e want of these works, WOULD MORE THAN PAY
FOR THEIR CONSTRUCTION. Nor is this the only loss, but victories no
doubt have often been turned into defeats, for the want of proper
facilities for the movement of gunboats, of supplies, and munitions, and
the rapid concentration of troops and reenforcements.

3. The ability to obtain supplies, and coals, and vessels, from so many
points, and especially gunboats, where the coal, iron, and fluxes are in
justaposition, would hasten construction, and cheapen prices to the
Government.

The enormous naval and military power, gained by such works, would tend
greatly to prevent wars, foreign or domestic; or, if they did occur,
would enable us to conduct them with more economy and success. It is
said such vessels can be built on the lakes, and so they can, for lake
defence, but they would be liable to capture or destruction there,
before completed, by the enemy, and iron vessels, and iron-clads, could
not be constructed so cheaply, where there is neither coal nor iron, as
in regions like the Delaware, Susquehanna, Alleghany, and Ohio, where
these great articles abound, and can be used on the spot, with so much
economy.

It must be remembered, also, that, if these iron steamers and iron-clads
are constructed on the seaboard or the lakes, still, the iron and coal
for building them, and the coal for running them, could be supplied much
more cheaply, if these enlarged canals were finished. Besides, events
are now occurring, and may again, in our history, requiring the
immediate construction of hundreds of iron vessels, rams, iron-clads,
and mortar boats, calling for all the works on the seaboard, the lakes,
the Western rivers, and enlarged canals, to furnish, in time, the
requisite number. Rapid concentration of forces, naval and military, and
prompt movements, are among the greatest elements of success in war. It
will be conceded, that the ability to run gunboats, iron-clads, rams,
and mortar boats, through all our lakes, to and from them to all our
great rivers, and to connect from both, through such enlarged canals,
with the seaboard, and the Gulf, would vastly increase our naval and
military power.

Is it not clear, then, that if such a movement, with such resources and
communications, had been made, in sufficient force, the first year of
the war, so as to seize, or effectully blockade, all the rebel ports, to
occupy, by an upward and downward movement, the whole Mississippi and