percent discount moving his supplies on the railroad, and the railroad would provide wharfage at the western terminus at Brashear. As before, Morgan's steamship transported freight from the western terminus of the railroad at Brashear to the Texas ports of Galveston and Indianola.In the late-1860s, Morgan's steamships carried much of the eastbound freight for a growing coastal Texas cattle industry. He offered new service in 1867 to Rockport, Texas, hauling outbound hides and beef products. The new port on Aransas Bay exported over 2 million pounds of hides and over 1.7 million pounds of wool by 1869. The port of Indianola served the area around Matagorda Bay, where five meatpacking facilities were located by 1870. Indianola exported cattle, hides, wool, cotton, and processed meat. There was a major managerial re-alignment in 1867. Preceded by the departure of George Quintard and Henry Morgan, both of whom pursued new paths as independent financiers, his agent in New Orleans, Israel C. Harris, retired on April 1 before dying on Christmas Eve. Morgan hired a new agency for the Crescent City, headed by another one of his son-in-laws, Charles A. Whitney. Whitney & Company's other partner was another Morgan associate by the name of Alexander C. Hutchinson. Morgan granted them total authority over the Morgan Line, which operated between Louisiana and Texas. Railroad ownership To this point, Morgan had invested in the first-tier mortgage bonds of the NOO&GW, but had not yet held equity in any railroads. The NOO&GW had fallen behind in its coupon payments. The Illinois Central Railroad, a large bondholder, filed suit on June 10, 1868. The following year, William S. Pike approached Morgan to join a group of 26 NOO&GW bondholders to force a court-ordered sale of the railroad. Morgan refused to join the suit, and Pike dropped the plan. Several months later, in September 1868, Morgan offered a complex counter-proposal to act as an operator and lessee of the NOO&GW. Morgan agreed to buy all of the NOO&GW's debt, while taking responsibility for two-thirds of the debt for building the railroad to Sabine Pass, Texas. In Pike's opinion, the bondholders would be offering as much as a fifty percent discount on their assets, thus he declined the offer. Morgan predicted a bankruptcy in the NOO&GW's near future. Shortly later, Morgan retained Miles Taylor as legal counsel, who filed a series of legal actions against the railroad. One of these