Robert Gudmestad

Now, the railroad boom really begins in the Northeast, and the rivers in the Northeast are not as conducive to steamboats as they are in the Midwest of the Lower South.

But once you get a higher population density in those areas, and you get more economic capital in the United States and more investors,

Now you start building a network of railroads, first in the Midwest, states like Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, et cetera, Wisconsin.

And then you start getting a network in the South.

Because railroads, I hate to say it, in some ways were superior to steamboats because you weren't at the mercy of low water.

Right.

And also, you could build a railroad where you wanted it to go for the most part, not where the rivers already existed.

And so, railroads over time began to pull business away from steamboats.

And...

That gets accelerated by the Civil War.

Steamboats?

were cutting edge.

Well, ironclads were cutting edge technology between 1861 and 1865.

So you had steam ships.

Those were ocean going vessels.

And if people have heard of the Monitor versus the CSS Virginia, the first clash of ironclads in world history that took place just outside of Virginia, the waters of Virginia.

That's one example of

But on the Mississippi River system, you had the second largest Union fleet.

It had 127 boats.

And these are ironclads.