Sherman's position on the Commission of Ways and Means allowed Henry Cooke to gain a profitable contract for government binding, and in 1862 helped to make him President of the Washington and Georgetown Street Railroad Company. He also became President of the First Washington National Bank. In addition, Cooke became the Congressional Radical Republicans' factotum in maintaining power over the District of Columbia, financing (along with fellow Republican Alexander Robey Shepherd) the election of Sayles J. Bowen as Mayor of Washington, D.C.