Charles Mitchell strode up the steps of 55 Wall Street, determined to project his usual sense of confidence and certitude. It had been a crushing afternoon. As he returned to his office, he knew that the eyes of New York were on him—everyone from the traders in the street to his own secretary was assessing his gait and searching his face, trying to read meaning in every twitch, every line, every wrinkle.

In his gray three‑piece suit, shoulders back, Mitchell kept up his smile as he passed through the glass‑domed central hall of his National City Bank. The bank, with its 83‑foot ceiling and two solid-bronze doors protecting a safe weighing some 300 tons, was the largest in the country.

It was just past 5:30 p.m. on Monday, October 28, 1929. Hours earlier, the stock market had closed with a sharp, dizzying drop of 13 percent. After a week of downward convulsions, it was by far the greatest fall. The darkening downtown streets still teemed with anxious brokers in their fedoras and flatcaps, messenger boys and switchboard girls, all gossiping and speculating about the collapse. What caused the fall? How much further might it go tomorrow? Would the markets even open?

As Mitchell made his way to his office, the teller windows he passed reflected the weary puffiness under his eyes and his disheveled, graying eyebrows. He collapsed into the chair behind his mahogany desk. The room was furnished with the high formality befitting an 18th‑century statesman, including antique wood chairs and a grandfather clock that stood against the cream‑white woodwork. The clock was flanked by portraits of George Washington orchestrating the newly independent nation with the sort of purpose and resolve that Mitchell sought to emulate in his own life.

The athletic 52‑year‑old bank chairman—an unusually optimistic man whom the press called “Sunshine Charlie”—had spent the afternoon in emergency meetings at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, puzzling over how to calm the market. It was a moment for which a self‑consciously Great Man such as Mitchell should have been utterly prepared. He had the experience, the stature, and the steely nerves necessary to steer Wall Street through these tough times. Yet he felt exposed, vulnerable.

But he didn’t have time to consider his emotional state. He walked upstairs to confer with Hugh Baker, who ran National City’s stock‑trading unit. Baker, a tall, bald man with piercing eyes, began to explain to Mitchell, calmly, if somewhat obliquely, what had taken place while Mitchell had been at the Federal Reserve.

“Our portfolio today has been tremendously increased in our holdings of National City Bank stock,” Baker told him.

Mitchell stared at him, waiting to hear exactly what he meant.

Baker finally blurted out: “We purchased 70‑odd thousand shares.”

Mitchell, who could calculate numbers instantly in his head, immediately grasped the nature and scale of the problem. That is unbelievable, he thought. The bank didn’t have the cash to pay for so many shares. He was outraged—and terrified.