the railroad company. No damages were awarded to the Effie Afton’s owners. It was a green light to other railroads. Go ahead and build those bridges. The courts won’t stop you.

So the railroads got to work. By the late 1860s, several new bridges spanned the Mississippi. The transcontinental was completed in 1869. And the steamboat trade entered its end game. Shipping goods by railroad was faster. And the railroad, unlike the river, never froze.

The old North-South trade axis had been flipped 90 degrees. And the rivermen’s worst fears had come true. The Mississippi was no longer the main route through America. It was just another obstacle on the relentless journey west.

ED AYERS: Jess Engebretson is one of our producers.