Tivoli, N.Y., 256, 257
To Cuba and Back (Dana), 75
Tolstoy, Leo, 356–57
Towers & Gudgell (”OX” brand), 331, 337, 347
Townsend, Martin, 310
Toy (Mittie’s slave), 47, 50
Tramp Abroad, A (Twain), 238
Trimble, Richard, 327, 329
Trollope, Anthony, 255
Twain, Mark, 72, 238, 300
Tweed, William Marcy, 113, 154, 280
Union Cattle Co., 327
Union League Club, 24, 59, 113, 135, 156, 159, 190
Union Theological Seminary, 191
Union Trust Co., 138, 286
Utica, N.Y., 300
Van Allen, Lucas, 293
Van Schaack, Elliese, 89
Vaux, Calvert, 136
Victoria, Queen, 74
Vienna Exposition (1873), 137, 176
Wallock, Lester, 71
Ward, John Elliott, 68
Washburn, Charles, 215
Watkins, Dora, 21, 35, 39, 139, 248
Weed, Thurlow, 179, 280
Weld, Minot, 209, 215, 222
Welling, Richard, 166, 215–16
West, Hilborne, 38, 39, 46, 50
in Adirondacks, 120
and TR’s asthma, 94, 96, 114
TR’s science mentor, 119
West, Susan Elliott, 38, 44, 46, 50, 56, 58, 64, 66, 67, 120
West, William H., 310–12
Westbrook, T. R., 268–74
Westbrook Scandal, 266, 268–74, 288
Western Union Telegraph Co., 269, 270
Wharton, Edith, 71, 72, 169
on New York society, 239, 340
on TR, 379
Whiskey Ring, 156, 160
White, Andrew D., 300, 306, 310, 320
White, Horace, 315
Whitney, Bessie, 227
Whitney, Ellerton, 226
Wilhelm II, Kaiser, 221
Winthrop, Egerton, 71
Wise, John S., 244
Wister, Owen, 202, 277
his anecdotes about TR, 216–17, 241
on Harvard, 209
on Lodge’s influence on TR, 323
and the West, 325, 327, 329, 346, 349
women’s suffrage, 309
Wood, J. G., 119
Wood, John, 115
Woodbury, John, 213, 214
Woolsey, Theodore Dwight, 156
Wyoming, 257, 327, 329, 342–45, 354
About the Author
DAVID MCCULLOUGH was born in Pittsburgh in 1933. An avid reader from an early age, he graduated from Yale with honors in English literature. After college he moved to New York and began work as a trainee at Sports Illustrated, a new magazine at the time. He spent five years working in New York, and at the beginning of the Kennedy administration, he moved to Washington, D.C., to work as an editor at the United States Information Agency. There he discovered that he enjoyed writing history, and began doing occasional pieces for American Heritage magazine.
After Kennedy was assassinated, McCullough moved back to New York to become an editor at American Heritage, where he worked for six years. During that time he wrote his first book, The Johnstown Flood, at nights and on weekends.
After the success of The Johnstown Flood, he made the difficult decision to quit his job at American Heritage, and support his family by writing books. Fortunately, his next work was The Great Bridge. He has been a full-time author ever since, publishing all his books with Simon & Schuster, including his new biography, John Adams. None of his books has ever gone out of print.
McCullough is twice winner of the National Book Award and twice winner of the prestigious Francis Parkman Prize. For his monumental Truman, he received the Pulitzer Prize. For his work overall he has been honored by the National Book Foundation Distinguished Contribution to American Letters Award, the National Humanities Medal, the St. Louis Literary Award, and the New York Public Library’s Literary Lion Award.
In a crowded, productive career, McCullough has been an editor, essayist teacher, lecturer, and familiar presence on public television as host of The American Experience and narrator of numerous documentaries, including The Civil War and Napoleon.
He is past president of the Society of American Historians. He has been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and has received thirty-one honorary degrees.
Still an avid reader, traveler, and landscape painter, McCullough now lives in Massachusetts, with his wife, Rosalee Barnes McCullough. They have five children and fifteen grandchildren.
Cornelius Van Schaack Roosevelt.
BOTH PHOTOS: THEODORE ROOSEVELT COLLECTION, HARVARD
Lincoln’s funeral procession approaches Union Square, April 1865. The Cornelius Van Schaack Roosevelt house is on the left, and the children watching from the second-story window are believed to be Theodore and Elliott.
Martha Bulloch Roosevelt (Mittie), considered one of the most beautiful women in New York.
BOTH PHOTOS: THEODORE ROOSEVELT COLLECTION, HARVARD
Theodore Roosevelt, Sr. (Greatheart), large, powerful, the idolized father and humanitarian.
Martha Stewart Elliott Bulloch (Grandmamma).
Uncle Jimmie—Captain James Dunwody Bulloch.
FOUR PHOTOS: THEODORE ROOSEVELT COLLECTION, HARVARD
Irvine Bulloch.
Two unidentified former slaves of the Bulloch family at Bulloch Hall, sometime after the Civil War.
COURTESY HISTORIC ROSWELL, INC.
Bulloch Hall, Roswell, Georgia, as it looks today.
Robert Barnwell Roosevelt.
ALL PHOTOS: THEODORE ROOSEVELT COLLECTION, HARVARD
Roosevelt & Son, 94 Maiden Lane, New York City.
Early work by the student naturalist, Theodore Roosevelt, Jr.
“Teedie” at age ten.
Theodore, Sr., and his beloved Anna (Bamie).
BOTH PHOTOS: THEODORE ROOSEVELT COLLECTION, HARVARD
Teedie, Elliott, Cousin Maud Elliott, Corinne, and Cousin John Elliott, Dresden, 1873.
COURTESY DEBORAH BULL
Interior of a typical dahabieh of the type the Roosevelts used to “do” the Nile.
a letter from Teedie to Edith Carow, written in 1869, during the family’s first tour abroad.
BOTH PHOTOS: THEODORE ROOSEVELT COLLECTION, HARVARD
Mittie, Dresden, 1873. (The necklace was a prized gift from Theodore, Sr., purchased in Egypt.)
Senator Roscoe Conkling.
Chester A. Arthur.
ALL ILLUSTRATIONS: CULVER PICTURES
The New York Customhouse.
The American Museum of Natural History.
THEODORE ROOSEVELT COLLECTION, HARVARD
“Tranquillity,” Oyster Bay, New York. Mittie and Theodore, Sr., are on the porch. Figures in the foreground are believed to be Corinne and Edith Carow. (The house no longer stands.)
Teedie, Elliott, Corinne, and Edith at Oyster Bay, probably the summer of 1876, before Teedie left for Harvard.
THEODORE ROOSEVELT COLLECTION, HARVARD
Theodore Roosevelt (now “Teddy”) at Harvard.
BOTH PHOTOS: THEODORE ROOSEVELT COLLECTION, HARVARD
The room Bamie chose and furnished for Theodore off campus.
Theodore in rowing attire.
Theodore as yachtsman.
THREE PHOTOS: THEODORE ROOSEVELT COLLECTION, HARVARD
Theodore the hunter, in Maine with Bill Sewall (left) and Will Dow.
A page from Theodore’s diary, junior year.
FROM THE COLLECTIONS OF THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS
Alice Lee.
THEODORE ROOSEVELT COLLECTION, HARVARD
The young politician with some Albany allies. The “best friend,” Isaac Hunt, is seated at left, and behind stands Billy O’Neil. At center seated is George Spinney of The New York Times. At right is an assemblyman from Brooklyn, Walter Howe.
The gentleman reformer is paired with New York’s new reform governor, Grover Cleveland, in a cartoon by
Nast in Harper’s Weekly.
BOTH PHOTOS: THEODORE ROOSEVELT COLLECTION, HARVARD
THEODORE ROOSEVELT COLLECTION, HARVARD
The Roosevelt brothers (Elliott with pipe) pose in a photographer’s studio in 1880, the summer of their hunting trip in the West.
SAGAMORE HILL, NATIONAL HISTORIC SITE
Parlor of the Roosevelt mansion at 6 West 57th Street, with Elliott’s tiger as centerpiece.
FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT LIBRARY
Anna Hall.
COURTESY THE AMERICAN MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY
Elliott at the Meadowbrook Hunt.
CULVER PICTURES
Henry Cabot Lodge.
HOUGHTON LIBRARY, HARVARD
Theodore in the Bad Lands in full cowboy regalia.
Theodore’s Elkhorn Ranch, as sketched by Frederic Remington.
THEODORE ROOSEVELT COLLECTION, HARVARD
Studio portrait of Theodore as “the plainsman,” made to help promote one of his books. (The buckskin suit cost $100—the equivalent of $1,000 or more today. Knife and scabbard were custom-made by Tiffany.)
Madame de Mores, the former Medora von Hoffman.
TWO PHOTOS: STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF NORTH DAKOTA
The Marquis de Mores in the Bad Lands.
Bamie with Baby Alice, about 1886.
COURTESY OF W. SHEFFIELD COWLES, JR.
Sagamore Hill, soon after completion.
THEODORE ROOSEVELT COLLECTION, HARVARD
Edith Carow.
THEODORE ROOSEVELT COLLECTION, HARVARD
Theodore Roosevelt, age 27, at the time he ran for mayor of New York.
BY DAVID MCCULLOUGH
John Adams
Truman
Brave Companions
Mornings on Horseback
The Path Between the Seas
The Great Bridge
The Johnstown Flood
DAVID McCULLOUGH
The Path
Between the Seas
The Creation of the Panama Canal
1870–1914
SIMON & SCHUSTER PAPERBACKS
Rockefeller Center
1230 Avenue of the Americas
New York, New York 10020
www.SimonandSchuster.com
Copyright © 1977 by David McCullough All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form
SIMON & SCHUSTER PAPERBACKS and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
Designed by Edith Fowler
Manufactured in the United States of America
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Pbk. 50
The excerpts from Goethals, Genius of the Panama Canal by Joseph Bucklin Bishop and Farnham Bishop, are copyright 1930 by Harper & Row Publishers, Inc., and are reprinted by permission of the publisher.
The excerpts from William Crawford Gorgas, His Life and Work by Marie D. Gorgas and Burton J. Hendrick, are copyright 1924 by Doubleday & Company, Inc., and are used by permission of the publisher.
The excerpts from Monument for the World by Robert E. Wood, are copyright © 1963 by Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc., and are reprinted by permission of the publisher.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
McCullough, David G.
The path between the seas.
Bibliography: p.
Includes inaex.
1. Panama Canal—History. I. Title.
F1369.C2M33 972.875’04 76–57967
eISBN-13: 978-1-4516-5825-5
ISBN 0–671-22563–4
ISBN 0–671-24409–4 Pbk.
For Rosalee Barnes McCullough
Contents
PREFACE
BOOK ONE: THE VISION 1870–1894
1. Threshold
2. The Hero
3. Consensus of One
4. Distant Shores
5. The Incredible Task
6. Soldiers Under Fire
7. Downfall
8. The Secrets of Panama
BOOK TWO: STARS AND STRIPES FOREVER 1890–1904
9. Theodore the Spinner
10. The Lobby
11. Against All Odds
12. Adventure by Trigonometry
13. Remarkable Revolution
14. Envoy Extraordinary
BOOK THREE: THE BUILDERS 1904–1914
15. The Imperturbable Dr. Gorgas
16. Panic
17. John Stevens
18. The Man with the Sun in His Eyes
19. The Chief Point of Attack
20. Life and Times
21. Triumph
Afterword
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
NOTES
SOURCES
INDEX
MAPS
Panama During the French Era
Panama, the Canal, and the Canal Zone
PICTURE SECTIONS
Preface
The creation of the Panama Canal was far more than a vast, unprecedented feat of engineering. It was a profoundly important historic event and a sweeping human drama not unlike that of war. Apart from wars, it represented the largest, most costly single effort ever before mounted anywhere on earth. It held the world’s attention over a span of forty years. It affected the lives of tens of thousands of people at every level of society and of virtually every race and nationality. Great reputations were made and destroyed. For numbers of men and women it was the adventure of a lifetime.
Because of it one nation, France, was rocked to its foundations. Another, Colombia, lost its most prized possession, the Isthmus of Panama. Nicaragua, on the verge of becoming a world crossroads, was left to wait for some future chance. The Republic of Panama was born. The United States was embarked on a role of global involvement.
In the history of finance capitalism, in the history of medicine, it was an event of signal consequence. It marked a score of advances in engineering, government planning, labor relations. It was a response to Sedan, a response to the idea of sea power. It was both the crowning constructive effort, ”The Great Enterprise,” of the Victorian Era and the first grandiose and assertive show of American power at the dawn of the new century. And yet the passage of the first ship through the canal in the summer of 1914—the first voyage through the American land mass—marked the resolution of a dream as old as the voyages of Columbus.
So this book is an attempt to give fitting scope to the subject, to see it whole. I have tried to discover underlying causes for what happened, to measure forces of national pride and ambition, to grasp the still untarnished ideal of progress.
What was the nature of that day and age now gone to dust? What moved people?
Primarily my interest has been in the participants themselves. Of great importance, I felt, was the need to show the enormous variety of people involved, and the skills and strengths called upon by such an undertaking, quite apart from technical competence. I wanted to see these people for what they were, as living, fallible, often highly courageous men and women caught up in a common struggle far bigger than themselves, caught up frequently by forces beyond their control or even their reckoning. I have tried to present the problems they faced as they saw them, to perceive what they did not know as well as what they did know at any given time, and to keep constantly in mind that like all mortals in every age, they had no sure way of telling how it would all come out. The book is their story.
Pure chance, fate if you prefer, played a major part, as it always does. Popular misconceptions, self-deceptions large and small, were determining factors all along the line from the time Ferdinand de Lesseps first set things in motion. One is struck, too, by what a moving, potent force personality can be—de Lesseps and Theodore Roosevelt being the outstanding examples. But no less impressive to me are the numbers of instances in which large events turned on the actions of individuals who had little notion that they were playing a part in history.
A good deal of what follows is new. It has been drawn from interviews, from unpublished
sources, from published documents hitherto ignored. Several leading characters emerge as quite different from previous portrayals, and major portions of the book are set far indeed from the jungles of Panama.
Much of the French side of the story will, I expect, come as a surprise to many readers. To many readers, also, the Panama revolution and the bizarre chain of events surrounding it may seem more like the creations of fiction. But let me stress that nothing in the book has been invented. Documentation will be found in the Notes at the end.
I feel I should add a word of explanation concerning the current controversy over the canal.
My work was begun years before the canal leaped back into the headlines, and my purpose throughout has remained what it was at the start: to tell a large and important story beginning in 1870 and ending in 1914, because that was where the story belonged—back on the other side of the Great War. That was the world that built the canal.
The root causes of the present controversy are all here, however; they too are part of the story, as the reader will discover.
DAVID MCCULLOUGH
West Tisbury, Massachusetts
October 1976
Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in the gray twilight that knows not victory or defeat.
—THEODORE ROOSEVELT
BOOK ONE
The Vision
1870–1894
David McCullough Library E-book Box Set Page 329