Cornelius Vanderbilt was an enigma, an insanely complex person with conflicting personalities. He began his career by opposing the idea of ​​monopolies, a champion of individualism and the free market, but ended his career by building the very thing he initially opposed, monopolies. He was a shrewd businessman who cared only for himself, but during the Civil War he was a national patriot. He was willing to donate his ship, the Vanderbilt (worth about $1 million at the time, a significant portion of his fortune), to the Union Army for $1. During the Civil War, he sided with the North, but later married a loyal Confederate woman and saved Jefferson Davis. He also donated $1 million to Central University of Tennessee, which was later named after him. For all his complex personalities, there was no doubt that "The Commodore", a nickname he earned for his great success in the naval industry, was one of the first titans of the American Industrial Revolution. He was a strong supporter of capitalism and gave the nation what it needed most during its great time of change: cheap, efficient transportation. This is the story of the "Robber Baron", his rise, triumphs and defeats. Born to Cornelius van Derbilt and Phebe Hand in Staten Island, New York. His parents were farmers in the small agricultural village. His father also operated a small ferry, transporting produce and goods between Staten Island and Manhattan. Vanderbilt, in a sense, was born into transportation, so it's no surprise that he later became a transportation titan. From a young age he worked with his father on the ferry. This gave him a better understanding of the waters when he would begin… halfway… an association that would become extremely beneficial to both men. Even when he helped Gibbons pilot his steamships, he kept his ferry business alive. Although deemed ignorant by many, he managed to learn much about the steam engine during his time under Gibbons. His knowledge of the steam engine would later allow him to eliminate the competition, on water and on land. On May 5, 1815, Chancellor Livingston's heirs gave Aaron Ogden a license to operate his own steamboat between Elizabethtown and New York. Due to personal conflicts, Gibbons wanted to cripple Ogden. The only way to do this was to break Ogden's monopoly by finding a way to declare that its monopoly was illegal. In the landmark Supreme Court case of Gibbons v. Ogden, Gibbons appealed to the Court against Ogden's monopoly. On March 2, 1824, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of Gibbons.