[1][2][3] Eldridge is also known for having captained Cornelius Vanderbilt's private steam-powered yacht, the North Star, when the tycoon took a small group of family and friends on a summer-long cruise around Europe in 1853, and for his prior command of the packet ship Roscius in E.K.

Eldridge possessed not only self-confidence and daring, but skill and endurance, and the generous traits which are in imagination connected with the true-born, American sailor.

It was a year of unprecedented disaster to vessels; many were foundered, or went down in the gales; the best nautical opinion is to the effect that the Pacific struck an iceberg, and that all on board met an instant death.

[1] Recent research has revealed many additional details about Asa Eldridge's career,[2] including an earlier record-setting voyage two decades before his more famous feat on the Red Jacket.

Eldridge's close connection to the first of those steamships appears to have been the circumstance that introduced him to Cornelius Vanderbilt, and in turn to his appointment as commander of the North Star.