Passing Of The Pony Express
When Edward Creighton completed the Pacific telegraph, and, on October
24, 1861, began sending messages; by wire from coast to coast, the
California Pony Express formally went out of existence. For over three
months since July 1, it had been paralleled by the daily overland stage;
yet the great efficiency of the semi-weekly pony line in offering quick
letter service won and retained its popularity to the very end of its
career. And this was in spite of the fact that for several weeks before
its discontinuance the pony men had ridden only between the ends of the
fast building telegraph which was constructed in two divisions - from
the Sierra Nevada Mountains and the Missouri River - at the same time,
the lines meeting near the Great Salt Lake.
The people of the far West strongly protested against the elimination of
the pony line service. Early in the winter of 1862 it became rumored -
perhaps wildly - that the Committee on Finance in the House of
Representatives had, for reasons of economy, stricken out the
appropriation for the continuance of the daily stage. Whereupon the
California legislature[41] addressed a set of joint resolutions to the
state's delegation in Congress, imploring not only that the Daily Stage
be retained, but that the Pony Express be reestablished. The stage was
continued but the pony line was never restored.
As a financial venture the Pony Express failed completely. To be sure,
its receipts were sometimes heavy, often aggregating one thousand
dollars in a single day. But the expenses, on the other hand, were
enormous. Although the line was so great a factor in the California
crisis, and in assisting the Federal Government to retain the Pacific
Coast, it was the irony of fate that Congress should never give any
direct relief or financial assistance to the pony service. So completely
was this organization neglected by the government, in so far as
extending financial aid was concerned, that its financial failure, as
foreseen by Messrs. Waddell and Majors, was certain from the beginning.
The War Department did issue army revolvers and cartridges to the
riders; and the Federal troops when available, could always be relied
upon to protect the line. Yet it was generally left to the initiative
and resourcefulness of the company to defend itself as best it could
when most seriously menaced by Indians. The apparent apathy regarding
this valuable branch of the postal service can of course be partially
excused from the fact that the Civil War was in 1861 absorbing all the
energies which the Government could summon to its command. And the war,
furthermore, was playing havoc with our national finances and piling up
a tremendous national debt, which made the extension of pecuniary relief
to quasi-private operations of this kind, no matter how useful they
were, a remote possibility.
That the stage lines received the assistance they did, under such
circumstances, is to be wondered at. Yet it must be borne in mind that
at the outset much of the political support necessary to secure
appropriations for overland mail routes was derived from southern
congressmen who were anxious for routes of communication with the West
coast, especially if such routes ran through the Southwest and linked
the cotton-growing states with California.
At the very beginning, it cost about one hundred thousand dollars to
equip the Pony Express line in those days a very considerable outlay of
capital for a private corporation. Besides the purchase of more than
four hundred high grade horses, it cost large sums of money to build and
equip stations at intervals of every ten or twelve miles throughout the
long route. The wages of eighty riders and about four hundred station
men, not to mention a score of Division Superintendents was a large
item.
Most of the grain used along the line between St. Joseph and Salt Lake
City was purchased in Iowa and Missouri and shipped in wagons at a
freight rate of from ten cents to twenty cents a pound. Grain and food
stuffs for use between Salt Lake City and the Sierras were usually
bought in Utah and hauled from two hundred to seven hundred miles to the
respective stations. Hay, gathered wherever wild grasses could be found
and cured, often had to be freighted hundreds of miles.
The operating expenses of the line aggregated about thirty thousand
dollars a month, which would alone have insured a deficit as the monthly
income never equaled that amount.
A conspicuous bill of expense which helped to bankrupt the enterprise
was for protection against the savages. While this should have been
furnished by the Government or the local state or territorial militia,
it was the fate of the Company to bear the brunt of one of the worst
Indian outbreaks of that decade.
Early in 1860, shortly after the Pony Express was started, the Pah-Utes,
mention of whom has already been made, began hostilities under their
renowned chieftain Old Winnemucca. The uprising spread; soon the
Bannocks and Shoshones espoused the cause of the Utes, and the entire
territory of Nevada, Eastern California and Oregon was aflame with
Indian revolt. Besides devastating many white settlements wherever they
found them, the Indians destroyed nearly every pony station between
California and Salt Lake, murdered numbers of employes, and ran off
scores of horses. For several weeks the service was paralyzed, and had
it been in the hands of faint-hearted men it would have been ended then
and there.
The climax came with the defeat and massacre of Major Ormsby's force of
about fifty men by the Utes at the battle of Pyramid Lake in western
Nevada. Help was finally sent in from a distance, and before the first
of June, eight hundred men, including three hundred regulars and a large
number of California and Nevada volunteers, had taken the field. This
formidable campaign finally served the double purpose of protecting the
Pony Express and stage line and in subduing the Indians in a primitive
and effective manner. Order was restored and the express service resumed
on June 19. Desultory outbreaks, of course, continued to menace the line
and all forms of transportation for months afterwards.
During this campaign, the local officers and employes of the express
gave valiant service. It was remarkable that they could restore the line
so quickly as they did. The total expense of this war to the Company was
$75,000, caused by ruined and stolen property and outlays for military
supplies incidental to the equipment of volunteers.
This onslaught, coming so soon after the enterprise had begun, and when
there was already so little encouragement that the line would ever pay
out financially, must have disheartened less courageous men than
Russell, Majors and Waddell and their associates. It is to their
everlasting credit that this group of men possessed the perseverance and
patriotic determination to continue the enterprise, even at a certain
loss, and in spite of Federal neglect, until the telegraph made it
possible to dispense with the fleet pony rider. Not only did they stick
bravely to their task of supplying a wonderful mail service to the
country, but they even improved their service, increasing it from a
weekly to a semi-weekly route, immediately after the disastrous raids of
June, 1860. Nor did they hesitate at the instigation of the Government a
little later to reduce their postal rates from five dollars to one
dollar a half ounce.
This condensed statement shows the approximate deficit which the
business incurred:
To equip the line .....................................$100,000
Maintenance at $30,000 per month (for sixteen months). $480,000
War with the Utes and allied tribes ................... $75,000
Sundry items ...........................................$45,000
Total ................................................ $700,000
The receipts are said to have been about $500,000 leaving a debit
balance of $200,000. That the Company changed hands in 1861 is not
surprising.
While the Pony Express failed in a financial way; it had served the
country faithfully and well. It had aided an imperiled Government,
helped to tranquilize and retain to the Union a giant commonwealth, and
it had shown the practicability of building a transcontinental railroad,
and keeping it open for traffic regardless of winter snows. All this
Pony Express did and more. It marked the supreme triumph of American
spirit, of God-fearing, man-defying American pluck and determination -
qualities which have always characterized the winning of the West.
[41] Senate Documents.