Cornelius Vanderbilt's Life During The Civil War

They had to take the seeds out of the cotton themselves instead of having a machine to do it for them. This made work slower and made it so they lost money. There was also a huge loss of livestock during the civil war. Two fifths of the South's livestock were killed during the civil war. Livestock was very important in this time especially on plantations. Losing such a valuable thing hurt the South. Because of the destruction of cities, railroads, riverboats, cotton gins, and livestock, many businesses went bankrupt. The overall cost of war was terrible for the South and the North. Before the civil war the national debt was sixty-five million dollars. At the end of the civil war the national debt was at two point seven billion dollars.

His parents were common farmer's (H.2010). Growing up Vanderbilt barely went to school (H.2010). Cornelius eventually had his own group of small boats and he learned all about ships (H.2010). He married his cousin in 1813 and they had 13 children together (H.2010). Vanderbilt started building his empire with steamboats (H.2010). He started by working for a very wealthy businessman (H.2010). It was there that he learned a lot about steamboats and business. He left that company and started to work for himself (H.2010). He was a very good businessman and competed very well (H.2010). He was a very scary man to get into a business war with because he usually ended up winning. Some companies paid him a lot of money to not compete with them (H.2010). Because of his intense approach to business, he made a lot of enemies

Cornelius Vanderbilt built the railroad empire (H.2010). He saw how popular the railroads were and he wanted to get into the business (H.2010). It was a very large growing industry because of the gold rush and other new products. He had control of some major railroad lines operating between New York and Chicago (H.2010). Popular railroads made product ship a lot faster. The economy grew because the costs were lower and the product was getting shipped faster (H., 2010). From the book “ The first Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt”, written by T.J. Styles, it says: “This was a major transformation of the railroad network, which previously had been fragmented into numerous short railroads, each with its own procedures, timetables, and rolling stock. The creation of a coherent system spanning several states lowered costs, increased efficiency, and sped up travel and shipment times.” He knew that he had complete power over some of the major railroads in America and he was very smart with how he used that power and knowledge (H.2010). He demanded respect from everyone (H.2010). People knew that he was not someone to me messed around with (H.2010). He shipped all kinds of product. A major product he shipped was