LAYING OF THE ATLANTIC CABLE
Field, Cyrus W.
    

1866 
	Twenty-two years after the completion of the first telegraph line - between 
Washington and Baltimore, in 1844 - came the greatest triumph in the history of 
telegraphy.  The first successful laying of an ocean telegraph, the Atlantic cable to 
1866, marked the beginning of a new era in human intercourse, for the first 
achievement has been followed by others of like magnitude in various parts of the 
world.  It is said that the first experiments for demonstrating the practicability of a 
submarine telegraph were made by Samuel F. B. Morse, under whose direction the 
Washington and Baltimore telegraph line was opened.

	The successful demonstration of submarine telegraphy was made through the 
work of Cyrus W. Field and his associates.  He was the son of David Dudley Field, 
who also had several other sons distinguished in American history. Cyrus W. Field was 
born in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, in 1819.  In 1853 he retired from business in New 
York with a fortune, and devoted himself to the enterprise that gave him his fame.  
About this time Peter Cooper, Moses Taylor, Marshall O. Roberts, Chandler White, 
Robert W. Lowber, and David Dudley Field, brother of Cyrus, met at the residence of 
the last-named on "four successive evenings, and, around a table covered with maps 
and charts and plans and estimates, considered a project to extend a line of telegraph 
from Nova Scotia to St. John's, in Newfoundland, thence to be carried across the 
ocean." The undertaking appeared to the projectors to be much less difficult than it 
actually proved.  They thought it might be accomplished from New York to St. John's 
"in a few months," but it took two years and a half to lay this line.  Few persons had 
any faith in the scheme, and the money for this great initial step was all furnished by 
Field and his friends mentioned above.

	The development and carrying out of the enterprise to its transatlantic completion 
are here related in the words of its leading promoter, to whom the chief honors of this 
inestimable service to mankind are universally ascribed. The account was written in 
1866.

	At first the Atlantic-cable project was wholly an American enterprise. It was 
begun, and for two years and a half was carried on, solely by American capital.  Our 
brethren across the sea did not even know what we were doing away in the forests of 
Newfoundland.  Our little company raised and expended over a million and a quarter of 
dollars before an Englishman paid a single pound sterling.  Our only support outside 
was in the liberal character and steady friendship of the Government of Newfoundland, 
for which we were greatly indebted to Mr. E. M. Archibald, then Attorney-General of 
that colony.  In preparing for an ocean cable, the first soundings across the Atlantic 
were made by American officers in American ships.  Our scientific men - Morse, 
Henry, Bache, and Maury - had taken great interest in the subject.  The United States 
ship Dolphin discovered the telegraphic plateau as early as 1853, and the United 
States ship Arctic sounded across from Newfoundland to Ireland in 1856, a year 
before Her Majesty's ship Cyclops, under command of Captain Dayman, went over the 
same course.  This I state, not to take aught from the just praise of England, but simply 
to vindicate the truth of history.

	It was not till 1856 that the enterprise had any existence in England. In that 
summer I went to London, and there, with Mr. John W. Brett, Mr. (now Sir) Charles 
Bright, and Doctor Whitehouse, organized the Atlantic Telegraph Company.  Science 
had begun to contemplate the necessity of such an enterprise; and the great Faraday 
cheered us with his lofty enthusiasm. Then, for the first time, was enlisted the support 
of English capitalists; and then the British Government began that generous course 
which it has continued ever since - offering us ships to complete soundings across the 
Atlantic and to assist in laying the cable, and an annual subsidy for the transmission of 
messages.  The expedition of 1857 and the two expeditions of 1858 were joint 
enterprises, in which the Niagara and the Susquehanna took part with the 
Agamemnon, the Leopard, the Gordon, and the Valorous; and the officers of both 
navies worked with generous rivalry for the same great object.  The capital - except 
one-quarter which was taken by myself - was subscribed wholly in Great Britain.  The 
directors were almost all English bankers and merchants, though among them was 
one gentleman whom we are proud to call an American - Mr. George Peabody, a 
name honored in two countries, since he has showed his princely benefactions upon 
both.

	After two unsuccessful attempts, on the third trial we gained a brief success.  The 
cable was laid, and for four weeks it worked - though never very brilliantly.  It spoke, 
though only in broken sentences.  But while it lasted no less than four hundred 
messages went sent across the Atlantic. Great was the enthusiasm it excited.  It was a 
new thing under the sun, and for a few weeks the public went wild over it.  Of course, 
when it stopped, the reaction was very great.  People grew dumb and suspicious.  
Some thought it was all a hoax; and many were quite sure that it never had worked at 
all. That kind of odium, we have had to endure for eight years, till now, I trust, we have 
at last silenced the unbelievers.

	After the failure of 1858 came our darkest days.  When a thing is dead, it is hard 
to galvanize it into life.  It is more difficult to revive an old enterprise than to start a new 
one.  The freshness and novelty are gone, and the feeling of disappointment 
discourages further effort.

	Other causes delayed a new attempt.  The United States had become involved in 
a tremendous war; and while the nation was struggling for life, it had no time to spend 
in foreign enterprises.  But in England the project was still kept alive.  The Atlantic 
Telegraph Company kept up its organization. It had a noble body of directors, who had 
faith in the enterprise and looked beyond its present low estate to ultimate success.  
Our chairman, the Right Honorable James Stuart Wortley, did not join us in the hour of 
victory, but in what seemed the hour of despair, after the failure of 1858, and he has 
been a steady support through all these years.

	All this time the science of submarine telegraphy was making progress. The 
British Government appointed a commission to investigate the whole subject.  It was 
composed of eminent scientific men and practical engineers - Galton, Wheatstone, 
Fairbairn, Bidder, Varley, and Latimer and Edwin Clark - with the secretary of the 
company, Mr. Saward - names to be held in honor in connection with his enterprise, 
along with those of other English engineers, such as Stephenson and Brunel and 
Whitworth and Penn and Lloyd and Joshua Field, who gave time and thought and 
labor freely to this enterprise, refusing all compensation.  This commission sat for 
nearly two years, and spent many thousands of pounds in experiments.  The result 
was a clear conviction in every mind that it was possible to lay a telegraph across the 
Atlantic. Science was also being all the while applied to practice. Submarine cables 
were laid in different seas - in the Mediterranean, in the Red Sea, and the Persian 
Gulf.  The last was laid by my friend Sir Charles Bright.

	When the scientific and engineering problems were solved, we took heart again 
and began to prepare for a fresh attempt.  This was in 1863.  In the United States - 
though the war was still raging - I went from city to city, holding meetings and trying to 
raise capital, but with poor success.  Men came and listened and said it was all very 
fine and hoped I would succeed, but did noting.  In one of the cities they gave me a 
large meeting and passed some beautiful resolutions and appointed a committee of 
"solid men" to canvass the city, but I did not get a solitary subscriber!  In New York city 
I did better, though money came by the hardest effort.  By personal solicitations, 
encouraged by good friends, I succeeded in raising three hundred fifty thousand 
dollars.  Since not many had faith, I must present one example to the contrary, though 
it was not till a year later.  When almost all deemed it a hopeless scheme, one 
gentleman came to me and purchased stock of the Atlantic Telegraph Company to the 
amount of one hundred thousand dollars.  That was Mr. Loring Andrews.  But at the 
time I speak of, it was plain that our main hope must be in England, and I went to 
London.  There, too, it dragged heavily. There was a profound discouragement.  Many 
had lost before, and were not willing to throw more money into the sea.  We needed 
six hundred thousand pounds, and with our utmost efforts we had raised less than half, 
and there the enterprise stood in a deadlock.  It was plain that we must have help from 
some new quarter.  I looked around to find a man who had broad shoulders and could 
carry a heavy load and who would be a giant in the cause.

	At this time I was introduced to a gentleman, whom I would hold up to the 
American public as a specimen of a great-hearted Englishman, Mr. Thomas Brassey.  
In London he is known as one of the men who have made British enterprise and British 
capital felt in all parts of the earth.  I went to see him, though with fear and trembling.  
He received me kindly, but put me through such an examination as I never had before.  
I thought I was in the witness-box.  He asked me every possible question, but my 
answers satisfied him, and he ended by saying it was an enterprise that should be 
carried out, and that he would be one of ten men to furnish the money to do it.  This 
was a pledge of sixty thousand pounds sterling!  Encouraged by this noble offer, I 
looked around to find another such man, though it was almost like trying to find two 
Wellingtons.  But he was found in Mr. John Pender, of Manchester.  I went to his office 
in London one day, and we walked together to the House of Commons, and before we 
got there he said he would take an equal share with Mr. Brassey.

	The action of these two gentlemen was a turning-point in the history of our 
enterprise; for it led shortly after to a union of the well-known firm of Glass, Elliot and 
Company with the Guttapercha Company, making of the two one concern known at 
The Telegraph Construction and Maintenance Company, which included not only Mr. 
Brassey and Mr. Pender, but other men of great wealth, such as Mr. George Elliot and 
Mr. Barclay of London, and Mr. Henry Bewley of Dublin, and which, thus reenforced 
with immense capital, took up the whole enterprise in its strong arms.  We needed, I 
have said, six hundred thousand pounds, and with all our efforts in England and 
America we raised only two hundred eighty-five thousand pounds.  This new company 
now came forward, and offered to take the whole remaining three hundred fifteen 
thousand pounds, besides one hundred thousand pounds of the bonds, and to make 
its own profits contingent on success.  Mr. Richard A. Glass was made managing 
director and gave energy and vigor to all its departments, being admirably seconded 
by the secretary, Mr. Shuter.

	A few days after, half a dozen gentlemen joined together and bought the Great 
Eastern to lay the cable; and at the head of this company was placed Mr. Daniel 
Gooch, a member of Parliament, and chairman of the great Western Railway, who was 
with us in both the expeditions which followed.  His son, Mr. Charles Gooch, a 
volunteer in the service, worked faithfully on board the Great Eastern.

	The good-fortune which favored us in our ship favored us also in our 
commander, Captain Anderson, who was for years in the Cunard Line.  How well he 
did his part in two expeditions the result has proved, and it was just that a mark of 
royal favor should fall on that manly head.  Thus organized, the work of making a new 
Atlantic cable was begun.  The core was prepared with infinite care, under the able 
superintendence of Mr. Chatterton and Mr. Willoughby Smith, and the whole was 
completed in about eight months.  As fast as ready, it was taken on board the Great 
Eastern and coiled in three enormous tanks, and on July 15, 1865, the ship sailed.

	I will not stop to tell the story of that expedition.  For a week all went well; we had 
paid out one thousand two hundred miles of cable, and had only six hundred miles 
farther to go, when, hauling in the cable to remedy a fault, it parted and went to the 
bottom.  That day I never can forget - how men paced the deck in despair, looking out 
on the broad sea that had swallowed up their hopes; and then how the brave Canning 
for nine days and nights dragged the bottom of the ocean for our lost treasure, and, 
though he grappled it three times, failed to bring it to the surface.  The story of that 
expedition, as written by Doctor Russell, who was on board the Great Eastern, is one 
of the most marvellous chapters in the whole history of modern enterprise.  We 
returned to England defeated, yet full of resolution to begin the battle anew.  Measures 
were at once taken to make a second cable and fit out a new expedition; and with that 
assurance I came home to New York in the autumn.

	In December I went back again, when lo! all our hopes had sunk to nothing.  The 
Attorney-General of England had given his written opinion that we had no legal right, 
without a special act of Parliament (which could not be obtained under a year), to issue 
the new 12 per cent. shares, on which we relied to raise our capital.  This was a 
terrible blow.  The works were at once stopped, and the money which had been paid in 
returned to the subscribers.  Such was the state of things when I reached London on 
December 24, 1865, and the next day was not a "merry" Christmas to me.  But it was 
an inexpressible comfort to have the counsel of such men as Sir Daniel Gooch and Sir 
Richard A. Glass, and to hear stout-hearted Mr. Brassey tell us to go ahead, and, if 
need were, he would put down sixty thousand pounds more.  It was finally concluded 
that the best course was to organize a new company, which should assume the work; 
and so originated the Anglo-American Telegraph Company.  It was formed by ten 
gentlemen who met around a table in London and put down ten thousand pounds 
apiece.  The great Telegraph Construction and maintenance Company, undaunted by 
the failure of last year, answered us with a subscription of one hundred thousand 
pounds.  Soon after the books were opened to the public, through the eminent banking 
house of J. S. Morgan and Company, and in fourteen days we had raised the six 
hundred thousand pounds. Then the work began again, and went on with speed.  
Never was greater energy infused into any enterprise.  It was only the last day of 
March that the new company was formed, and it was registered as a company the next 
day; and yet such was the vigor and despatch that in five months from that day the 
cable had been manufactured, shipped on the Great Eastern, stretched across the 
Atlantic, and was sending messages, literally swift as lightning, from continent to 
continent.

	Yet this was not "a lucky hit" - a fine run across the ocean in calm weather.  It 
was the worst weather I ever knew at that season of the year. The despatch that 
appeared in the New York papers read, "The weather has been most pleasant." I wrote 
it "unpleasant." We had fogs and storms almost the whole way.  Our success was the 
result of the highest science combined with practical experience.  Everything was 
perfectly organized to the minutes detail.  We had on board an admirable staff of 
officers, such men as Halpin and Beckwith; engineers long used to this business, such 
as Canning and Clifford and Temple; and electricians such as Professor Thomson of 
Glasgow and Willoughby Smith and Laws.  Mr. C. F. Varley, our companion of the year 
before, remained with Sir Richard Glass at Valentia, to keep watch at that end of the 
line, and Mr. Latimer Clark, who was to test the cable when done.

	But our work was not over.  After landing the cable safely at Newfoundland, we 
had another task - to return to mid-ocean and recover that lost in the expedition of last 
year.  This achievement has perhaps excited more surprise than the other.  Many even 
now "don't understand it," and every day I am asked "How it was done"?  Well, it does 
seem rather difficult to fish for a jewel at the bottom of the ocean two and a half miles 
deep.  But it is not so very difficult when you know how.  You may be sure we did not 
go fishing at random, nor was our success mere "luck." It was the triumph of the 
highest nautical and engineering skill.  We had four ships, and on board of them some 
of the best seamen in England - men who knew the ocean as a hunter knows every 
trail in the forest.  There was Captain Moriarty, who was in the Agamemnon in 1857-
1858.  He was in the Great Eastern in 1865, and saw the cable when it broke; and he 
and Captain Anderson at once took observations so exact that they could go right to 
the spot.  After finding it, they marked the line of the cable by buoys; for fogs would 
come, and shut out sun and stars, so that no man could take an observation.

	These buoys were anchored a few miles apart, they were numbered, and each 
had a flagstaff on it so that it could be seen by day, and a lantern by night. Having thus 
taken our bearings, we stood off three or four miles, so as to come broadside on, and 
then, casting over the grapnel, drifted slowly down upon it, dragging the bottom of the 
ocean as we went.  At first it was a little awkward to fish in such deep water, but our 
men got used to it, and soon could cast a grapnel almost as straight as an old whaler 
throws a harpoon.  Our fishing-line was of formidable size.  It was made of rope, 
twisted with wires of steel, so as to bear a strain of thirty tons.  It took about two hours 
for the grapnel to reach bottom, but we could tell when it struck.  I often went to the 
bow, and sat on the rope, and could feel by the quiver that the grapnel was dragging 
on the bottom two miles under us.  But it was a very slow business.  We had storms 
and calms and fogs and squalls.

	Still we worked on day after day.  Once, on August 17th, we got the cable up, 
and had it in full sight for five minutes, a long, slimy monster, fresh from the ooze of the 
ocean's bed, but our men began to cheer so wildly that it seemed to be frightened and 
suddenly broke away and went down into the sea. This accident kept us at work two 
weeks longer, but, finally, on the last night of August we caught it.  We had cast the 
grapnel thirty times. It was a little before midnight on Friday night that we hooked the 
cable, and it was a little after midnight Sunday morning when we got it on board.  What 
was the anxiety of those twenty-six hours!  The strain on every man was like the strain 
on the cable itself.  When finally it appeared, it was midnight; the lights of the ship, and 
those in the boats around our bows, as they flashed in the faces of the men, showed 
them eagerly watching for the cable to appear on the water.

	At length it was brought to the surface.  All who were allowed to approach 
crowded forward to see it.  Yet not a word was spoken save by the officers in 
command who were heard giving orders.  All felt as if life and death hung on the issue.  
It was only when the cable was brought over the bow and on to the deck that men 
dared to breathe.  Even then they hardly believed their eyes.  Some crept toward it to 
feel of it, to be sure it was there. Then we carried it along to the electricians' room, to 
see if our long-sought-for treasure was alive or dead.  A few minutes of suspense, and 
a flash told of the lightning current again set free.  Then did the feeling long pent up 
burst forth.  Some turned away their heads and wept.  Others broke into cheers, and 
the cry ran from man to man, and was heard down in the engine-rooms, deck below 
deck, and from the boats on the water, and the other ships, while rockets lighted the 
darkness of the sea.  Then with thankful hearts we turned our faces again to the west.

	But soon the wind rose, and for thirty-six hours we were exposed to all the 
dangers of a storm on the Atlantic.  Yet in the very height and fury of the gale, as I sat 
in the electricians' room, a flash of light came up from the deep, which having crossed 
to Ireland, came back to me in mid-ocean, telling that those so dear to me, whom I had 
left on the banks of the Hudson, were well and following us with their wishes and their 
prayers.  This was like a whisper of God from the sea, bidding me keep heart and 
hope.  The Great Eastern bore herself proudly through the storm, as if she knew that 
the vital cord, which was to join two hemispheres, hung at her stern; and so, on 
Saturday, September 7th, we brought our second cable safely to the shore.

	But the Great Eastern did not make her voyage alone.  Three other ships 
attended her across the ocean - the Albany, the Medway, and the Terrible - the officers 
of all of which exerted themselves to the utmost.  The Queen of England showed her 
appreciation of the services of some of those more prominent in the expedition, but if it 
had been possible to do justice to all, honors would have been bestowed upon many 
others.  If this cannot be, at least their names live in the history of this enterprise, with 
which they will be forever associated.

	When I think of them all, not only of those on the Great Eastern, but of Captain 
Commerill of the Terrible, and his first officer, Mr. Curtis (who with their ship came with 
us not only to Heart's Content, but afterward to the Gulf of St. Lawrence, to help in 
laying the new cable), and of the officers of the other ship, my heart is full.  Better men 
never trod a deck. If I do not name them all it is because they are too many, their ranks 
are too full of glory. Even the sailors caught the enthusiasm of the enterprise, and were 
eager to share in the honor of the achievement.  Brave, stalwart men they were, at 
home on the ocean and in the storm, of that sort that have carried the flag of England 
around the globe.  I see them now as they dragged the shore end up the beach at 
Heart's Content, hugging it in their brawny arms as if it were a shipwrecked child whom 
they had rescued from the dangers of the sea.

The Victory ^1 

	[Footnote 1: When Samuel F. B. Morse died, in 1872, memorial services were 
held in many cities, and full reports of the meetings were printed in a handsome 
volume, by order of Congress.  At Concord, N. H., were displayed portraits that Morse 
had painted when, a young artist, he had sojourned there, and this poem was a part of 
the memorial exercises. - Ed.]

Rossiter Johnson 

     When Man, in his Maker's image, came
          To be the lord of the new-made earth,
     To conquer its forests, its beasts to tame,
          To gather its treasures and know their worth,
     All readily granted his power and place
          Save the Ocean, the Mountain, and Time, and Space;
     And these four sneered at his puny frame,
          And made of his lordship a theme for mirth.

     Whole ages passed while his flocks he tended,
          And delved and dreamed, as the years went by
     Till there came an age when his genius splendid
          Had bridged the river and sailed the sky,
     And raised the dome that defied the storm,
          And mastered the beauties of color and form;
     But his power was lost, his dominion ended,
          Where Time, Space, Mountain, or Sea was nigh.

     The Mountains rose in their grim inertness
          Between the peoples, and made them strange,
     Save as in moments of pride or pertness
          They climbed the ridge of their native range,
     And, looking down on the tribe below,
          Saw nothing there but a deadly foe,
     Heard only a war-cry, long and shrill,
          In echoes leaping from hill to hill.

     The Ocean rolled in its mighty splendor,
          Washing the slowly wasting shore,
     And the voices of nations, fierce or tender,
          Lost themselves in its endless roar.
     With frail ships launched on its treacherous surge,
          And sad eyes fixed on its far blue verge,
     Man's hold of life seemed brittle and slender,
          And the Sea his master forevermore.

     And Space and Time brought their huge dimensions
          To separate man from his brother man,
     And sowed between them a thousand dissensions,
          That ripened in hatred and caste and clan.
     So Sea and Mountain and Time and Space
          Laughed again in his lordship's face,
     And bade him blush for his weak inventions
          And the narrow round his achievements ran.

     But one morning he made him a slender wire,
          As an artist's vision took life and form,
     While he drew from heaven the strange, fierce fire
          That reddens the edge of the midnight storm;
     And he carried it over the Mountain's crest,
          And dropped it into the Ocean's breast;
     And Science proclaimed, from shore to shore,
          That Time and Space ruled man no more.

     Then the brotherhood lost on Shinar's plain
          Came back to the peoples of earth again.
     "Be one!" sighed the Mountain, and shrank away.
          "Be one!" murmured Ocean, in dashes of spray.
     "Be one!" said Space; "I forbid no more."
          "Be one!" echoed Time, "till my years are o'er."
     "We are one!" said the nations, as hand met hand
          In a thrill electric from land to land.

