untry. There was probably no important town
or district west of the Alleghanies that did not absorb a considerable
number. In most instances, too, our ex-soldiers became leaders in
these new communities. Perhaps this movement has its most typical and
picturesque illustration in the extent to which the Northern soldiers
opened up the oil-producing regions of western Pennsylvania. Venango
County, where this great development started, boasted that it had more
ex-soldiers than any similar section of the United States.

The Civil War period also forced into prominence a few men whose methods
and whose achievements indicated, even though roughly and indistinctly,
a new type of industrial leadership. Every period has its outstanding
figure and, when the Civil War was approaching its end, one personality
had emerged from the humdrum characters of the time--one man who, in
energy, imagination, and genius, displayed the forces that were to
create a new American world. Although this man employed his great
talents in a field, that of railroad transportation, which lies outside
the scope of the present volume, yet in this comprehensive view I may
take Cornelius Vanderbilt as the symbol that links the old industrial
era with the new. He is worthy of more detailed study than he has ever
received, for in personality and accomplishments Vanderbilt is the most
romantic figure in the history of American finance. We must remember
that Vanderbilt was born in 1794 and that at the time we are considering
he was seventy-one years old. In the matter of years, therefore,
his career apparently belongs to the ante-bellum days, yet the most
remarkable fact about this remarkable man is that his real life work did
not begin until he had passed his seventieth year. In 1865 Vanderbilt's
fortune, consisting chiefly of a fleet of steamboats, amounted to about
$10,000,000; he died twelve years later, in 1877, leaving $104,000,000,
the first of those colossal American fortunes that were destined to
astound the world. The mere fact that this fortune was the accumulated
profit of only ten years shows perhaps more eloquently than any other
circumstance that the United States had entered a new economic age. That
new factor in the life of America and the world, the railroad, explains
his achievement. Vanderbilt was one of the most astonishing characters
in our history. His physical exterior made him perhaps the most imposing
figure in New York. In his old age, a