The panic of 1857 and the increasing bitterness of the slavery question, followed by the outbreak of the Civil War, quite diverted the attention of the country from internal development. Railroad construction had already declined from 3,600 miles in 1856 to 1,837 miles in 1860. It fell to less than 700 miles in 1861. Brisk recovery set in after 1865; but it was not until 1868 that any rapid growth again ensued, or even a resumption of the activity of the preceding decade. All of the southern lines were prostrated; the north and south roads, like the Illinois Central system, stood still. The western railway net alone was slowly expanding. The Burlington grew from 168 miles in 1861 to over 400 miles in 1865; and the Chicago & Northwestern then succeeded in bridging the Mississippi. The Erie was still a more important route by fifty per cent., measured by ton mileage, than the New York Central; although its evil days, under the control of Jim Fiske and Jay Gould in 1866-1869, were about to begin. The Mecca of trade from the Atlantic ports was still St. Louis, although Chicago outgrew it during the decade. The predominant direction of trade is shown by the widespread public interest in New York in the newly opened Western & Atlantic railroad, which by a spur from the Erie road at Salamanca, was to shorten the time of shipment of goods from New York to Cincinnati from one month to a week. The commercial star of New York was steadily rising. A great aid thereto was, of course, the progress of consolidation among the connecting links to Chicago. Vanderbilt and Scott were busily engaged in this constructive work. The former had shifted his interest from steamboats to railroads, and became dominant in the Harlem and Hudson River roads in 1863-1864. Three years later he secured control of the New York Central from Albany west, and consolidated it with the Hudson River line. These trunk line roads, the Pennsylvania and the New York Central, both finally secured connections with Chicago in 1869. A channel for new through currents of trade merely awaited the growth of business.