Morgan, Henry Morgan, and Israel Harris controlled 1,390 of 4,000 shares. A third board member, Cornelius B. Payne, was a junior partner of Harris & Morgan and owned 250 shares of stock in the Southern Steamship Company. The fourth board member was a close friend of Charles Morgan, a New Orleans grocer, E.J. Hart. Morgan completed his requirements to capitalize the corporation at $400,000 by transferring several assets on June 10, 1856. The assets received by the Southern Steamship Company were four steamships, the New OrleansGalvestonIndianola mail contract, eight enslaved persons, and sundry equipment. Through incorporation, Morgan attracted new investors while still maintaining a large portfolio of assets apart from the Southern Steamship Company. Incorporation also represented a partial withdrawal from management of Morgan's interests and a new role as a passive investor. On October 1, 1856, the Southern Steamship Company secured a mail contract serving Brashear, Louisiana and Galveston. Brashear was located at the western terminus of the New Orleans, Opelousas and Great Western Railroad (NOO&GW), navigable from Berwick's Bay on the Gulf of Mexico. The NOO&GW was planned to span from New Orleans to the Pacific Coast, but higher than expected construction costs prevented the company from building beyond this swampy, inaccessible, and sparsely populated area of Louisiana. After fending off a serious challenge from Cornelius Vanderbilt, the Southern Steamship Company forged a mutual freight agreement with the NOO&GW. The eastern terminal of the NOO&GW was located in Algiers, Louisiana, directly across the Mississippi River from New Orleans. Freight delivered to the railroad at Algiers avoided New Orleans taxes and wharfage fees. In addition, transferring western-bound freight to the railroad eliminated both navigating the Mississippi River and shortened the western route to Galveston by about . Morgan himself had negotiated the complex freight deal between the Southern Steamship Company and NOO&GW. Southern Steamship agreed to transport freight for the railroad from its Brashear terminal to Galveston (via Sabine Pass, Texas), and to Indianola, Texas (via Galveston). The Southern Steamship Company received a percentage of NOO&GW's freight receipts based on a multiple-tiered formula. NOO&GW also agreed to move freight for the Southern Steamship Company at a discount, and provide its ships with a wharf at Brashear. The steamship service not only carried mail and other freight, but carried over 16,000 passengers from Brashear to Texas in 1859, and over 28,000 passengers in 1860. American Civil War Morgan was a