I know you don't go for a midnight swim on a dark beach by yourself, especially in the Chesapeake Bay.
The canal was completed in 1829; in 1907 a commission appointed by the president to report on a route for a waterway between Chesapeake and Delaware bays selected the route of this canal.
Just as the negotiations were re-opened, however, the questions were further complicated and their settlement delayed by the attack of the British ship " Leopard upon the American frigate " Chesapeake."
The harbour is about equidistant from New York, Philadelphia, and the capes of Chesapeake Bay, and is used chiefly by vessels awaiting orders to ports for discharge or landing.
Alexandria is served by the Baltimore & Ohio, the Chesapeake & Ohio, the Southern and the Washington Southern railways; by the Washington, Alexandria & Mount Vernon electric railway; and by several lines of river and coasting steamboats.