California as well as the material strength inherent in the state's
valuable resources. Moreover to hold this region would give the North a
base of operations to check her opponent in any campaign of aggression
in the far West, should the South presume such an attempt. And the
possession of California would also offer to the North the very best
means of protecting the Western frontier, one of the Union's most
vulnerable points of attack.

It was with such vital conditions that the Pony Express was identified;
it was in retaining California for the Union, and in helping
incidentally to preserve the Union, that the Express became an important
factor in American history.

Not to mention the romance, the unsurpassed courage, the unflinching
endurance, and the wonderful exploits which the routine operations of
the Pony Express involved, its identity with problems of nation-wide and
world-wide importance make its story seem worth telling. And with its
romantic existence and its place in history the succeeding pages of this
book will briefly deal.



Chapter II



Inception and Organization of the Pony Express