The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt (142 page)

68
NYTr
, December 5, 1862.

69
McPherson, 624. For a report from aboard ship on the expedition, see
NYTr
, December 29, 1862.

70
Raphael Semmes,
Memoirs of Service Afloat During the War Between the States
(Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1996, orig. pub. 1868), 529–30; Fullam Journal, 60–1.

71
NYT
, December 28, 1862.

72
George Willis Read, ed.,
A Pioneer of 1850: George Willis Read, 1819–1880
(Boston: Little, Brown, 1927), 130–2;
NYT
, December 28, 1862;
Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper
, January 10, 1863.

73
Semmes, 535; Fullam, 66; NYT, December 28, 1862;
Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper
, January 10, 1863;
LT
, January 14, 1863;
CT
, December 31, 1862;
OR Navy
, ser. 1, vol. 1: 782–3.

74
NYT
, December 29, 1862.

75
OR Navy
, ser. 1, vol. 1: 604–5.

76
Semmes, 672, 737; HED 1, part 2, 38th Cong., 2nd sess., vol. 2; McPherson, 547. The
Vanderbilt
, though much sought after by navy officers, had problems peculiar to its adaptation to naval service. At the end of commercial voyages, the jet condensers that allowed it to boil seawater ordinarily would be cleared of scale formed by boiling brine; under continuous use, scale buildup and corrosion became a serious problem; Cedric Ridgely-Nevitt, 244–5.

77
Senate Journal, July 17, 1862; SED 30, 37th Cong., 3rd sess., vol. 1; Cullum, 766–7. For reports of the other George W. Vanderbilt, see
OR
ser. 1, vol. 21: 59, vol. 27, part 1: 981–2. In CVs obituaries and elsewhere, it would be claimed that George fell sick during the Corinth campaign in early 1862. No direct evidence supports the story.
NYS
, December 9, 1885, claimed that George had consumption, but the accuracy of this report is impossible to assess.

Fourteen
The Origins of Empire

1
NYTr
, February 6, 1879. See also
NYH
, October 3, 1869.

2
Sven Beckert,
The Monied Metropolis: New York City and the Consolidation of the American Bourgeoisie, 1850–1896
(New York; Cambridge University Press, 2001), 146–9.

3
SR 75, 37th Cong., 3rd sess., vol. 1;
CT
, January 13, 1863.

4
NYSAD 19, 90th sess., January 18, 1867.

5
RG
, January 12, 1877.

6
RG
, January 12, 1877.

7
These changes are often located at the very end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth centuries, when they took full hold on the economy as a whole, but they would be well under way before the end of CVs life. See Gregory A. Mark, “The Personification of the Business Corporation in American Law,”
University of Chicago Law Review
54, no. 4 (autumn 1987): 1441–83; Naomi R. Lamoreaux, “Partnerships, Corporations, and the Limits on Contractual Freedom in U.S. History: An Essay in Economics, Law, and Culture,” in Kenneth Lipartito and David B. Scilia, eds.,
Constructing Corporate America: History, Politics, Culture
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 29–65; Alan Trachtenberg,
The Incorporation of America: Culture and Society in the Gilded Age
(New York: Hill & Wang, 1982), 4–6, 57–8.

8
Alfred D. Chandler,
The Visible Hand: The Managerial Revolution in American Business
(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1977), 1–12, 79–121; Trachtenberg, 3–10.

9
For examples of this thinking among contemporaries and later writers, see Henry Clews,
Twenty-Eight Years in Wall Street
(New York: Irving Publishing, 1888), 110, and Edward J. Renehan Jr.,
Commodore: The Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt
(New York: Basic Books, 2007), 239.

10
For a portrayal of CVs plans as a long-laid campaign, see the highly influential “A Chapter of Erie,”
NAR
, July 1869, 30–106, in which CFA writes, “His object has been to make himself the virtual master of all by making himself absolute lord of the railways.” I may be accused here of misrepresenting CFA and the historiography; CFA, like many historians, hedges on CVs thinking. My point is merely to represent the general tenor of the depictions of CVs method. See, for example, Fowler, 494–5.

11
This observation reflects a broad investigation of CVs life. See also Chauncey M. Depew,
My Memories of Eighty Years
(New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1922), 228–9.

12
CV to Edwin D. Morgan, February 16, 1863, fold. 2, box 13, Edwin D. Morgan Papers, NYSL.

13
LW Dictation.

14
NYH
, January 20, 1869. On railroads' size relative to other enterprises, see Alfred D. Chandler Jr., ed.,
The Railroads, the Nation's First Big Business: Sources and Readings
(New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1965), 43. On the value of Harlem shares, see NYSAD 175, 86th sess., 1863.

15
NYSAD 175, 86th sess., 1863; NYSAD 19, 90th sess., 1867; NYSAD 114, 90th sess., 1867;
NYH
, March 25, 1863.

16
See HFC's testimony in NYSAD 19, 90th sess., January 18, 1867. See also Lane, 188–9;
NYT
, June 30, 1858, April 15, 1859; Directors' Minutes, May 4, 1859, HRR, reel 27, box 242, NYCRR; Alvin F. Harlow,
The Road of the Century: The Story of the New York Central
(New York: Creative Age Press, 1947), 166; Edward Hungerford,
Men and Iron: The History of the New York Central
(New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1938), 120–6. For a precise description of a journey (albeit a customized one) from the depot north, showing how the horses hauled cars to Forty-second Street, see
NYT
, July 6, 1865.

17
Fowler, 199–201, 203–5.

18
Hudson C. Tanner,
“The Lobby” and Public Men from Thurlow Weed's Time
(Albany: George MacDonald, 1888), 230.

19
NYSAD 175, 86th sess., February 17, 1863, shows that the Harlem had unusually high revenues and expenses per ton/mile, making it a ripe target for reform.

20
NYSAD 19, 90th sess., January 18, 1867.

21
It is nearly impossible to accurately estimate how many shares anyone—least of all CV—held in the 1860s and ′70s. As will be seen, CV routinely transferred shares he owned into the names of others to disguise his holdings. Both press reports and WHV's testimony suggest that, by the end of the events described at least, CV owned half of the company's shares, not including those held by allies and family members. See
HW
, July 11, 1863; NYSAD 19, 90th sess., January 18, 1867. These reports, however, came later; on May 18, 1863, CV voted only 8,801 out of more than 114,000 shares (and 88,978 voted) at the annual stockholders' meeting and election; Directors' Minutes, May 18, 1863, HRR, reel 27, box 242, NYCRR.

22
McPherson, 323–4; Mark Wahlgren Summers,
The Era of Good Stealings
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), 16–23.

23
HW
, July
ii
, 1863; Burrows & Wallace, 917.

24
RGD, NYC 342:300D. See also Smith, 294, for an amusing description of Law.

25
NYH
, March 26, 1864. For examples of reports that name Law, see
NYTr
, April 24, 1863; Strong, 3:313;
NYT
, April 25, 1863. See also Lane, 191–2.

26
Strong, 3:313;
NYTr
, April 24, 1863;
NYH
, April 24, 1863;
HW
, July 11, 1863. In truth, money-driven attempts to build a Broadway railroad (and the belief that corrupt railroad men had bought the legislature) had been a regular feature in Albany in recent years; see
NYH
, January 1, 1860.

27
Burrows & Wallace, 835–8; Ernest A. McKay,
The Civil War and New York City
(Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1990), 230–3.

28
NYH
, April 22, 24, 1863;
HW
, Jul
y
11, 1863; Fowler, 205; see also
NYH
, April 24, 1863; Directors' Minutes, April 22, 23, 1863, HRR, reel 27, box 242, NYCRR.

29
NYH
, April 24, 25, 1863;
NYT
, April 25, 1863; Strong, 3:313.

30
CV to EC, May 13, 1863, fold. 3, box 81, ECP.

31
Ibid.; Directors' Minutes, May 18, 19, 29, 1863, HRR, reel 27, box 242, NYCRR. The new board was seen as “the Vanderbilt ticket;”
PS
, May 28, 1863. The HRR minutes show that CV voted only 8,801 out of the 88,978 shares represented at the stockholders' meeting (about 114,000 existed). HFC had 1,350, AS had two thousand, and JHB had three thousand, all of which really might have been CVs property, held in their names. To achieve victory, then, CV drew upon the support of men who controlled many more shares, such as A. B. Baylis with 19,970, and Henry G. Stebbins (JLW's onetime partner) with 10,650, though they may have been holding shares for CV as well.

32
Directors' Minutes, May 18, 19, 29, 1863, HRR, reel 27, box 242, NYCRR.

33
NYH
, April 22, 24, May 11, 1863;
HW
, Jul
y
11, 1863.

34
H W
, July 11, 1863;
NYH
, June 26, 1863. Henry Clews,
Fifty Years in Wall Street
(New York: Irving Publishing, 1908), 111, and Fowler, 206–8, repeat similar versions of this story.