Fully two-thirds of the flour put down at Fort Meigs could
not be used. The flour on the Harrison campaign cost the Government
not less than eight dollars a barrel. Government commissaries claimed
to have been ruined in their contracts by lack of roadways. Only eight
hundred pack-horses survived of four thousand employed in the Detroit
campaign. The extra expense of one of the northern campaigns would have
built a good road to the inaccessible portion if the need could have been
foreseen. The experience in the war demanded immediate action for the
future public defence, regardless of party interpretation of powers.
Provision for necessary means of communication in the older portions might
safely be left to the States; but for the more recently settled regions,
especially the Territories, only the States united could provide highways
and waterways. The fact that the Union had charge of the Indians in the
Territories made the permission easier to grant. Also, during the war,
many military roads had been constructed, whose constitutionality no one
had time to question. During the intermissions of warfare, soldiers had
been employed in constructing military roads between various posts on the
frontier.
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