Existing comment:
Securing the Frontier:
The federal government's annual payment to overland mail contractors before the Civil War was $1.5 million. The most important of these was the Butterfield Overland Mail line, established in 1858.
Sen. Thomas Hart Benton of Missouri recognized the importance of the overland mail. He referred to the new cross-country service as the "skeleton of the future railroad."
I regard the inland postal system as a great instrumentality for maintaining, preserving, and extending this Union.
-- Senator William Seward, 1857 |