The First Tycoon

by T. J. Stiles

  5 NYH, August 30, 31, 1854; NYT, September 5, 1854. On the lack of distinction between a corporation and its members and officers, see 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.

  6 RGD, NYC, 341:184; Daniel Drew and Isaac Newton v. New York & Erie Rail Road Co., September 10, 1842, file 1842-#331, Superior Court, NYCC.

  7 NYH, August 30, 1854.

  8 NYT, August 30, September 4, 5, October 16, 1854; PS, September 7, 1854; RGD, NYC, 340:13; Mott, 115, 125.

  9 NYT, October 4, 1854; NYH, February 13, 1855.

  10 John Steele Gordon, A Thread Across the Ocean: The Heroic Story of the Transatlantic Cable (New York: Walker & Company, 2002), 18–27; CV to Cyrus W. Field, [December 2?], 1855, Cyrus W. Field Collection, Morgan Library.

  11 Croffut, 113.

  12 John A. Butler, Atlantic Kingdom: America's Contest with Cunard in the Age of Sail and Steam (Washington, D.C.: Brassey's, 2001), 206–8. On the Arctic sinking, see NYT, October 12, 1854, and press coverage in general surrounding this date. The Collins Line was formally called the New York & Liverpool United States Mail Steamship Company.

  13 NYH, quoted in LT, January 1, 1855.

  14 EP, quoted in NYT, February 2, 1855; Croffut, 109–10. As noted above, CV estimated his own fortune at $11 million at the beginning of 1853. On wages, see NYT, August 9, 1858.

  15 NYT, March 9, 1855.

  16 Mark W. Summers, The Plundering Generation: Corruption and the Crisis of the Union, 1849–1861 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987), 104–6, 262; John G. B. Hutchins, The American Maritime Industries and Public Policy: 1789–1914 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1941), 348–58.

  17 Summers, 104–6, 262; Hutchins, 348–58; Butler, 175–6; Western Journal of Civilization, September 1852; NYH, February 28, 1855; National Era, March 8, 1855; Benjamin B. French to Henry F. French, September 5, 1852, reel 5, Benjamin B. French Papers, LOC; David Budlong Tyler, Steam Conquers the Atlantic (New York: D. Appleton-Century Company, 1939), 209–10. For a thorough discussion of the Collins Line's steamships, see Cedric Ridgely-Nevitt, American Steamships on the Atlantic (Newark, Del.: University of Delaware Press, 1981), 147–71.

  18 My discussion is informed by John Lauritz Larson's analysis of the early fights over the transcontinental railroad, Internal Improvement: National Public Works and the Promise of Popular Government in the Early United States (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001), 243–55.

  19 Circular, February 8, 1855; SA, February 10, 1855.

  20 For a review of these events, see T. J. Stiles, Jesse James: Last Rebel of the Civil War (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2002), 48–55; McPherson, 145–62.

  21 NYT, February 16, 1855.

  22 NYT, February 28, 1855; NYTr, March 9, 1855; Lane, 144–6.

  23 NYTr, March 3, 1855.

  24 NYT, March 2, 6, 1855.

  25 NYTr, March 8, 1855. Croffut, 108, quotes Wardell as saying, “In dictating a letter to a clerk I never saw his equal.”

  26 David Herbert Donald, Lincoln (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1995), 154–61.

  27 NYT, March 9, 1855.

  28 Circular, April 5, 1855; National Era, April 5, 1855; Butler, 211–2. Vanderbilt exchanged another ship, the Granada, for the North Star; see NYT, February 7, 1856. On Torrance, see RGD, NYC, 341:167.

  29 James Maurice to Jefferson Davis, February 7, 1855, James Maurice to General Joseph G. Totten, February 15, 1855, George W. Vanderbilt to Jefferson Davis, February 19, 1855, entry 214, reel 200, U.S. Military Academy Application Papers, Microfilm Publication M688, NA. See also George W. Cullum, Biographical Register of the Officers and Cadets of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, NY., vol. 2 (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, 1891), 766–7; George W. Vanderbilt's index number is 1885.

  30 NYT, March 24, 1855; NYW, December 20, 1877.

  31 NYH, March 16, 1855; NYT, March 16, 17, 1855.

  32 NYW, November 14, 1877; NYT, April 4, 1855.

  33 NYT, January 18, May 29, August 7, 1855.

  34 NYT, November 30, 1852, March 29, April 18, 1854.

  35 NYH, March 4, 5, June 2, 1855.

  36 NYH, April 17, 1855.

  37 LW Dictation.

  38 The notion of a highly partisan and politically engaged public has been challenged by Glenn C. Altschuler and Stuart M. Blumin, Rude Republic: Americans and Their Politics in the Nineteenth Century (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2000), who find that ordinary life was filled with ordinary life, not politics. In particular, they argue that the rise of mass politics alienated the wealthier and better educated voters—that “respectable people” found politics to be a “dirty trade,” 84–5. This corrective is well taken, but clearly politics remained an important part of the culture in which CV was situated.

  39 NYT, April 26, May 1, 1855, February 7, 1856.

  40 Circular, April 5, 1855; National Era, April 5, 1855; BE, April 13, 1855; NYH, May 17, 1855; SA, June 23, 1855.

  41 LT, August 1, 1855; SA, May 19, 1855.

  42 Butler, 215–20; Littell's Living Age, May 15, 1858; MM, September 1858; Ridgely-Nevitt, 128–39, I56–7, 163.

  43 NYTr, September 13, October 15, November 21, 1855; NYT, November 21, 1855; Littell's Living Age, December 8, 1855.

  44 NYH, November 28, 30, 1855.

  45 JoC, November 22, 1855; NYTr, November 27, 1855.

  46 Even the extremely elitist George Templeton Strong deemed Marshall O. Roberts an example of “decent, well-bred men;” Strong, 3:424.

  47 NYTr, December 17, 24, 1855; NYH, December 24, 1855; NYT, February 7, 1856. Aspinwall apparently had been unhappy with how Pacific Mail had been run in 1855, and wished to make reforms of his own; NYT, July 19, 1855. On November 6, 1855, the Mercantile Agency (which estimated Aspinwall's estate at about $2 million) noted that he was not thought to be actively engaged in business, though he did maintain a large interest in Pacific Mail.

  48 NYTr, November 29, 1855; NYT, November 29, 1855; Citizens of Granada, Nicaragua, “Petition to General William Walker to Commute Death Sentence of General Ponciano Corral,” November 7, 1855, Papers Concerning the Filibuster War, BL; entry for November 8, 1855, Diary, John Hill Wheeler Papers, LOC; Manning, 4:487: Burns, 199. Accessory Transit agent Joseph Scott noted that Walker dismissed the Nicaraguans from the service after his victory, SctDP; Burns, 199–200. Walker himself admitted Corral's popularity; see William Walker, The War in Nicaragua (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1985, orig. pub. 1860), 134–40. For a very useful discussion of the historiography of Walker in Nicaragua, see Ralph Lee Woodward Jr., “William Walker and the History of Nicaragua in the Nineteenth Century,” Latin American Research Review 15, no. 1 (1980): 237–40. Woodward, however, writes in error that the completion of the Panama Railroad made the Nicaragua route uncompetitive. As already shown, it was highly competitive, both in the perceptions of businessmen involved in the California trade and in such objective measurements as speed of passage, economy of operation, and number of passengers.

  49 Robert E. May, The Southern Dream of Caribbean Empire: 1854–1861 (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1989), 79; Commodore Hiram Paulding to James C. Dobbin, January 22, 1856, roll 96: Home Squadron, June 30, 1855, to December 17, 1856, Letters Received from the Secretary of the Navy from Commanding Officers of Squadrons, 1841–1886, Microfilm Publication M89, NA. See also H. W. Brands, The Age of Gold: The California Gold Rush and the New American Dream (New York: Doubleday, 2002), 383–4. For a full biography of Walker, see Albert Z. Carr, The World and William Walker (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1963). As May notes, 81n., Carr's book “is sparsely annotated, and much of Carr's psychological interpretation seems intuitive to the extreme.” Stephen Dando-Collins's Tycoon's War: How Cornelius Vanderbilt Invaded a Country to
Overthrow America's Most Famous Military Adventurer (New York: Da Capo, 2008) is likewise unreliable, with some fictionalized scenes.

  50 Robert E. May, Manifest Destiny's Underworld: Filibustering in Antebellum America (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2002), 1–16; McPherson, 103–16; May, Southern Dream, 79–85, 119–21; Carr, 1–11, 36, 56, 63–4. May argues effectively that, despite enthusiasm for territorial expansion, U.S. presidents did not condone filibustering, and actively opposed it. See, for example, “The Slave Power Conspiracy Revisited: United States Presidents and Filibustering, 1848–1861,” in David W. Blight and Brooks D. Simpson, eds., Union and Emancipation: Essays on Politics and Race in the Civil War Era (Kent: Kent State University Press, 1997), 7–28. On the broader cultural significance of filibustering, see May's article, “Young American Males and Filibustering in the Age of Manifest Destiny: The United States Army as a Cultural Mirror,” JAH, December 1991, 857–86. I am indebted to Professor Lisandro Perez of Florida International University for information on the Cubans of New York and their role in filibustering expeditions. The literature on filibustering is extensive. In addition to May's important books, see, for example, Amy S. Greenberg, Manifest Manhood and the Antebellum American Empire (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005), which depicts filibustering as the result of a crisis of masculinity in America; and William O. Scroggs, Filibusters and Financiers: The Story of William Walker and his Associates (New York: Macmillan Company, 1916), an account that remains highly influential. Philip S. Foner, Business and Slavery: The New York Merchants and the Irrepressible Conflict (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1941), 121, notes the enthusiasm for seizing Cuba in the business community, led by August Belmont.

  51 McPherson, 103–16; Manning, 4:267–8, 424; Hiram Paulding to My Dear Cal, January 19, 1856, Hiram Paulding Papers, LOC.

  52 Walker, 27; C. W. Doubleday, Reminiscences of the “Filibuster” War in Nicaragua (New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1886), 164.

  53 Walker, 106–27; HED 103, 34th Cong., 1st sess., vol. 11; SED 68, 34th Cong., 1st sess., vol. 13; Burns, 197–8; Carr, 1–36. As will be discussed, newspapers at the time assumed that the ATC deliberately aided Walker; direct evidence, however, shows that Walker coerced the company at every step, starting with the commandeering of La Virgen to capture Granada. See, for example, SctDP. On Walker's early military blundering, see Doubleday, 120–30; National Era, August 2, 1855. Walker, 51–65, managed to convince himself that he was a genius despite his failures.

  54 Walker, 149–50, quote on 151–2. On Walker's reaction to CKG's failure to respond, see Deposition of Parker H. French, ATC Lawsuit. On French, see Deposition of Parker H. French, ATC Lawsuit; NYT, December 18, 26, 1855; May, Southern Dream, 98n. Joseph Scott witnessed Law's sale of rifles to French in New York; SctDP.

  55 Deposition of Edmund Randolph, Deposition of Alexander P. Crittenden, Mac-Donald Lawsuit; Deposition of Parker H. French, ATC Lawsuit; May, Southern Dream, 98; May, Manifest, 121. See also AltaC, October 21, 1855. Walker, 146, supports the account given here, writing, “Before leaving San Francisco Walker had tried to ascertain the wishes of the Transit Company concerning the introduction of Americans into Nicaragua.… The agent of the company in California stated that his principals had instructed him to have nothing to do with such enterprises as he supposed Walker to contemplate.” Commodore Paulding would report that Accessory Transit remained neutral, writing, “The Transit Company acted in good faith pursuing their business with a singleness of purpose.… Their impunity in conducting their business depended upon their acquiescence when there was power to command obedience;” Commodore Hiram Paulding to James C. Dobbin, January 22, 1856, roll 96: Home Squadron, June 30, 1855, to December 17, 1856, Letters Received by the Secretary of the Navy from Commanding Officers of Squadrons, 1841–1886, Microfilm Publication M89, NA. Note, too, that when one naval officer traveled to Granada in May to consult with the Conservative government about preventing Walker's landing in Nicaragua, Accessory Transit provided him with free passage on a lake steamboat; Commander T. Baily to James C. Dobbin, May 28, 1855, Letter Books of U.S. Naval Officers, March 1778 to July 1908: Correspondence of Rear Admiral William Mervine, July 1836 to August 1868, vol. 3, entry 603(15), RG 45, NA.

  56 Soulé, 744–7; Baughman, 73; David Lavender, Nothing Seemed Impossible: William C. Ralston and Early San Francisco (Palo Alto: American West, 1975), 17, 21–39; NYT, October 20, 1851. Every secondary source I have consulted names CM and CKG as coconspirators during the 1853–54 conflict, even though no primary source evidence supports this conclusion. It appears to be an extrapolation based on their later partnership.

  57 AltaC, April 11, 1853; Deposition of Nicholas Laning, ATC Lawsuit; Deposition of Theodore A. Wakeman, Deposition of Benjamin F. Voorhees, MacDonald Lawsuit; Lavender, 58–60.

  58 Dialogue and details of this conversation are taken from the depositions of Edmund Randolph, Alexander P. Crittenden, and John W. Bent, MacDonald Lawsuit.

  59 Depositions of Edmund Randolph, Alexander P. Crittenden, John W. Bent, Benjamin F. Voorhees, and Edward J. C. Kewen, MacDonald Lawsuit; NYT, November 21, 1855. Randolph's partner in the transit-flipping scheme was Alexander P. Crittenden, who spoke to CKG about the proposal repeatedly; see William Walker to Alexander P. Crittenden, October 25, 1855, MacDonald Lawsuit.

  60 Commodore Hiram Paulding, USS Potomac, Havana, to James C. Dobbin, January 22, 1856, roll 96: Home Squadron, June 30, 1855, to December 17, 1856, Letters Received by the Secretary of the Navy from Commanding Officers of Squadrons, 1841–1886, Microfilm Publication M89, NA Walker, 150.

  61 CV to WLM, March 26, 1856, HED 103, 34th Cong., 1st sess., vol. 11; Deposition of Edmund Randolph, San Francisco, January 11, 1859, MacDonald Lawsuit. Contrast my version of CKG's actions with that of Scroggs, Filibusters and Financiers, and “William Walker and the Steamship Corporation in Nicaragua,” AHR 10, no. 4 (July 1905): 792–811. Scroggs crafted the accepted version of these events, arguing that it was CM and CKG's “plan” to convince Walker to annul the charter and give them the rights to carry passengers across Nicaragua. Abundant evidence not consulted by Scroggs, and a closer analysis, points to the version given here.

  62 John H. Wheeler to WLM, December 15, 1855, Manning, 4:496: NYT, March 15, 1856; Walker, 146–8. Historians as well as contemporary reporters have ignored Walker's own declaration that the armed force dispatched by White convinced him to destroy the company. It is, in fact, the most satisfying explanation for his actions. By revoking the corporate charter, he endangered his lifeline to the United States, and made a powerful enemy; but, as an extreme reaction to White's small armed force, it is in keeping with Walker's loathing of treachery and obsession with power. Scroggs mentions the force, but only in the context of the Pierce administration's attitude toward the company; see “William Walker and the Steamship Corporation.”

  63 Deposition of Edmund Randolph, San Francisco, January 11, 1859, Deposition of John W. Bent, New York, July 3, 1858, MacDonald Lawsuit; Walker, 150–2. Interestingly, Walker wrote that Alexander Crittenden and Randolph led him to believe that CKG wanted him to cancel the ATC charter, whereas Crittenden, Randolph, and French all testified that CKG resisted this action. The most likely explanation is that Crittenden and Randolph misled Walker to secure his cooperation.

  Eleven Vanderbilt

  1 BE, December 8, 1855; NYT, December 11, 1855; NYT, December 11, 1855; New York Courier and Enquirer, reprinted in the LT, December 29, 1855; NYH, January 1, 1856. For a detailed analysis of the Vanderbilt (and all of CVs other Atlantic steamships) see Cedric Ridgely-Nevitt, American Steamships on the Atlantic (Newark, Del.: University of Delaware Press, 1981), 222–49.

  2 RGD, NYC, 374:1. CV would later claim that he spent between $800,000 and $900,000 on the Vanderbilt; see HsR 2, part 2A, 37th Cong., 2nd sess., vol. 2.

  3 NYTr, December 17, 24, 1855; NYH, December 24, 1855; NYT, February 7, 1856.

  4 National Era, January
10, 1856.

  5 On the administration's attitude toward Walker and French, see NYT, December 14, 15, 1855; NYH, November 25, 1856; WLM to John H. Wheeler, November 8, 1855, Manning, 4:74. On the Crampton affair, see WLM to J. F. Crampton, August 27, 1855, vol. 80: Private Letterbook, WLMP; NYH, December 25, 1855; NYT, November 17, 1855, May 21, 1856; SEP, May 24, 1856.

  6 NYH, December 24, 25, 1855, May 9, 1856; NYTr, December 24, 25, 1855; NYT, December 25, 1855; LT, January 8, 1856.

  7 NYH, December 24, 25, 1855, May 9, 1856; NYTr, December 24, 25, 1855; NYT, December 25, 1855; LT, January 8, 1856. Scott, a careful man, searched the Northern Light for arms with McKeon, offering more proof that the company was not secretly supporting Walker, beyond its special emigrant rate. No arms were found on the ship; later it became clear that arms were being shipped down in sailing vessels; NYTr, February 7, 1857. Scott also testified that emigrants to California typically went heavily armed, often with revolvers and rifles, and so many weapons were probably carried to Nicaragua by individual filibuster recruits. On the Irish and Five Points, see Tyler Anbinder, Five Points: The 19th-Century New York City Neighborhood That Invented Tap Dance, Stole Elections, and Became the World's Most Notorious Slum (New York: Free Press, 2001), 42–50, 67–80, 111–40.

  8 NYTr, January 7, 8, 24, 1856; NYH, January 7, 8, 10, 1856; NYW, November 14, 1877; David Colden Murray, Receiver of the ATC, v. CV, November 3, 1859, file PL 1859-M V74, Supreme Court Pleadings, NYCC.

  9 NYTr, January 7, 8, 26, February 9, 1856; NYH, January 8, 10, 25, 1856; entry for January 21, 1856, Senate Journal, 34th Cong., 1st sess.; William Walker, Response to Interrogatories, Charles MacDonald v. CKG and CM, July 26, 1858, Papers Concerning the Filibuster War, BL; David Colden Murray, Receiver of the ATC, v. CV, November 3, 1859, file PL 1859-M V74, Supreme Court Pleadings, NYCC; CV to WLM, March 17, 1856, HED 103, 34th Cong., 1st sess., vol. 11. On CV's hostility toward Walker, see Wheeler's statement in Memorial Presented by David Colden Murray, fold. 1, box 1, CRCC.