Along with Jacob H. Schiff, H. B. Claflin, Marcellus Hartley, and Robert L. Cutting, he was a founder of the Continental Bank of New York in August 1870. Civil War During the American Civil War, Seligman was responsible for aiding the Union by disposing of $200,000,000 in bonds "a feat which W. E. Dodd said was 'scarcely less important than the Battle of Gettysburg. Later historians have suggested that Seligman's role in financing the war through bonds has been exaggerated. According to Stephen Birmingham, Seligman was obliged to accept "7.30 bonds" from the government as payment for the uniforms his factory was delivering. Union defeats, combined with a suspiciously high interest rate, lowered confidence in the bonds, making them difficult to sell. In the post-Civil War Gilded Age, J. & W. Seligman & Co. invested heavily in railroad finance, in particular acting as broker of transactions engineered by Jay Gould. They underwrote the securities of a variety of companies, participating in stock and bond issues in the railroad and steel and wire industries, investments in Russia and Peru, the formation of the Standard Oil Company, and shipbuilding, bridges, bicycles, mining, and a variety of other industries. Later, in 1876, the Seligmans joined forces with the Vanderbilt family to create public utilities in New York. In 1877, Seligman was involved in the most publicized antisemitic incident in American history up to that point, being denied entry into the Grand Union Hotel in Saratoga Springs, New York, by Henry Hilton. J. & W. Seligman & Co. and railroads Seligman's firm made a number of investments in railroads. Among these were the Missouri Pacific, the Atlantic and Pacific Railroad (A&P), the South Pacific Coast Railroad, and the Missouri–Kansas–Texas Railroad. They also helped finance New York's first elevated railway. After the American Civil War, nothing generated as much financial excitement as rail transportation, and the Seligmans were, at that time, the country's leading financiers. Joseph started conservatively in this sector, selling railroad bonds, but this led them to owning and operating railroads in order to protect their investments. Joseph served as director of the A&P, the Missouri–Kansas–Texas, as well as the South Pacific railroads, and in 1872, claimed that they had made a fortune in the business of start-up railroads. However, he never felt comfortable here, and suspected that they were over-invested in the sector. After the Panic of 1873 he swore never to