From the routes surveyed, Secretary Davis recommended one as "the most practicable and economical route for a railroad from the Mississippi River to the Pacific Ocean." In all cases cost, speed of construction, and ease in operation needed to be ascertained and compared. The estimates guessed at by the parties in the field, and revised by the War Department, pointed to the southernmost as the most desirable route. To reach this conclusion it was necessary to accuse Governor Stevens of underestimating the cost of labor along his northern line; but the figures as taken were conclusive. On this thirty-second parallel route, declared the Secretary of War, "the progress of the work will be regulated chiefly by the speed with which cross-ties and rails can be delivered and laid.... The few difficult points ... would delay the work but an inconsiderable period.... The climate on this route is such as to cause less interruption to the work than on any other route. Not only is this the shortest and least costly route to the Pacific, but it is the shortest and cheapest route to San Francisco, the greatest commercial city on our western coast; while the aggregate length of railroad lines connecting it at its eastern terminus with the Atlantic and Gulf seaports is less than the aggregate connection with any other route." The Pacific railway surveys had been ordered as the only step which Congress in its situation of deadlock could take. Senator Gwin had long ago told his fears that the advocates of the disappointed routes would unite to hinder the fortunate one. To the South, as to Jefferson Davis, Secretary of War, the thirty-second parallel route was satisfactory; but there was as little chance of building a railway as there had been in 1850. In days to come, discussion of railways might be founded upon facts rather than hopes and fears, but either unanimity or compromise was in a fairly remote future. The overland traffic, which was assuming great volume as the surveys progressed, had yet nearly fifteen years before the railway should drive it out of existence. And no railway could even be started before war had removed one of the contesting sections from the floor of Congress. Yet in the years since Asa Whitney had begun his agitation the railways of the East had constantly expanded. The first bridge to cross the Mississippi was under construction when Davis reported in 1855. The Illinois Central was opened in 1856. When the Civil War began, the railway frontier had become coterminous with the agricultural frontier, and both were ready to span the gap which separated them from the Pacific. CHAPTER XIII THE UNION PACIFIC RAILROAD