Download Historian Stephen Ambrose Discusses the Building of

Historian Stephen Ambrose Discusses the Building of the
Transcontinental Railroad
https://archivesbb.nbclearn.com/portal/site/BbHigherEd/browse/?cuecard=439
General Information
Source:
Creator:
NBC Today Show
Matt Lauer
Resource Type:
Copyright:
Event Date:
Air/Publish Date:
1862 - 1869
08/30/2000
Copyright Date:
Clip Length
Video News Report
NBCUniversal Media,
LLC.
2000
00:04:37
Description
Stephen Ambrose says that the completion of the Transcontinental Railroad in 1868 was the great
achievement of the 19th century.
Keywords
Transcontinental Railroad, Construction, Industrial Revolution, Transportation, Communications, Central
Pacific, Union Pacific, Development of the West, Democracy, Reconstruction, Civil War, Veterans,
Union, Confederacy, Indians, Competition, Telegraph
Citation
MLA
"Historian Stephen Ambrose Discusses the Building of the Transcontinental Railroad." Matt Lauer,
correspondent. NBC Today Show. NBCUniversal Media. 30 Aug. 2000. NBC Learn. Web. 13 February
2017
© 2008-2017 NBCUniversal Media, LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Page 1 of 4
APA
Lauer, M. (Reporter). 2000, August 30. Historian Stephen Ambrose Discusses the Building of the
Transcontinental Railroad. [Television series episode]. NBC Today Show. Retrieved from
https://archivesbb.nbclearn.com/portal/site/BbHigherEd/browse/?cuecard=439
CHICAGO MANUAL OF STYLE
"Historian Stephen Ambrose Discusses the Building of the Transcontinental Railroad" NBC Today Show,
New York, NY: NBC Universal, 08/30/2000. Accessed Mon Feb 13 2017 from NBC Learn:
https://archivesbb.nbclearn.com/portal/site/BbHigherEd/browse/?cuecard=439
Transcript
Historian Stephen Ambrose Discusses the Building of the Transcontinental Railroad
STEPHEN AMBROSE: The first thing that we did in the nineteenth century was win the Civil War. The
second thing was to abolish slavery. The third thing was to build the Transcontinental Railroad. And it
stands as the great achievement of the 19th century that brought in so much that wouldn't have been there
otherwise, such as, with the telegraph beside it, the national stock market. Such as, the beginning of the
industrial revolution from supplying all of these trains. Such as, getting from New York to California, not
in a month or two, at a cost of $1,000 or $2,000 or $3,000. Seven days. So fast they used to say, “You
don't even have time to take a bath.”
MATT LAUER: The, the whole...
AMBROSE: And the cost was a hundred bucks. And that's what the railroad did. It brought us together,
East and West.
LAUER: The whole project was bandied about and started and hashed out just before the Civil War.
AMBROSE: Certainly.
LAUER: And it went through the Civil War and after the Civil War, and yet despite all that turmoil and
disruption, it was completed on time.
AMBROSE: Way ahead of time. The Congress gave them until 1876 to complete it, and they were done
in 1869, and everybody was amazed at that. But the Congress had the wisdom – it's hard to think of
Congress having wisdom, but it did. It set it up as a race. The railroad, the Central Pacific building from
Sacramento east, and the Union Pacific building from Omaha west would get land grants, every alternate
section, and government loans and bonds for every mile of track built, and the winner gets the most. And
so they were in competition with each other.
LAUER: One of the things you talk about in the book that never crossed my mind is that the fact that we
were and are a democracy played an enormous role in the completion of this project.
AMBROSE: Absolutely, from beginning to end. The people wanted it. The question was, is it going to be
Southern or is it going to be Northern? And then the South walked out of the Union, and so it became
Northern. And then it's democracy at work, better than anywhere else. You compare the building of this
road to what the Russians did with the Trans-Siberian Railroad, and you're immediately struck by how
© 2008-2017 NBCUniversal Media, LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Page 2 of 4
wonderful democracy is. People volunteered. It was free labor that went out there to build these railroads.
There wasn't slave labor, it wasn't coolee labor, it was free labor. It was the counties, the states, the federal
government all did all they could to support these railroads to get it built because we wanted it so badly.
LAUER: After the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln decided – he looked at this railroad project and he said,
this is something that could bring the country back together and heal the wounds that we had suffered in
the Civil War. And many of the officers from the Civil War, and the soldiers from the Civil War, were the
people who actually got off the battlefield and went and built this railroad?
AMBROSE: Absolutely. The people that built the Union Pacific were Confederate veterans and Yankee
veterans. They were young men, 18, 19 years old, who had been in the war and had caught that most
American of diseases, wanderlust. And they wanted to be part of something big. They had just been part
of something big. The Confederates had lost, the Yankees had won, but it had been big. They wanted to
be – and the biggest thing by far going on in the United States was the building of this Transcontinental
Railroad. So the officers, Grant and Sherman, right at the very top, Grenville Dodge, Abraham Lincoln, as
you say, of course, and then right on down to the guy that is pounding in the spikes.
LAUER: But it was the leadership that they showed on the battlefield, where they learned to take care of
large groups of people that helped them when it came to taking those people out into the railroad?
AMBROSE: Absolutely. And it also helped in that the Indians on the Union Pacific were attacking in
Nebraska and Wyoming almost constantly. They didn't want that railroad coming through there. And
these guys all carried arms. And they would stack their arms and go out and be putting in the track, and
here come the Indians, and they'd rush over to their arms. And Grenville Dodge, their boss, said it was the
best army he ever commanded.
LAUER: May 10th, 1868, that's when east met west. What kind of an event was that in this country? Was
it that century's version of walking on the moon?
AMBROSE: Absolutely, without any question. And it was for all of us around the world, a seminal event,
because they attached a telegraph to the rail, and when the last spike was driven in, that set off that
telegraph that signified it's done, and that signal went around the world. It went to London, it went to New
York, it went to New Orleans, it went to Atlanta, it went to San Francisco and Los Angeles, and up into
Canada, every, everybody knew at precisely the moment it happened they've completed that railroad. And
this was the first time in the world's history that that had ever been done.
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