| From the Opelousas Courier (Opelousas,
La.) |
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| January 11, 1862 |
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| Opelousas Rail-Road |
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Messrs Editors Courier,
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This is truly no time to make
propositions for the expenditure of public funds, yet the importance
of the completion of this road to the Texas line is so great that I
deem it incumbent to draw the attention of our Legislators and the
public to it, in a word, it is a great military and national
necessity. The question arises how are we to get troops to and from
Texas without it. The past summer, our noble volunteers from that
State had to walk the entire distance, arriving at New-Town in a most
deplorable condition. The getting of troops and provisions over this
immense uncultivated district without a rail-road amounts almost to an
impossibility. Texas is to New-Orleans what the Great West used to be,
and if she is not speedily bound with iron ties, her commercial independence
of New-Orleans is a fixed fact. The Opelousas Rail-Road, via Pine
Prairie, can be built if New-Orleans capitalists will take the stocks
of the road, and the planters do the grading with their surplus labor.
Many are now undecided what to do with this same labor. I propose that
they raise corn and other provisions, and build the road, taking the
stocks in payment. This stock is, and will be as good an investment as
can be made of capital or labor. It must be remembered that when the
road reaches Opelousas, it will have the benefit of the lands
appropriated for its construction, amounting to some six or seven
hundred thousand acres. What better investment is wanted? The blockade
will probably be removed and the rolling stock and ties can be had
cheaper than before.
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The people of New Orleans may and
do confound the proposed road from New Iberia to Niblet's Bluff {the
New Orleans & Texas RR}, with this
upper route to Texas. The former is objectionable on account of its
proximity to the Gulf of Mexico and accessibility by the Lincolnites,
who might land at any time and destroy the road; the latter, or upper
route to Opelousas, would be exempt from this objection and have
additional advantages over the Niblet's Bluff route, by its connection
with the Mississippi River through the Coustableayu and Atchafalaya,
also the Opelousas & Grosse Tete Rail Road -- thereby securing
other and desirable avenues to the Mississippi River thence to New
Orleans.
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Hoping this vitally important
subject may meet with the early attention of those whom it may
concern.
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I remain, with respect,
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J. C. Hill
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Live Oar, Jan. 2, 1862
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