Great Fortunes: James B. Eads Part 2
In 1842, being then twenty-two years old, and having saved a moderate sum of money, he formed a copartnership with Messrs. Case & Nelson, boat builders, of St. Louis, for the purpose of recovering steamboats and their cargoes which had been sunk or wrecked in the Mississippi. Accidents of this kind were then very common in those waters, and the business bade fair to be very profitable. The enterprise succeeded better than had been expected, and the operations of the wrecking company extended from Galena, Illinois, to the Balize, and into many of the tributaries of the great river. The parties interested in the scheme realized a handsome profit on their investments. Mr. Eads was the practical man of the concern, and worked hard to establish it upon a successful footing. In 1845 he sold out his interest in the company, and established a glass manufactory in St. Louis. This was the first enterprise of the kind ever attempted west of the Mississippi. Two years later, in 1847, he organized a new company for the purpose of recovering boats and cargoes lost in the Mississippi and its tributaries. This company started with a capital of fifteen hundred dollars. It was slow work at first, but a steady improvement was made every year, and in 1857, just ten years from the date of their organization, the property of the firm was valued at more than half a million of dollars. During the winter of 1856-’57, Mr. Eads laid before Congress a formal proposition to remove the obstructions from the western rivers and keep them open for a term of years, upon payment of a reasonable sum by the General Government. Had this proposition been accepted, the benefits thereby secured to all who were engaged in the navigation of those rivers would have been very great. A bill was reported in Congress authorizing the acceptance of Mr. Eads’ offer, but was defeated through the influence of the Senators from Mississippi (Jefferson Davis) and Louisiana (J.P. Benjamin).
In 1857, Mr. Eads was compelled, on account of ill-health, to retire from business. He had earned a handsome fortune by his industry and enterprise, and could well afford to rest for a short time, preparatory, as it afterward proved, to the most important part of his whole career.
When the secession troubles began to agitate the country, toward the close of the year 1860, Mr. Eads cast the weight of his private and public influence on the side of the Union. He felt that the war, if it should come, would be a very serious affair for the West, as the prosperity of that section depends largely upon the absolute freedom of the navigation of the Mississippi. The Confederates well understood this, and prepared from the first to close the great river until their independence should be acknowledged by the General Government. Dr. Boynton, in his “History of the United States Navy During the Rebellion,” thus describes the condition of affairs in the West, a proper understanding of which will show the reader the importance of the services subsequently rendered by Mr. Eads:
The main features of the rebel plan of war in the West were to seize and hold Missouri, and, as a consequence, Kansas and Nebraska, and thus threaten or invade the free States of the North-west from that point; to hold Kentucky and Tennessee, and, if possible, to cross the Ohio, and make the Northern States the theater of the war; or, in case they should be unable to invade the North, to maintain their battle line unbroken along the Ohio and through Missouri; to keep the great rivers closed, and thus holding back the North, and being secure within their own territory, at length compel the recognition of their independence. They certainly presented to the North a most formidable front, a line of defenses which was indeed impregnable to any means of assault which the Government at first possessed. No army could be moved into Tennessee by land alone, because the line of communication with a Northern base could not be held secure, and a defeat far from the Ohio would be the destruction of an army, and open the road for an invasion of Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio, and the destruction of their cities.
