A Short History of Reconstruction [Updated Edition]

by Eric Foner

The railroad also transformed smaller towns like Selma and Macon into commercial entrepôts. Meanwhile, older port cities languished. By 1880, Charleston was a minor seaport of little commercial significance. New Orleans found itself unable to compete with St. Louis for access to the expanding cotton trade of East Texas, and Richmond, Savannah, and Mobile, bypassed by the railroad, also stagnated economically.