Book Review: Tycoon's War

Tycoon's War is a richly detailed recounting of the careers of William Walker and Cornelius Vanderbilt before 1855 and the epic battle of wills that raged between them during 1856 and 1857. The two men never met.

Walker was a doctor, a lawyer, a newspaperman and a soldier of fortune whose imagination and sense of adventure drew him to Nicaragua in 1855. As if by magic, he managed to end the devastating 17-month-long civil war and was soon elected President. Stephen Dando-Collins quotes Walker as telling the U.S. members of his troops that "they were there to introduce American values and democracy, to replace a worn-out Old World social and political order." His political ambition was huge: he harbored dreams of taking over all Central America.

In 1849, Vanderbilt had obtained rights to build a canal across Nicaragua. With additional rights to transport passengers and goods overland across Nicaragua from the Atlantic to the Pacific, he also held a monopoly on the shortest, fastest shipping route between New York and San Francisco. Vanderbilt began transporting people (and gold from California) along the route in 1851, and by 1853, he had made millions on his Nicaraguan operation. When his partners later tried to cut him out of the deal, he famously replied: "Gentlemen, you have undertaken to cheat me. I won't sue you, for the law is too slow. I'll ruin you. Yours truly, Cornelius Vanderbilt." Vanderbilt had a history of defending his commercial interests with ferocity.

Dando-Collins revels in unearthing stories of Walker's political opponents in Nicaragua, treacherous undisciplined troops and armed incursions from neighboring Costa Rica, Honduras and El Salvador. By comparison, his tales of Vanderbilt's schemes to best conniving competitors attempting to co-opt his transit route in Nicaragua appear almost genteel.

In 1856, Walker invalidated Vanderbilt's transit route agreement with Nicaragua. From the moment the interests of Walker and Vanderbilt clashed, there was nothing but trouble. Vanderbilt raged at the U.S. Secretary of State William Marcy, "One William Walker has interfered with American property, Marcy!" He, of course, meant his personal property.

Vanderbilt launched into furious action, with wave after wave of strategies, agents and arms deals to cripple Walker. For his part, Walker unrelentingly countered every assault on his Nicaragua power base.

Because nobody backed down, Walker and Vanderbilt began to resemble the Irresistible Force and the Immovable Object of the beloved Johnny Mercer lyric; as we know, the song predicts, "Something's Gotta Give," and it does with ferocious brutality and destruction.--John McFarland

Shelf Talker: A rip-roaring adventure that is also an object lesson in political and commercial exploitation of Central America at the hands of William Walker and Cornelius Vanderbilt, two larger-than-life 19th century American originals.