Empire express : building the first transcontinental railroad / David Haward Bain.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Bain, David Haward.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Railroads--United States--History.

Railroads.

United States.

History.

West (U.S.)--History.

West (U.S.).

Physical Description:

xiii, 797 pages, 32 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations, maps ; 25 cm

Place of Publication:

New York : Viking, [1999]

Summary:

It was the dawn of the Gilded Age; it welded the new western United States to the East with twin bands of iron; it opened a path for settlement and exploitation, utterly changing the West as it doomed the Plains Indian culture. After the Civil War, it was the century's most transformative chain of events. Reginning in 1842 with a visionary's dream to span the continent with a single railroad line, Empire Express captures three dramatic decades in which the United States effectively doubled in size, fought three wars, and began to discover a new national identity. Culminating in the driving of the Golden Spike in the Utah desert in 1869, which touched off a frenzy of celebration, the narrative ends in 1873 in Washington under the Capitol rotunda, with the crushing fall of a popular politician and the exposure of a powerful, hidden railroad lobby--a scandal, which, for half a year, dominated the press and the country's imagination.

Contents:

Part I 1845-57: A Procession of Dreamers

1 "For All the Human Family" 3

2 "Who Can Oppose Such a Work?" 16

3 "I Must Walk Toward Oregon" 26

4 "The Great Object for Which We Were Created" 37

5 "An Uninhabited and Dreary Waste" 47

Part II 1860-61: Union, Disunion, Incorporation

6 "Raise the Money and I Will Build Your Road" 57

7 "There Comes Crazy Judah" 67

8 "The Marks Left by the Donner Party" 78

9 "The Most Difficult Country Ever Conceived" 85

10 "We Have Drawn the Elephant" 104

Part III 1863: Last of the Dreamers

11 "Speculation Is as Fatal to It as Secession" 122

12 "I Have Had a Big Row and Fight" 131

Part IV 1864:Struggle for Momentum

13 "First Dictator of the Railroad World" 151

14 "Dancing with a Whirlwind" 165

15 "Trustees of the Bounty of Congress" 181

Part V 1865: The Losses Mount

16 "The Great Cloud Darkening the Land" 205

17 "If We Can Save Our Scalps" 219

18 "I Hardly Expect to Live to See It Completed" 234

Part VI 1866: Eyeing the Main Chance

19 "Vexation, Trouble, and Continual Hindrance" 252

20 "The Napoleon of Railways" 261

21 "We Swarmed the Mountains with Men" 281

22 "Until They Are Severely Punished" 301

Part VII 1867: Hell on Wheels

23 "Nitroglycerine Tells" 315

24 "Our Future Power and Influence" 330

25 "They All Died in Their Boots" 360

26 "There Are Only Five of Us" 391

Part VIII 1868: Going for Broke

27 "More Hungry Men in Congress" 435

28 "Bring On Your Eight Thousand Men" 469

29 "We Are in a Terrible Sweat" 506

30 "A Man for Breakfast Every Morning" 550

Part IX 1869: Battleground and Meeting Ground

31 "A Resistless Power" 594

32 "We Have Got Done Praying" 645

Part X 1872-73: Scandals, Scapegoats, and Dodgers

Epilogue: "Trial of the Innocents" 675.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [759]-777) and index.

ISBN:

067080889X