His life, as it actually was, is fascinating, but I was writing a novel. A fine accurate biography of Vanderbilt had recently been written by A. J. Stiles, who won both the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award for The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt.
However, a biography is not a novel. I felt it my duty to know the facts until I learned from other biographies that much is not known. A lot is assumed. He was born in 1793, a very long time ago. That gave me literary license to pick and choose, and I should add, imagine much of it. 99% of the events depicted in Commodore in fact happened, but liberties must be taken to imagine the conversations and motivations of the actual characters.
I would like to think that my depiction of events in Commodore is how they played out. But, of course, that is untrue. It all happened too long ago. So, in a way, that offered me an opportunity. I could write the novel as a normal novel, a fiction. The events merely had to be a skeleton for the story. I could do what I wanted, namely, make Commodore a great character in a novel springing from my imagination.