Chapter 10

In 1793 he called together the planters who had asked him to solve the problem, and showed them the machine, which he called a cotton gin. When they saw it work, their surprise and delight knew no bounds. They knew at once that the problem had been solved by the young genius from Massachusetts. Little calculation was needed to show them that the cotton gin could clean as much cotton in a day as could be cleaned on a plantation during a whole winter. What before had been the work of a hundred hands for several months could now be completed in a few days.

But it seems to be the fate of the majority of those who make wonderful inventions never to enjoy the full benefits of the work of their genius. Eli Whitney was not an exception to the general rule. While he was working on his cotton gin, rumors of it went abroad; and by the time it was completed, public expectation was on tiptoe. When the machine was finished, it was shown to only a few people; but the fact, of such immense importance to the people of the State, was soon known throughout the State, and the planters impatiently waited for the day when they would be able to put it in use.

One night the building in which Whitney's cotton gin was concealed was broken into, ransacked, and the machine carried off. It was a bold robbery, and a very successful one. The inventor made haste to build another gin; but before he could get his model completed, and obtain a patent right to the invention, the machine had been manufactured at various points in the South by other parties, and was in operation on several plantations. Whitney formed a partnership with a gentleman who had some capital, and went to Connecticut to manufacture his gin; but he was compelled to spend all the money he could make, fighting lawsuits. His patent had been infringed, and those who sought to rob him of the fruits of his labor took a bold stand. The result of all this was, that the inventor never received any just compensation for a machine that revolutionized the commerce of the country, and added enormously to the power and progress of the Republic. Lord Macaulay said that Eli Whitney did more to make the United States powerful than Peter the Great did to make the Russian Empire dominant. Robert Fulton declared that Arkwright, Watt, and Whitney were the three men that did more for mankind than any of their contemporaries. This is easy to believe, when we remember that while the South shipped 6 bags of cotton to England in 1786, and only 379 in 1791, ten years after the cotton gin came into use, 82,000 bales were exported. The very importance of Whitney's invention made it immensely profitable for the vicious and the depraved to seize and appropriate the inventor's rights. These robberies were upheld by those who were anxious to share in the profits; and political demagogues made themselves popular by misrepresenting Whitney, and clamoring against the law that was intended to protect him. It was only by means of this clamor, half political and wholly dishonest, that the plain rights of Whitney could be denied and justice postponed. His invention was entirely new. It was distinct from every other. It had no connection with and no relation to any other invention that had been made. It stood alone, and there could be no difficulty whatever in identifying it. And yet Whitney had just this difficulty. In his efforts to prove that he was the inventor of the cotton gin, and that he was entitled to a share of the immense profits that those who used it were reaping, he had to travel thousands of miles, and spend thousands of dollars in appearing before Legislatures and in courts that denied him justice. The life of his patent had nearly expired before any court finally enforced his right, and Congress refused to grant him an extension beyond the fourteen years that had then nearly expired. Associations and combinations had been formed for the purpose of defrauding Whitney, and these were represented by the ablest lawyers that could be hired. It is no wonder that Whitney, in writing to Robert Fulton, a brother inventor, declared that the troubles he had to contend with were the result of a lack of desire on the part of mankind to see justice done. The truth is, his invention was of such prime importance that the public fought for its possession, and justice and honesty were for the moment lost sight of. At one time but a few men in Georgia were bold enough to go into court and testify to the simplest facts within their knowledge; and Whitney himself says, that in one instance he had the greatest difficulty in proving that the machine had been used in Georgia, although at that very moment three, separate gins were at work within fifty yards of the building in which the court sat. They were all so near, that the rattle and hum of the machinery could be heard from the court-house steps.

In December, 1807, a judge was found to affirm the rights of Whitney under his patent. The judge's name was Johnson; and in his decision he said, "The whole interior of the Southern States was languishing, and its inhabitants emigrating for want of some object to engage their attention and employ their industry, when the invention of this machine at once opened views to them which set the whole country in active motion. From childhood to age it has presented to us a lucrative employment. Individuals who were depressed with poverty, and sunk in idleness, have suddenly risen to wealth and respectability. Our debts have been paid off. Our capital has increased, and our lands have trebled themselves in value. We cannot express the weight of the obligation which the country owes to this invention. The extent of it cannot now be seen."

The language of the learned judge was high-flown; but he was a just judge, and he had a faint and glimmering idea of the real importance of this remarkable invention. It was a very simple affair. The principle came to Whitney in a flash, and he had a model constructed within ten days after the despairing planters had gone to him with their problem. But it may be doubted whether any other individual, by one simple invention, ever did so much for the progress and enrichment of human interests, and for the welfare and the comfort of the human race. This little machine made the agriculture of the South the strongest and the richest in the world, and gave to this section a political power that was for years supreme in the nation, and was only surrendered as the result of a long and exhausting war. By means of the cotton gin, towns and cities have sprung up, and a vast network of railways has been built; and yet the most that Whitney received was a royalty on his gin in North Carolina, and a donation of fifty thousand dollars from the State of South Carolina. In Georgia his right to his invention was stolen, and all that he got out of it was a number of costly lawsuits.

After struggling for five years against the overwhelming odds that avarice and greed had mustered to aid them, Whitney turned his attention in another direction, and made a still more remarkable display of his genius. This part of his career does not belong directly to the history of Georgia, but it is interesting enough to be briefly recorded here. The United States Government was in want of arms, and this want various contractors had failed to meet. Through the influence of the secretary of the treasury, Whitney was given a contract to make ten thousand muskets at $13.40 apiece. He had no capital, no works, no machinery, no tools, no skilled workmen, no raw material. In creating a part of these and commanding the rest, he called into play an inventive genius, the extent of which must always excite wonder and admiration.

Within ten years he created his own works, and invented and made his own tools, invented and made his own machinery. More than this, he invented and applied a wholly new principle of manufacture,--a principle that has done more to advance human industry and increase wealth all over the world than any other known effort of the human mind to solve material problems. He invented and developed the principle or system of making the various parts of a musket or any other complex manufactured article, such as the sewing machine, so absolutely uniform as to be interchangeable. This principle has been carried out in hundreds of thousands of different ways. It has entered into and become a feature of a vast range of manufactures. The principle was established by a series of inventions as wonderful as any that the human mind ever conceived, so that Whitney has been aptly called the Shakespeare of invention. His inventions remain practically unchanged. After ninety years of trial, they are found to be practically perfect.

It was his peculiar gift to be able to convey into inanimate machinery the skill that a human being could acquire only after years of study and practice.

It is almost like belittling the greatest of marvels to call it a stroke of genius. He made it possible for the most ordinary laborer to accomplish a hundred times as much in an hour, and with the most exquisite perfection, as a skilled laborer could accomplish in a day.

On these wonderful inventions Whitney took out no patents. He gave them all to the public. In this way he revenged himself on those who had successfully robbed him of the fruits of his labor and genius in the invention of the cotton gin. Perhaps if he had been more justly treated in Georgia, he might have set up his works in this State, and this fact might have made the South the seat of great manufacturing industries. Who knows?

SOME GEORGIA INVENTIONS.

The credit of inventing the steamboat is by general consent given to Robert Fulton. Every schoolboy is taught that such is the case, and yet the fact is at least very doubtful. There is preserved among the papers in the Archives of Georgia a document that indicates, that, while Robert Fulton has won the credit for an invention that has revolutionized the commerce of the world, the real inventor may have been William Longstreet of Augusta, an uncle of General James B. Longstreet, and the father of Judge A. B. Longstreet, author of "Georgia Scenes." On the 26th of September, 1790, William Longstreet sent the following letter to Edward Telfair, who was then governor of Georgia:--

Sir,--I make no doubt but you have heard of my steamboat and as often heard it laughed at. But in this I have only shared the fate of all other projectors, for it has uniformly been the custom of every country to ridicule even the greatest inventions until use has proved their utility.

My not reducing my scheme to practice has been a little unfortunate for me, I confess, and perhaps for the people in general, but until very lately I did not think that either artists or material could be had in the place sufficient. However, necessity, that grand science of invention, has furnished me with an idea of perfecting my plans almost entirely with wooden materials, and by such workmen as may be got here, and from a thorough confidence of its success, I have presumed to ask your assistance and patronage.

Should it succeed agreeable to my expectations, I hope I shall discover that source of duty which such favors always merit, and should it not succeed, your reward must lay with other unlucky adventurers.

For me to mention to you all the advantages arising from such a machine would be tedious, and, indeed, quite unnecessary, Therefore I have taken the liberty to state in this plain and humble manner my wish and opinion, which I hope you will excuse, and I will remain, either with or without approbation,

Your Excellency's most obedient and very humble servant,

William Longstreet.

There are two features of this letter that ought to attract attention. One is that William Longstreet has the name of "steamboat" as pat as if the machine were in common use. The second is his allusion to the fact that his conception of a boat to be propelled by steam was so well known as to be noised abroad.

Credit is sometimes given to John Fitch, who, it is said, invented a boat propelled by steam, that carried passengers on the Delaware River in 1787. An Englishman named Symington is said to have run a steamboat in 1801, while Robert Fulton's success was delayed until 1806. All these men have received credit for their efforts to benefit humanity, but history is silent in regard to William Longstreet. In one book about Georgia the remark is made that "James Longstreet is said to have invented the steamboat in 1793," but in this instance neither the name nor the date is correct.

In old St. Paul's churchyard in Augusta there is a tombstone which bears the inscription, "Sacred to the memory of William Longstreet, who departed this life September 1, 1814, aged 54 years, 10 months, and 26 days." Below this runs the pleasant legend, "All the days of the afflicted are evil, but he that is of a merry heart hath a continual feast." We are thus left to infer that William Longstreet was a man of a merry heart; and that fact is certified to by the cleverness with which his son, the author of "Georgia Scenes," has preserved for us some of the quaint characters that lived and moved and had their being on the borders of Georgia society directly after the Revolution.

Being an inventor, a man of ingenious ideas, and somewhat ambitious of serving the public in that way, William Long-street certainly had need of a merry heart; for, as he himself says, the way of the projector is hard. The term itself is used in Georgia to this day to express a certain sort of good-natured contempt. Go into the country places and ask after some acquaintance who has not prospered in a worldly way, and the answer will be, "Oh, he's just a prodjikin around."

It is certain that William Longstreet knew that steam could be used as a motive power long before it was so applied; and because he employed a good deal of his time in trying to discover the principle, he was ridiculed by his neighbors and friends, and the more thoughtless among them didn't know whether he was a crank, a half-wit, or a "luny." From all accounts, he was a modest, shy, retiring man, though a merry one. He had but little money to devote to the experiments he wished to make, and in this was not different from the great majority of inventors.

For a long time Longstreet's zeal and enthusiasm attracted the attention of a few of his wealthy friends, and these furnished him such money as he wanted; but no very long time was needed to convince those who were spending their money that the idea of propelling a boat by steam, instead of by sails or oars, was ridiculous. Longstreet made many experiments, but he had not hit upon the method of applying the principle he had in mind: consequently his rich friends closed their purses, and left him entirely to his own resources. A newspaper publication, in giving some of the facts in regard to Longstreet's efforts, says that he and his steamboat were made the subject of a comic song:--

"Can you row the boat ashore, Billy boy, Billy boy? Can you row the boat ashore, Gentle Billy?

Can you row the boat ashore Without a paddle or an oar, Billy boy?"

Though he had failed many times, Longstreet was not disheartened. He continued his experiments, and at last succeeded in making a toy boat, which he exhibited to a few friends. His idea at this time, it seems, was not to construct a steamboat, but merely to convince some of his friends that steam could be used as a motive power. But in this he was not very successful. His toy boat did all that he wanted it to do; but his friends declared, that while steam might be used to move a small boat, it could never be used to move a large one. The experience of a new generation showed that there was one wise man in Augusta and a great many fools. Nevertheless William Longstreet determined to show that a large boat could be moved by a large amount of steam as easily as a small boat could be moved by a small volume.

Now, while he was making his experiments; and trying to overcome the difficulties that presented themselves, Robert Fulton was living in Paris with Joel Barlow. He was in Paris when Napoleon became first consul. At that time he was experimenting with his diving boat and submarine torpedo. Napoleon was so much interested in this work that he gave Fulton ten thousand francs to carry it on. The inventor was in France in 1803 when Napoleon organized his army for the invasion of England. He was surrounded by influential friends, and he had money at his command.

Compared with William Longstreet, Robert Fulton was "in clover." Longstreet was compelled to work without money, and in the midst of a community whose curiosity had developed into criticism and ridicule. Thus it was not until 1806 that he succeeded in completing a steamboat that would accommodate twenty or twenty-five persons. He went on board, accompanied by such of his friends as he could persuade, and in the presence of a curious and doubting crowd the first real steamboat was launched on the Savannah River. Some of the friends of those on board, feeling anxious for their safety if the "contraption" should explode, secured a skiff, and followed the steamboat at a safe distance, ready to pick up such of the passengers as might survive when the affair had blown to pieces. Longstreet headed the boat down the river, and went in that direction for several miles. Then he turned the head of the little boat upstream; and, although the current was swift, he carried his passengers back to the wharf, and several miles above.

From that hour William Longstreet became a man of some consequence in the community. Those who had ridiculed him now sang his praises, and those who had doubted that steam could be used as a motive power were now convinced. His friends tried hard to get him to go to Washington and secure the benefits of a patent for his invention; but he persistently refused to take any steps to profit by the results of his genius, or indeed to make his invention known. His constant reply to all those who tried to persuade him to go to Washington was, that he had carried on his experiments simply to prove the truth of his theory to his own satisfaction, and to convince those whose respect he coveted that he was neither a fool nor a crank.

Some of his friends and admirers were themselves preparing to go to Washington in behalf of the inventor, but they had put off their journey until the year after the exhibition was made in Augusta, and at that time they heard that Robert Fulton had exhibited his steamboat "Clermont" on the Hudson River. They then gave up their design, and William Longstreet continued to remain in the seclusion that was so pleasant to him.

It is a noteworthy fact, that twelve years after William Longstreet made his successful experiments on the Savannah River, Georgia enterprise built, launched, and managed the first steamship that ever crossed the ocean. This great enterprise was organized in Savannah in 1818. The Georgia Company contracted to have the ship built in New York; and when completed, it was named the "Savannah." The vessel was finished and brought to Savannah in April, 1819. In May the steamship left Savannah bound for Liverpool. From Liverpool it went to St. Petersburg, and then returned to Savannah, having made the voyage in fifty days.

The first sewing machine was invented by Rev. Frank R. Goulding, a Georgian who has won fame among the children of the land as the author of "The Young Marooners." He invented the sewing machine for the purpose of lightening the labors of his wife; and she used it for some years before some other genius invented it, or some traveler stole the idea and improved on it.

Dr. Crawford W. Long, in 1842, when twenty-seven years of age, performed the first painless surgical operation that is known to history. In 1839, Velpeau of Paris declared that the attempts to find some agent by which to prevent pain in surgical operations was nothing less than chimerical; and as late as 1846 Sir Benjamin Brodie said, "Physicians and surgeons have been looking in vain, from the days of Hippocrates down to the present time, for the means of allaying or preventing bodily pain." And yet three years after the declaration of Velpeau, and four years before the statement of Sir Benjamin Brodie, the young Georgia physician had removed a tumor from the neck of a patient, and that patient had felt no pain.

The story is very interesting. Dr. Crawford W. Long was born in Danielsville, Madison County, Ga., on the 1st of November, 1815. He graduated at the University of Georgia, studied medicine, and graduated at the medical department of the University of Pennsylvania. He then went to Jefferson, Jackson County, where he opened an office, and practiced medicine for many years.

In those days the young men living in the country districts, for want of something better to amuse them, were in the habit of inhaling nitrous-oxide gas, or, as it was then popularly known, "laughing gas." The young people would gather together, and some of them would inhale the gas until they came under its influence. The result was in most cases very amusing. Some would laugh, some would cry, and all in various ways would carry out the peculiarities of their characters and dispositions. Thus, if a young man had an inward inclination to preach, he would, under the influence of "laughing gas," proceed to deliver a sermon. As these "laughing-gas" parties were exhilarating to the young people who inhaled the gas, and amusing to those who were spectators, they became very popular.

But it was not always easy to secure the gas. On one occasion a company of young men went to Dr. Long's office and asked him to make them a supply of "laughing gas." There was no apparatus in the office suitable for making it, but Dr. Long told the young men that the inhalation of sulphuric ether would have the same effect. He had become acquainted with this property of ether while studying medicine in Philadelphia. The young men and their friends were so well pleased with the effects of ether inhalation, that "ether parties" became fashionable in that section, as well as in other parts of the State. At these ether parties, Dr. Long noticed that persons who received injuries while under its influence felt no pain. On one occasion a young man received an injury to his ankle joint that disabled him for several days, and he told Dr. Long that he did not feel the slightest pain until the effects of the ether had passed off. Observing these facts, Dr. Long was led to believe that surgical operations might be performed without pain.

Dr. Long's theory was formed in 1841, but he waited for some time before testing it, in the hope that a case of surgery of some importance--the amputation of an arm or a leg--might fall in his practice. On the 30th of March, 1842, Dr. Long removed a tumor from the neck of Mr. James M. Venable. On the 6th of June, the same year, another small tumor was removed from the neck of the same patient, and both operations were painless. Mr. Venable inhaled sulphuric ether, and the effect of it was to render him insensible to the pain of cutting out the tumors.