To buttress his financiers and railroad men, Rosecrans enlisted U.S. politicians, many of whom were already active in other railroad speculations. James A. Garfield and Chief Justice Salmon Chase joined his consortium, and, more surprisingly, Ulysses S. Grant, who needed money and whom Rosecrans needed because Grant was highly thought of in Mexico because of his sympathy toward Juarez.
Pletcher, Rails, Mines, and Progress, 37-49, 152-154.
Cooke was to get 12 of the 24 shares in the road, and these 12 shares controlled 40% of the stock in the road. An additional 20% of the stock would be issued to Jay Cooke & Co. in increments of $200 in stock for each $1,000 worth of bonds his firm sold.
Larson, Cooke, 260, 277.
This stock had a par or face value of $41 million and was arbitrarily assigned a value of $600,000. The stock would be issued incrementally as the road was completed. The bonds were a paying investment.
See Larson, Jay Cooke, 286.
Hincks and Macdonald later tried to cast all this in a very different light.
Others associated him with the original goal of soliciting American capital.
Earl of Dufferin to Earl of Kimberly, Aug. 15, 1873, no. 4. p. 7, 30.
Testimony of Sir Francis Hincks, Sept. 4, 1873, "Report of the Royal Commissioners," 94-103.
Testimony of Jan Charles Chapais, Sept. 12, 1873 "Report of Commissioners," 141-2.
Testimony of John Mcdonald, Sept. 17, 1873, "Report of Commissioners," 171-80, 186.
Whether Cowen was paid is uncertain, but negotiations moved forward.
See Duane Swanson, The Northern Pacific Railroad and the Sisseton-Wahpeton Sioux: A Case in Land Acquisition (M.A. thesis, Univ. of Delaware, 1972), 41, 43-44, 48-54.
George Becker and James Smith Jr. to Cooke, Sept. 5, 1872,; Jay Cooke to Brother Harry, May 24, 1872; Cooke to Cass, March 17, 1873, Cooke to B. F. Wade, March 22, 1873, Cooke to Maj. Benj. Thompson, March 22, 1873, LBs, all in Cooke Papers.