The Erie Canal was the ‘Big Ditch’ that gave the North the edge in the Civil War.
Slavery, states’ rights, tariffs; all were obvious factors that distinguished the North from the South. But other issues—such as the search for a major East-West transportation corridor—played substantial but less evident roles in hastening sectional separation in the United States.
From the Colonial era, American leaders had sought an expedient route from the East Coast through the Appalachian Mountains into the nation’s interior. George Washington pressed for such a development out of concern that any new states formed west of the mountains might secede if they were not economically connected to the East. He spent much of his own time and money to build a canal in the Potomac River valley, even though that waterway didn’t actually go through the mountains.
The Mohawk River in upstate New York, however, did form a natural pathway through the Appalachians. That river, in fact, was the only opening north of Alabama in the formidable mountain chain. But the river itself was not navigable; a canal through the valley that drew water from the Mohawk was needed.
The project was almost fathomlessly difficult and expensive, but construction began on July 4, 1817. Opponents derided Governor DeWitt Clinton’s project as “Clinton’s Folly,” but the jeers turned to cheers when the full stretch of the 363- mile-long Erie Canal, which ran from Buffalo to Albany on the Hudson River, opened for business on October 26, 1825.
The canal’s impact was immediate. New York City became a massive immigration center, as hundreds of thousands of Irish and German hopefuls came to New York, sailed up the Hudson and headed along the canal to Buffalo, From there, steamships could take them through the Great Lakes into the northwestern interior.
Consequently, the North’s population far outpaced the South’s, allowing the Union to fill up blue-coated armies while enough men could stay home to keep the industrial fires burning. The wealth and population-generating power of the canal made New York the “Empire State,” and it was little wonder that New York ultimately contributed the largest number of men to the Federal military.
Without the canal, the citizens of the Northwest would have had to depend on the Mississippi River to get their products to distant markets, which likely would have made them more sympathetic to the Confederacy. But because the canal linked the region to the Northeast, the West’s agricultural products went to feed New York and the other growing cities of the mid-Atlantic region. Conversely, products manufactured in Eastern cities were stuffed onto canal boats and sent west to eager families in Ohio, Indiana and their sister states. Ideas as well as goods flowed along the canal, and residents of the Northern regions became committed to the free-labor economy— and feared the expansion of slavery into their states as a threat to their well-being.
The Erie Canal set off a “canal fever” that further tied the regions together and helped to diversify the economy. And when railroads supplanted canals, the iron horses tended to expand the routes already made profitable by these waterways. When the Civil War began, hundreds of Union regiments would travel the West-to-East routes, pioneered by the Erie Canal, to fight for Father Abraham.
Originally published in the January 2010 issue of America’s Civil War. To subscribe, click here.
