It was in 1844 that Samuel Morse opened a telegraph line from Washington to Baltimore with $30,000 obtained from Congress. Private enterprise, as usual, waited for bureaucracy to clarify the image and goals of the new operation. Once it proved profitable, the fury of private promotion and initiative became impressive, leading to some savage episodes. No new technology, not even the railroad, manifested a more rapid growth than the telegraph. By 1858 the first cable had been laid across the Atlantic, and by 1861 telegraph wires had reached across America.
