Note 36 — Chapter VIII

By the close of 1859 there were at least six different mail routes across the continent from the Missouri to the Pacific Coast. They were costing the Government a total of $2,184,696.00 and returning $339,747.34. The most expensive of these lines was the New York and New Orleans Steamship Company route, which ran semi-monthly from New York to San Francisco via Panama. This service cost $738,250.00 annually and brought in $229,979.69. While the steamship people did not have the frontier dangers to confront them, they were operating over a roundabout course, several thousand miles in extent, and the volume of their postal business was simply inadequate to meet the expense of maintaining their business[36].