JAY COOKE’S GAMBLE:  The Northern Pacific Railroad, the Sioux, and the Panic of 1873:  In 1869 Jay Cooke, the country’s leading banker and the “Financier of the Civil War” was, at 48, bored by just making money. After being rejected as secretary of the treasury by President Grant, the brilliant but idiosyncratic Cooke decided to do something as challenging: finance the Northern Pacific, a transcontinental railroad planned from Duluth to Seattle.
    But Cooke, whose reputation and wealth were at stake, did not anticipate inept and dishonest Northern Pacific management nor realize the challenges of crossing 125 miles of Minnesota swamp. Cooke failed to understand that he couldn’t control Congress, and was unprepared for the far-flung business and political coalition that challenged him. Most of all, he underestimated the determination of Sitting Bull’s Sioux and Cheyenne followers to continue living and hunting as in the past.
    When the Northern Pacific and the Army ignored Sitting Bull’s warning not to enter the Yellowstone Valley, Indian attacks – combined with alcoholic military commanders – led to embarrassing setbacks on the field and in the nation’s press. Reluctantly, Grant was forced to turn to the soldier he most distrusted – Custer. Yet, sustained by his conviction that he was “God’s chosen instrument,” Cooke never gave up.
    By September 1873 the NP’s track was planned to the Yellowstone River and revenues exceeded expenses. Then Custer’s melodramatic report of fighting the Sioux reached the New York press, jolting the financial community. Lubetkin’s suspenseful narrative describes events played out from Wall Street to the Yellowstone and vividly portrays the soldiers, engineers, businessmen, politicians, and Native Americans who tried to build or block the Northern Pacific.

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