by T. J. Stiles
The gold coming down from the mountains led to an international rush to California. In early 1849, Vanderbilt sent his son Corneil around Cape Horn in a schooner to work on a ferry in San Francisco Bay He jumped ship, as did the gold-crazed crews of dozens of vessels, turning the San Francisco waterfront into a floating graveyard. Library of Congress
California's primary channel to the Atlantic coast consisted of steamship lines and a land crossing at Panama. Vanderbilt created a rival transit route across Nicaragua. This engraving shows a sternwheel riverboat in the harbor of Greytown on the Atlantic, having loaded passengers from a steamship in the background, as it enters the San Juan River, bound for Lake Nicaragua. Library of Congress
The San Juan River flows from Lake Nicaragua to the Atlantic through a dense rain forest. This 1880s photograph shows a steamboat in a wide, shallow section. Vanderbilt personally piloted the first passengers on his Nicaragua line up the river in 1851. Library of Congress
At the head of the San Juan River was the village of San Carlos. This photograph from the 1880s shows the great Lake Nicaragua in the background, along with typical thatched-roof huts. A fort also guarded this strategic point. Library of Congress
On leaving the San Juan River, passengers transferred to larger sidewheel steamboats that traversed Lake Nicaragua's 110-mile expanse. The western landing was at Virgin Bay, where a large pier was eventually constructed. This somewhat exaggerated engraving shows the twin cones of the island of Ometepe. Library of Congress
A twelve-mile carriage road connected Virgin Bay with the little Pacific port of San Juan del Sur, which was virtually uninhabited until Vanderbilt personally chose it as the terminus of the transit route. Passengers transferred between steamship and shore by means of launches. Library of Congress
By 1851, San Francisco had emerged as a major American city, nourished in part by Vanderbilt's steamship line to and from New York. This photograph looks east across the bay toward Yerba Buena Island. It reveals the shipping that thronged the new wharves and the dense grid of substantial brick buildings that were constructed in the wake of repeated fires. Library of Congress
This 1854 engraving shows the Narrows at the mouth of New York Harbor, with Staten Island in the foreground, Long Island to the right, and in the distance on the far right the cities of Brooklyn and New York. Library of Congress
The offices of Vanderbilt's various lines to California could be found next to those of his competitors on Steamship Row, the nickname for this stretch of buildings just to the left of the small oval park of Bowling Green. Vanderbilt maintained a personal office here, at the southern tip of Manhattan, until he sold his steamship interests during the Civil War. Museum of the City of New York
Shrewd, dashing, and more than a bit slippery, Cornelius K. Garrison became the San Francisco agent for Accessory Transit, the company Vanderbilt had started to carry passengers via Nicaragua. He was manipulated into opposing Vanderbilt in late 1855. Library of Congress
A small, quiet, intense man, Nashville-born William Walker emerged as a leading “filibuster”—a private citizen who launched armed invasions of foreign countries. In 1855, he landed in Nicaragua with fifty-six men to fight in its civil war. He won, formed a new government, and abolished Accessory Transit. He gave the transit rights to a friend, who resold them to Garrison. Library of Congress
Granada was the capital of the Conservative government that ruled Nicaragua when Vanderbilt established the transit route. He visited the city on two of his three expeditions to the country. William Walker captured Granada in 1855 and consolidated his power by executing Conservative general Ponciano Corral on the city plaza, shown here. Library of Congress
Vanderbilt resumed control of Accessory Transit just as Walker revoked its corporate charter and gave its property to Cornelius Garrison and his partner Charles Morgan. Vanderbilt made an alliance with Costa Rica to oust Walker. Walker's downfall began when Sylvanus Spencer, Vanderbilt's personal agent, led a force of Costa Rican soldiers in a surprise assault on a filibuster garrison at Hipp's Point on the San Juan River, shown here. Library of Congress
In the 1850s Vanderbilt emerged as a major force on the stock exchange, often working closely with Daniel Drew. During this period stockbrokers conducted formal trades of securities in auctions in the Merchants' Exchange on Wall Street, shown here in 1850. Informal trades took place among unlicensed brokers on the curb outside. Library of Congress
Vanderbilt's youngest son, George Washington Vanderbilt, entered West Point in 1855, graduated near the bottom of his class in 1860, and served briefly in the West. At the beginning of the Civil War, he was convicted by a court-martial of deserting his post. He died in France on December 31, 1863. Library of Congress
Vanderbilt's respect for his son William grew in the late 1850s, as he became an officer of the Staten Island Railroad. Vanderbilt made him vice president of the Harlem Railroad, and eventually operational manager of all his lines. A gifted manager, William proved far less diplomatic than his father. Library of Congress
Vanderbilt named the greatest vessel he ever constructed after himself. For a time the largest and fastest steamship afloat, the Vanderbilt shared the characteristics of all the steamships he designed: a nearly vertical bow, massive sidewheels, supplementary sails, and twin walking-beam engines adapted from steamboats. Naval Historical Center
The Champion was the first iron-hulled steamship constructed in the United States. Though not the largest in Vanderbilt's fleet, it was fast and fuel efficient. During the Civil War it ran between Panama and New York, as part of a monopoly on California steamship traffic that Vanderbilt helped establish. Library of Congress
The rampage of the Confederate ironclad Virginia (also known as the Merrimack) created a panic in Lincoln's cabinet. The Monitor rushed to the scene and battled it to a standstill, as shown here. But the Virginia survived. Its continuing threat led Secretary of War Edwin Stanton to ask Vanderbilt to equip the Vanderbilt to destroy it. Library of Congress
Then the Commodore sprang his trap. On January 17, a headline in the Times announced, “NEW LINE OF STEAMSHIPS TO SAN FRANCISCO.” He was going to compete against Accessory Transit. The move epitomized the paradox that was Vanderbilt, for it was motivated by a personal vendetta yet had wide public consequences. The resulting fare war would dramatically reduce prices on the corridor between California and New York, showering benefits on migrants and merchants. It would also destroy Accessory Transit's profits, lay low the share price, and thus enrich Vanderbilt at the expense of his enemy—and innocent stockholders.
All these months, the Simonson shipyard had been refitting the North Star as a passenger liner. The world-famous yacht was to serve as the flagship of a new steamship fleet, but it would take time to build more vessels. So Vanderbilt made an alliance with merchant Edward Mills, who owned the Uncle Sam and built the new Yankee Blade with Vanderbilt's help. “These vessels are all known as exceedingly swift and commodious,” the Times reported; they would run on the Pacific, and connect to the North Star at Panama. Official notice of the “Vanderbilt Line for California” ran on January 23. With Daniel Allen in Europe, James Cross would manage the ships.52
Interestingly, it was the Washington correspondent of the Times who broke the story. Vanderbilt had gone to the capital to add a third role to those of speculator and entrepreneur—that of lobbyist, in pursuit of the California mail contract. As early as October 10 he had written to Secretary of State William L. Marcy on the subject. Vanderbilt likely knew Marcy personally, and undoubtedly found the jowly former governor of New York appealing. Historian Allan Nevins judged Marcy “blunt, humorous,” and highly social. “A gentleman of the old school,” he reportedly coined the phrase “To the victor belong the spoils,” an apt summary of the Commodore's own code. Vanderbilt wrote to Marcy, “I feel some solicitude to enlarge my reputation by doing something valuable for the country,” and suggested that a transit across Mexico, farther north even than Nicaragua, c
ould save two weeks on the mail to San Francisco.53
Washington had been empty when Vanderbilt wrote to Marcy; in December Congress reassembled, and the capital came alive. “The hotels and boarding-houses filled up, the shopkeepers displayed a varied stock, and the deserted villages [that made up the city] coalesced into a bustling town,” Nevins wrote—though it was still “a fourth-rate town.” Since Washington existed entirely for the seasonal gathering of Congress and a mere handful of year-round civil servants (the entire State Department staff consisted of eighteen men), it had few attributes of a true city. It lacked proper water or sewage works; parks remained undeveloped tracts, overrun by weeds; most government buildings were small, drab brick structures; even the Capitol and the Washington Monument sat unfinished. The most common business seems to have been the boardinghouse. “Music and drama were so ill-cultivated,” Nevins noted, “that a third-rate vocalist or strolling troupe created a sensation.”54 This was the town that Vanderbilt traveled to in January to press his war on Accessory Transit.
And to win glory for himself. The triumphant voyage of the North Star had swelled his sense of importance. It also seems to have soothed his strained relationship with his wife. Sophia acompanied him to Washington, where they socialized with Joseph L. Williams, a former Whig congressman whom Vanderbilt hired to assist in his lobbying. “The Commodore and lady were in pleasant spirits when here,” Williams wrote to a friend in New York. “I visited them several times at the hotel, and they went to see Mrs. [Williams] at our house, as she could not go out. I am to see the Secretary of the Navy for the Commodore by the time he comes back. Between you and I, he is anxious, or, rather, ambitious to build the government vessels.” Vanderbilt offered to build a “first-class steam frigate” for the navy; unlike most such proposals, his demanded no money up front, but merely repayment of the cost should the ship be accepted into the fleet.
This was patriotism, yes, but Vanderbilt hoped the positive publicity would strengthen his attempt to capture the contract for the California mail, to carry it by the aforementioned transit over Mexico, via Veracruz and Acapulco. As lobbyist Williams added in his letter, “He has other wishes in respect to the Vera Cruz and Acapulco route to California, to succeed in which he has to break down the prejudices of the Postmaster General and the elaborate arrangements of Jo White as to Nicaragua.”55
Inevitably, Joseph White dashed to Washington as soon as he learned of Vanderbilt's lobbying mission. “We are having some excitement indoors just now, relative to California mail contracts,” the Washington correspondent of the Times reported on January 17. “Parties interested in the Ramsey [Mexico] route, the Panama route, and the Nicaragua route, are all upon the ground attending to their respective interests.” (Ramsey was a figure in the company trying to open the Mexican land transit that Vanderbilt hoped to link to with his ships.)
White did what he did best: insult Vanderbilt. He desired the mail contract for Accessory Transit, of course, but he wanted most to deny it to Vanderbilt. Together with Senator James Cooper, White called on Postmaster General James Campbell “for the purpose of impressing him with the advantage of the Nicaragua route and the worthlessness of any other, and especially the Ramsey route via Vera Cruz and Acapulco,” the Times wrote. “Postmaster-General Campbell says it is a waste of time to cry down the latter route in his presence, because his mind is decidedly and irrevocably made up against it, which of course is a great satisfaction to the Nicaragua people.”56
The Commodore soon had more bad news. He returned to Washington in March with Sophia and daughter Phebe Cross, and discovered that his lobbyist Williams had fallen sick with tuberculosis—“lung fever,” as Williams called it. Vanderbilt carried on, one colleague recalled. “We wanted to see [Senator] John M. Clayton, and arranged to go and call on him on a certain evening. When night came… it rained pitchforks. I said to the Commodore, ‘We can't go now; wait, and if it slacks up we will go over.’” When the weather cleared, the friend couldn't find Vanderbilt, so he took the stage to Clayton's house. “I went in and found him, and the Commodore with him, playing whist.… He [Vanderbilt] said, ‘Between you and me, that's the way I got ahead of some of the other boys. I never failed to keep an engagement in my life.’”57
In this case, Vanderbilt would not get ahead of the other boys. He and White neutralized each other. Pacific Mail, U.S. Mail, and the Panama Railroad (a formidable lobbying bloc in their own right) would remain the official carriers for the Post Office. Stymied in politics, Vanderbilt carried on the business war, the one he knew best. His and Mills's ships continued to connect via Panama, rather than Mexico, but the Commodore's prowess at cutting costs would allow him to slash fares until he had cut open the very arteries of the Accessory Transit Company.
AS THE BUSINESSMEN BATTLED, the fixer left Washington to continue his work. In February 1854, Joseph White returned to Nicaragua to cope with the government's anger over Accessory Transit's failure to pay the required 10 percent of its profits. White, of course, preferred intrigue and corruption to simply paying the debt, as he freely admitted to Secretary of State Marcy “I am fatigued with listening to the extortionate demands of this Govt. & bribing it into silence,” White wrote from Nicaragua. “This process of securing the observance of chartered rights is too annoying and expensive.”58 Whatever Marcy thought of White personally, he supported the company. As Nicaragua surpassed Panama in popularity as a route to California, keeping the transit open became a strategic imperative for the United States, which would admit no fine points of morality59
In the course of 1854, the company's profits suffered under the competition of Vanderbilt's Independent Line, as the Commodore slashed fares—by half, then to one-third of what Accessory Transit charged.60 At Virgin Bay on Lake Nicaragua, an Accessory Transit launch shuttling passengers to a steamboat overturned, drowning twenty-one.61
In July, a murder carried out by one of the Accessory Transit riverboat captains brought to a head years of conflict with the people of Greytown. Together with Solon Borland, the belligerent U.S. minister to Nicaragua, White convinced Marcy to send the USS Cyane to destroy the town. White himself wrote instructions for the ship's captain, telling him not to “show any mercy to the town or people.… It is of the last importance that the people of the town should be taught to fear us. Punishment will teach them.” On July 13, the Cyane bombarded Greytown for several hours; then a landing party burned the remaining buildings to the ground. Not for the last time, Americans had completely destroyed a Nicaraguan city62
VANDERBILT FACED SWINDLERS of every description, in every direction. In June 1854, he sued William C. Moon for fraud. He had accepted a $3,000 promissory note from Moon, who claimed to represent a well-known mercantile house. Vanderbilt endorsed it over to August Belmont, who discovered the hoax. The Commodore promptly paid Belmont, though he is unlikely to have gotten his money back from Moon. In this case, the crime is less interesting than what it says about Vanderbilt's prolific small-scale lending. In 1854, he took numerous promissory notes for amounts ranging from $1,000 to $5,000. Years later, Lambert Wardell would claim that Vanderbilt had no time for small deals, observing, “An intimate friend of his once said that ‘The Commodore was the biggest man in a big thing and the littlest man in a little thing that he ever knew’” In 1854, that judgment was only half true, as Vanderbilt sought to invest every penny. He reportedly admitted all callers at his private office, and accommodated requests for minor loans rather freely (though he charged market rates of interest).63
But swindlers continued to haunt him; indeed, they would plague him in 1854 as at no other point in his life. The most heartbreaking, though not the worst, was his son Corneil. In March, Corneil's epilepsy struck him hard. “He is in feeble health,” a friend wrote, “and visits Washington for pleasure & for the benefit of his health.” The idea of anyone visiting the swampy city of Washington to improve his health would have struck most Americans as a bit strange. Stranger still were the identiti
es of the friend who wrote this letter and the man who received it: John P. Hale, former senator from New Hampshire, and Charles Sumner, senator from Massachusetts, both leading opponents of slavery.
At the moment, Hale and Sumner were embroiled in a struggle against the Kansas-Nebraska bill, which threatened to overturn the Missouri Compromise's ban on slavery in the lands north and west of Missouri. It was a titanic battle, yet Hale found time to intervene for the “son of the celebrated Mr. Vanderbilt.” He told Sumner, “If you can show him any attention, you will confer a favor on yours [truly].”
Corneil, who once had limited himself to drawing drafts on his unsuspecting father or skipping out on his bill at the haberdashery, had discovered a new method of acquiring gambling money: he charmed and flattered powerful men, playing on his father's fame to elicit loans. “Corneil was eccentric, and was possessed by some astonishing peculiarities that made him a genius in his way,” said Henry Clews, a gossipy banker who knew Corneil in later years. That genius lay in “his ability to catch the ear of prominent men, who would listen attentively to his tale of woe, and some of them were so thoroughly under the spell of his persuasive powers that they would fork out the required amount without hesitation, to relieve his pressing necessities.”64