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 IIEE OF COL. FEEMOIT. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Birth — His Father — Ilia Mother — Her remarkable Beauty and romantic History — Interesting Incident of TraTel, the 
 Fight between Benton and Jackson — Fremont enters a Law OfiBce — Goes to College — Falls in Love with a beauttful 
 West Indian Girl — Is expelled — Becomes a successful Teaclier of Mathematics — A Ciril Engineer — An Instructor in th« 
 Navy — Early an ardent Union man — Professor in the Navy — Resumes Surveying — Accompanies M. Nicollet in bis 
 Western Explorations — Commissioned a Lieutenant — First Buffalo Hunt — Forms tho acquaintance of Miss Bentoix— 
 Ordered off to the Des Moines River — Marriage. 
 
 JOHN CHARLES FREMONT was born at 
 Savannah, Georgia, the 21st day of Janu- 
 ary, 1813. His father, for whom, as well as 
 for his grandfather on the same side, lie was 
 christened, John Charles, was a Frenchman, 
 from the vicinity of Lyons. He left France, 
 it is believed, on account of having been in- 
 volved in some revolutionary movement, and 
 was on his way to one of the West India 
 
 islands, when the vessel in which he had era- 
 barked was captured by a British cruiser, and 
 all tlie passengers were taken prisoners. While 
 in captivit_y, they were employed in making 
 willow baskets. To this occupation Mr. Fre- 
 mont soon added tliat of painting in fresco; 
 and for ornamenting, in tlie Spanish style, the 
 ceilings in the houses of some of the wealthy 
 inhabitants, he received a sufficient sum to 
 
 EsTBUBD according to Act of Congress, in the year 1856, by GREELEY & M'ELRATII, in the Clerk'g Office of the District 
 Court of the United States, for the Southern District of New York. 
 
3 
 
 LIFB OP c5l. FREMONT. 
 
 
 enable him to make bis escape to tbe United 
 States. He landed at Norfolk, and thence 
 proceeded soon afterwards to Eichmond, where 
 he commenced giving French lessons. His 
 age, at this time, was about thirty. He was 
 ©f medium height, sliglitly formed, of swarthy 
 complexion, with black cnrliiig hair, large 
 black eyes, and pleasant, prepossessing count- 
 enance, and gay, frank, elegant manners. 
 Something of romance tinged his Hfe. If he 
 was now a poor adventurer, he Ijad proved 
 himself a brave and determined man, and it 
 was not strange that in spite of the intensely 
 bitter prejudices of the day and place, he 
 should have become the object of the devoted 
 love of a high-souled and high-born woman. 
 At this time. Major Pryor, who had served in 
 the revolutionary war, lived in Richmond. 
 He was a wealthy old man, who, at the age 
 of sixty-two, had married Anne Beverly, the 
 youngest daughter of Colonel Tliomas Whit- 
 ing, just then entering upon her eighteenth 
 year. She was a woman of most extraordi- 
 nary grace and beauty, of gentle, captivating 
 manners, with a sweet but singularly melan- 
 choly disposition. Slie had been driven to 
 this ill-assorted match by her condition at home 
 with a ste[)fatlier, who had squandered the 
 property bequeathed to her by her own father. 
 There was as great disparity of taste as of 
 years between Major Pryor and his wife. She 
 lived unhappily with him. At last she 
 experienced very harsh treatment from her 
 husband. She instantly resolved upon a di- 
 vorce, which was speedily obtained, and she 
 subsequently married Mr. Fremont. Of course 
 this step drew down upon her head the wrath 
 of all the first families of Virginia, with whom 
 she was connected. That a daughter of the 
 ancient house of the Whitings — a member of 
 which, Col. Tliomas Whiting, Sr., held Wash- 
 ington at the flint in baptism — should wed a 
 man wlio actually had to earn his own living, 
 was a sin never to be forgiven; and it never 
 was forgiven. 
 
 Mr. Fremont was fond of adventure. He 
 had a strong desire to visit the Indian tribes 
 then inliabiting, in large numbers, the States of 
 North and South Carolina, Georgia, and 
 Tennessee. Travelling at tliat day, even with 
 one's own carriage, was not as expensive as 
 it is now. He had saved enough from his 
 earnings as a teacher to purcliase the requisite 
 equipments, and, accompanied by his bride, he 
 set out on a tour of exploration through that 
 region. They carried with them, in their 
 private conveyance, beds and bedding, and 
 other conveniences for camping out. Tliey 
 were on a journey of this kind, when the 
 birtli of John Charles, their first child, took 
 place. This event did not long delay them. 
 Kude Indian hands were among the first that 
 dandled — and with a carelessness not quite 
 
 \ 
 
 
 r 
 
 % 
 
 F? 
 
 congenial to a parent's feelings — the n&w 
 comer. Fremont has often heard his mother ^ 
 say how frightened she was at seeing the 
 savages take him in their arms and pass him 
 about. Indian atrocities were then frequent, 
 and were fresh in everybody's mind. Travel 
 among the Creeks and Ohoctawa was insepa- 
 rably attended with a feeling of insecurity. 
 When a white mother saw one of these savages 
 take up her infant, her first apprehension wa« 
 that he might seize it by the leg and dash out 
 its brains against a tree or stone. Thus, with- 
 out his own volition, Fremont commenced his 
 life with Indians — the people among whom so 
 large a subsequent portion of it has been 
 passed. '' 
 
 An event, of interest here from the coin- 
 cidences attending it, occurred while Mr. and 
 Mrs. Fremont were on one of their long excur- 
 sions. They were stopping at a hotel in 
 Nashville, Tennessee, sitting quietly in their 
 room, when the report of fire-arms in an 
 adjoining apartment, and tlie whistling of 
 balls through their own, suddenly startled 
 them. They rushed out to ascertain the cause 
 of the disturbance, and learned, in answer to 
 their eager inquiries, that Col. Thomas H. 
 Benton, accoi»f)anied by some friends of his, 
 had come to the hotel and commenced an 
 attack with pistols upon Gen. Andrew Jackson, 
 who was defended by Gen. Coffee, and others. 
 On tlie following day. Col. Benton, who in the 
 heat of the mfel^e had carried off Jackson's 
 sword, returned with great formality in front 
 of the hotel, and in a loud voice, three times 
 summoned General Jackson to come forth and 
 recover it. Whether the General was detained 
 in-doors by his friends or his wounds, at all 
 events he "failed to appear. Col. Benton then 
 took the sword in both hands, broke it across 
 his knee, and threw the pieces on the ground. 
 This fight was commenced by Col. Benton, to 
 avenge the injuries whicli his brother, Jesse 
 Benton, had received in a duel with Gen. 
 Jackson. He little dreamed, at the moment 
 of the attack, that his intended victim was to 
 prove the best and most important friend of 
 his after years ; and not only so, but that he 
 was endangering, by the shot, the life of his 
 future son-in-law. One unhappy consequence 
 of this affi-ay was the premature confinement 
 of Mrs. Fremont, with a daughter, whose sub- 
 sequent early death was believed to be attri- 
 butable, in part, to this circumstance. 
 
 Some of the lead wliicli Gen. Jackson 
 then received, he carried with him until his 
 second term of the Presidency. Col. Benton 
 called one day at the Wliite House, and was 
 told that the President was sliglitly indisposed. 
 A few days afterwards he learned that the 
 old General had been relieved of the last 
 memorial of that fight — he had just had the 
 ball cut oat. 
 
t>C^ 
 
 lyi.) 
 
 LIFE OTf CX)L. FREMONT. 
 
 Tvfb more cliildren, a daughter and another 
 Bon, were born to Mr. and Mrs. Fremont 
 within the next four years. A large part of 
 their married life they resided in the city of 
 Norfolk. John Charles had not yet attained 
 to his fifth year when his father, just as he 
 was on the point of returning to his native 
 eountry, took a sadden cold, frt>m exposure on 
 a hunting excursion, and in a few days died. 
 His widow, with her tiiree little children, was 
 left in circumstances extremely lin^ited. She 
 afterwards married again; but the union 
 brought no acce^^--ion of comfort or happiness 
 to her or her children. 
 
 Young Fremonr, after attending school for 
 some time in Norfolk and Charleston, at 
 about the age of thirteen entered the law 
 office of John W. Mitchell, Esq., in Charleston. 
 Mr. Mitchell was a man of exemplary character 
 and of high standing in the community. He 
 took a fancy to Fremont, and invited him to 
 enter his office and prepare himself, ulti- 
 mately, for tiie practice of the law. Here 
 Fremont continued about a year, when Mr. 
 Mitchell sent him to the school of Dr. Roberton, 
 a Scot-chman of good classical acquirements, 
 and particularly skilled in the ancient lan- 
 guages. 
 
 Dr. Roberton is still living, and is now 
 etigagedin teacliing in the city of Philadelphia. 
 In the preface to one of his school-books, pub- 
 lished in 1850, he exhorts his pupils to atten- 
 tion to their studies, and thus sets before them 
 the example of Fremont : 
 
 " For your farther encouragement, I will here re- 
 late a very remarkable instance of patient diligence 
 jmd indomitable perseverance : 
 
 " In the year 1827, after 1 had returned to Charles- 
 ton from Scotland, and my classes were going on, & 
 very respectable lawyer came to my school, I think 
 some time in the month of October, with a youth 
 jmparently about sixteen, or perhaps not so much 
 (14), of middle size, graceful in manners, rather 
 Mender, but well formed, and upon the whole, what 
 I should call handsome ; of a keen, piercing eye, and 
 a noble forehead, seemingly the very seat of genius. 
 The gentleman stated that he found him given to 
 study, that he had been about three weeks learning 
 the Latin Rudiments, and (hoping. I suppose, to turn 
 the youth's attention from the law to the ministry) 
 had resolved to place him under my care for the pur- 
 pose of learning Greek, Latin, and Mathematics, suffi- 
 cient to enter Charleston College. I very gladly re- 
 ceived him, for I immediately perceived he was no 
 common youth, as intelligeuce beamed in his dark 
 eye, and shone brightly on his countenance, indicat- 
 ing great ability, and an assurance of his future pro- 
 gress. I at once put him in the highest class, just 
 beginning to read Caesar's Commentaries, and al- 
 though at first inferior, his prodigious memory and 
 enthusiastic application soon enabled him to surpass 
 ttie beat. He began Greek at the same time, and 
 read with some who had been long at it, in which he 
 also soon excelled. And whatever he read, he re- 
 tained. It seemed to me, in fact, as if he learned by 
 mere intuition. I was myself utterly astonished, and 
 at the same time delighted with his progress. I have 
 hinted that he was designed for the Church, but when 
 I ocMitemplated his bold, fearless disposition, his 
 
 powerful inventive genius, his admiration of warlike 
 exploits, and his love of heroic and adventurous 
 deeds, I did not think it likely he would be a minister 
 of the Gospel. He had not, however, the least ap- 
 pearance of any vice whatever. On the contrary, 
 he was always the very patte'^n of virtue and mod- 
 esty. I could not help loving him, so much did b« 
 captivate me by his gentlemanly conduct aud extra- 
 ordinary progress. It was easy to see that he wotild 
 one day raise himself to eminence. * * * » 
 At the end of one year, he entered the Junior Class 
 in Charleston College triumphantly, while others who 
 had been studying four years and more, were obliged 
 to take the Sophomore Class. HLs career afterwards 
 has been one of heroic adventure, of hair-breadth 
 escapes by flood and field, and of scientific explora- 
 tions, which have made him world-wide reuown&d. 
 ****** Such, my young friends, 
 is but an imperfect sketch of my once beloved and 
 favorite pupil, now a Senator, and who may yet rise 
 to be at the head of this great and growing republic." 
 
 Fremont's rapid progress in his collegiate 
 studies was suddenly arrested. Philosophy 
 deeper than that of the schods, poetry all frefik 
 and living, with a glow not found on the pages 
 of the classics, he had discovered in a beau- 
 tiful young West Indian girl, whose family, 
 driven from St. Domingo by the revolution, 
 had come to Charleston to reside. He turned 
 from the books which had captivated his boy- 
 hood, and which he in turn was rapidly 
 mastering, to bathe himself in the elysiam of 
 first love. He gazed upon iier coal black hair, , 
 her fine features, and delicate form, and ' 
 realized a vision of beauty, such as had no4 
 before presented itself to his imagination. H© 
 looked into her sparkling eyes, and all that, 
 had seemed brightness to him before faded in 
 comparison. The tones vf her gentle voice 
 fell upon his ear, and it grew ^eaf to the sum- 
 mons of Ambition which ha^^ soundedi so. 
 loud before. 
 
 ' the high and powerful ones of earth, 
 
 The grave and schooled philosophers. 
 The lielmed sonj of Tictory, have lurned 
 Each from the separate idol 
 Of his high and vehement ambition, 
 To the low Idolatry of human love." 
 
 Fremont's books, to which he had' been; so > 
 ardently devoted, were neglected. He yraa,. 
 absent from recitations. Tiie faculty, by., 
 whom, on account of his former proficiency,, . 
 he was highly esteemed, remonstrated with 
 him repeatedly, but all in vain. They finally-, 
 peremptorily demanded an explanation of 'his 
 continued absences. He haughtily refused.thd. 
 slightest. There was no course left but to 
 expel him, and he was expelled. He bore it 
 with entire stoicism, considering 
 
 " The world well lost, and all for love."* 
 
 About this time his brother, who -w&a tb« 
 youngest of the three children, left home, 
 without informing the family whither he was 
 going. Soon afterwards the mjsterious kaud 
 
LIFE OF COL. FEEMOKT. 
 
 of death removed from his side his lovely and 
 only sister, then but seventeen years of age. 
 He now grew more serious and thoughtful, and 
 life began to wear to him a different and more 
 solemn aspect. He firmly resolved that no 
 pang should ever be added, by any act of his, 
 to the fast accumulating griefs of his mother's 
 heart. Teaching opened to him the best 
 prospect of immediate usefulness. He com- 
 menced a private school in Oliarleston, and soon 
 had a large number of pupils. At the same 
 time he conducted the classes in several other 
 schools through the higher branches of math- 
 ematics, in which their instructors were defi- 
 cient. His evenings, also, were profitably em- 
 ployed in giving instruction at the Apprentices' 
 Library. Marked success rewarded his brief ca- 
 reer as teacher. He had only assumed it as a 
 temporary occupation. He next turned his at- 
 tention to civil engineering, as opening a wider 
 field of labor, and one more consistent with his 
 tastes and objects in life. It happened that, 
 for the purpose of partition among the heirs, a 
 survey and plan of the estate of a deceased 
 planter in the vicinity of Charleston were 
 wanted. The work had already been under- 
 taken by several, who, from not making sufl[i- 
 cient allowance for the variation of the needle, 
 or some other cause, had not succeeded in 
 running the lines riglit. Under these circum- 
 stances, Fremont was applied to. The repu- 
 tation which he had already acquired for pro- 
 ficiency and accuracy in matliematics, caused 
 the parties to turn tx) him as the most compe- 
 tent person to extricate them from their 
 difficulty. It was in summer — the unhealthy 
 season — when work in the low grounds could 
 be performed only at the hazard of life. Fre- 
 mont promptly undertook tlie task, and 
 accomplished it to the entire satisfaction of 
 the parties. 
 
 Early in the year 1833, through the steadfast 
 friendship of Mr. Poinsett, then Secretary of 
 the Navy, Mr. Fremont was appointed teaclier 
 of Mathematics on board the sloop-of-war 
 Natchez, which had been sent by Gen. Jack- 
 son to Charleston, to enforce his famous pro- 
 clamation for the suppression of Nullification. 
 Fremont, though still a minor, had already 
 taken decided ground in favor of the procla- 
 mation of the old Hero, and was known as a 
 TJnion-saving man of the stiffest kind. Mr. 
 Poinsett had enrolled his name in the Light 
 Cavalry of Charleston, who were to be called 
 into service in case of emergency. He 
 remained on board the Natchez more than two 
 years, most of the time cruising off the coast 
 of South America. 
 
 Soon after his return to Charleston the uni- 
 versity, which had expelled him, deemed him 
 "wortliy of the bestowment of its honors, and 
 • conferred upon him the degrees of Bachelor of 
 Arts and Master of Arts. 
 
 I While he had been absent the grade of Pro 
 fessor of Matliematics in the Navy had been 
 established by law. Mr. Fremont applied for 
 an appointment under this act. Candidates 
 were required to pass a most rigorous examina- 
 tion before a board assembled in Baltimore. 
 Mr. Fremont went triumphantly through the 
 severe ordeal, which only five or six, out of 
 about forty, snc'eeded in passing at all. 
 
 He received his commission and was as- 
 signed to the U. S. Frigate lucTependence ; but 
 never went on board of her. He made up his 
 mind to continue the pur.suit of civil engineer- 
 ing. For a few weeks he was engaged in 
 improving the route of the Charleston and 
 Hamburgh Eail-road, so as to avoid an inclined 
 plane, with stationary engines, then existing 
 upon it. 
 
 He was next employed upon the survey 
 of a rail-road route from Charleston to 
 Cincinnati, under Oapt. W. G. Williams, who 
 afterwards fell at the battle of Monterey. To 
 this service lie was appointed by Gen. Jack- 
 son, under the act of Congress of April 30, 
 1824, which authorized the President to em- 
 ploy two or more skillful engineers on roads 
 and canals of national importance in a com- 
 mercial or military point of view, or for the 
 transportation of the public mail. The sum- 
 mer of 1837 he spent in the performance 
 of this duty, principally among the moun- 
 tains in North and South Carolina and 
 Tennessee. The following winter be was 
 engaged under the same officer in making a 
 military reconnoissance of the country of the 
 Cherokees, in anticipation of hostilities be- 
 tween them and the whites. This was his first 
 experience since childhood among the Indians. 
 They were generally in a very unfriendly 
 state of feeling towards the whites. A treaty 
 had been negotiated for tlieir removal to the 
 West. Many of them had quite comfortable 
 houses and good forms where they were, and 
 general dissatisfaction at the prospect of 
 removal prevailed among them. Mr, Fre- 
 mont and his companions used to camp out 
 nights, protecting themselves against tlie cold 
 of the winter by large hickory fires. Much of 
 the time tlie ground was covered with snow. 
 In the darkness the owls would hoot in the 
 trees over their heads, and the panthers 
 prowled about their encampments. It was 
 a good apprenticeship to Ins subsequent explor- 
 ing expeditions. A backwoodsman, named 
 Jacob Lowdermilk, was employed by Mr. 
 Fremont as a guide. He was a superior spe- 
 cimen of the frontier hunter — a good marks- 
 man, and perfectly familiar with the country. 
 On one occasion Fremont and his guide 
 arrived at an Indian village at dusk, and found 
 the men all indulging in a drunken frolic. At 
 such times they are little better than brutes. 
 They fight, and cut, and gash each other with- 
 
LIFE OF CX)L. FREMONT. 
 
 out ceremony, and seem to care nothing at all 
 about it. The women immediately gave notice 
 to their visitors that they were in great dan- 
 ger, and phiced tliem secretly in an out-build- 
 ing used for storing corn, to pass the niglit. 
 Here they slept as be-*t they could, with 
 corn on the cobs for their bed, and the rats 
 running frequently over them for their enter- 
 tainment. 
 
 In the Spring of 1838, Mr. Fremont re- 
 turned to Wa-liington, and joined M. Nicollet, 
 a scientific Frenchman, wlio had been en- 
 gaged by the U. S. Government to make an 
 examination of the Minnesota country, be- 
 tween tlie Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers. 
 While abseut on this expedition he received 
 the commission of Second Lieutenant of tlie 
 Topograpliical Engineers. Fremont's princi- 
 pal occupation on tliis journey was aiding 
 M. Nicollet in his scientitic observations, and in 
 making sketclies. 
 
 The following winter the party returned — 
 M. Nicollet to St. Louis, and Lieutenant Fre- 
 mont to Washington — and almost immediately 
 set out together on another similar expedition, 
 with orders to explore the country lying 
 between the Mississippi and Missouri rivers 
 still farther, and up to the British line. 
 
 Wiiile on this expedition Lieutenant Fremont 
 participated for the first time in a Buffalo 
 hunt. About thirteen hundred miles above St. 
 Louis at a trading fort, called Fort Pierre, the 
 party crossed the Missouri river, there more 
 than a mile broad, and going a few miles out 
 into tlie prairie, made their camp. Some of 
 the hunters who had been out on horseback 
 came in and reported that buffaloes in large 
 numbers were in the vicinity. Tiiis was in 
 the afternoon. Lnraediately Lieutenant Fre- 
 mont and six others mounted their horses, 
 and started on a buffalo imnt. After a few 
 miles riding they came in sight of several 
 large herds. Tliey turned aside to a little hill, 
 which concealed them from the buffaloes, 
 lightened tiieraselves of everything not ne- 
 cessary to tlie race — their coats, hats, and 
 everything dispensable — they took off their 
 neckerchiefs and tied them around their 
 heads, and set out in good earnestn, for a herd. 
 They soon came up to tlie buffaloes, and in 
 five minutes afterwards, three only — of whom 
 Fremont was one — out of the party of seven, 
 were remaining in their saddles. Losing 
 sight of his companions, and intent only on 
 killing a buffalo, Fremont sped on in swift pur- 
 suit of the flying herd; on, on, firing when- 
 ever he got near enough, and, still unsuc- 
 cessful, pressing with yet greater speed on. 
 The frightened animals kept before him, 
 and out of the reach of a fatal shot, though 
 he succeeded in wounding several. At length, 
 he found the day so far advanced as to admon- 
 ish him of the propriety of commencing to 
 
 retrace his steps. He examined the country, 
 and determined which way he ougiit to pro- 
 ceed. He took a broad, clearly-marked path, 
 and rode on, hour after hour, many and many 
 a weary mile. 
 
 His horse grew tired, and he alternately rode 
 and led liim. At length he discovered that it 
 was a buffalo trail which he had been pursu- 
 ing; that the map which he had as liis only 
 guide was erroneous; a bend of the river, 
 sixty miles in length, was not laid down upon 
 it, and thus, through a gross blumler of the 
 geographer, he had got lost. This little inci- 
 dent was well calculated to impress upon his 
 mind an increased conviction of the impor- 
 tance and value of a more correct and exact 
 knowledge of the geography of some portions 
 of our country than wsis tlien possessed. It 
 was now near midnight. He found a ravin© 
 containing water, and determined to picket 
 his horse and lie down till morning. Tying 
 the long rope by which the horse was secured, 
 to the saddle, and laying that down for a pil- 
 low, so that the horse could not stray oft" with- 
 out disturbing liim, he was about to lie down 
 to sleep, when he beheld rocket after rocket 
 ascend into the air. He knew at once that 
 these were sent up from the camp as signals 
 for him. But he was too far off, and his 
 horse was too tired, to reach there that night. 
 So he carefully laid his rifle down on the 
 ground, pointing precisely in the direction of 
 the camp, and went to sleep. AVith the 
 dawn of day he was astir, and started towards 
 the camp. He had proceeded but a little 
 way when he perceived several horsemen in 
 the distance. They rapidly approached him, 
 and lie soon discovered that tkey were some 
 of his companions. Up they rode, in great 
 haste, stretching out towards him their hands 
 in a half frenzied manner. He did not know 
 what to make of it. At length the foremost 
 of tlie party touched him, and he then received 
 an exj)lanation of their apparently strange con- 
 duct, in the circumstance that a reward, after 
 lie was known to have got lost, had been 
 offered in camp, to the man who should first 
 lay iiands upon him. 
 
 For more than a year after Ids return from 
 this second expedition, in 1839, Lieutenant 
 Fremont was busy in assisting M. Nicollet, 
 and Mr. Hassler, then at the head of the coast 
 survey, in preparing a report and an illus- 
 trative map. 
 
 Tliis residence in the fashionable metropolis, 
 during which nothing but cteady and quiet 
 labor had been anticipated, was marked by 
 events not less interesting in the hfe of Fre- 
 mont, and which took far deeper hold of his 
 being, tlian any of his wild adventures in th« 
 mountains of Tennessee or the prairies of the 
 West. One evening, at a concert, he was struck 
 with the resemblance in the fau face of a very 
 
6 
 
 LIFE OF COL. rEKMONT. 
 
 yontliful-looking girl to his departed sister. 
 He inquired of a friend who she was, and 
 learned in rpply that slie was Miss Jessie Ben- 
 ton, the second daughter of Col. Benton. Just 
 as he put the question he was startled to hear 
 her inquire who he was. Mutual admiration 
 kad seized thera. Unfortunately it did not 
 extend so as to comprehend within the 
 banned circle her parents — at least not 
 BufBciently to secure their consent to the mar- 
 Kiage, which, a year and a half later, resulted 
 from the acquaintance. They objected on 
 account of tlie extreme youth of their daugh- 
 ter, who at the time of the first meeting was 
 only fifteen years old, and because he was but 
 a subordinate officer in the army, without suffi- 
 cient means to support a family. He had, also, 
 to contend with most formidable rivals for her 
 hand. His perplexities were increased by the 
 reception of an unexpected order to proceed 
 to the Territory of Iowa, and make a survey 
 cf the Des Mdines River. The precise useful 
 object to be subserved by this work has never 
 yet transpired. Fremont faithfully obt-yed the 
 order, and returned to find the opposition to 
 
 his marriage still nnabated. But lovie is 
 strong, and both parties had strong wills of 
 their own. They were married in the city of 
 Washington, in 1841, at the house of a friend, 
 who procured a Catholic priest to perform the 
 ceremony, after Lieutenant Fremont had ai>- 
 plied in vain to a Protestant clergyman to offi- 
 ciate. It is believed that not one word upon 
 the subject of the marriasfe ever passed be- 
 tween the father of the bride and his son-in- 
 law after it took place. Both Mr. and Mrs. 
 Benton had from their first acquaintance with 
 Mr. Fremont, been pleased with his modesty 
 and refined manners. But neither of them 
 dreamed of the bright and important future 
 wiiich the hand of the quiet and retiring 
 young lieutenant was to carve out for himself. 
 There is a story that some years afterwards, 
 an elderly friend of the great Missourian, who 
 had been listening to an unmeasured eulogium 
 from him upon his son-in-law, inquired how 
 it happened that he so strenuously opposed 
 his marriage ; and that Col. Benton replied 
 that it merely proved that his daughter had 
 turned out a better judge of men than he was. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 First Exploring Expedition — Kit Oaraon — Randolph Benton — False Alarm — Warlike Indiana — Slaughter of the whote 
 Party threatened — Speech of an Indian Chief — Fremont's chiyalric Reply — He mov«s forward in the face of Danger — 
 A useful Squaw — More Discouragements — Freemont undaunted — Devotion of his Men — Mountain Sheep — Turns his 
 kand to Instrument mending — Raises the Hag on th« highest Peak of the Rocky Mountains). 
 
 FREMONT has conducted five Exploring Ex- 
 peditions—the first to the Rocky Moun- 
 tains, and the four subseqixent ones as far as 
 California. He started from Washington on 
 the first expedition commanded by himself, on 
 the 2d day of May, 1842, under orders to 
 explore and report upon the country be- 
 tween the frontiers of Missouri and the 
 South Pass in the Rocky Mountains, and 
 on the line of the Kansas and Great Platte 
 Rivers. On the 22d of May he arrived at St. 
 Louis, and in that vicinity collected together 
 twenty-one men, principally Creole and Cana- 
 dian voyageurs^ who had become familiar with 
 prairie hfe in the service of the fur companies 
 HI the Indian country. The final arrangements 
 for the expedition were completed at Choteau's 
 Trading House, near the mouth of the Kansas 
 River, about four hundred miles from St. 
 Louis. 
 
 The guide was Christopher Carson, known 
 l>r his exploits in the mountains, more fami- 
 Karly as Kit Carson. This man has attained 
 to a greater celebrity than any other of the 
 heroic sharers in Fremont's adventures. Kit 
 is a native of Kentucky, the son of one of the 
 early hunters of that Slate, and is about two 
 
 years older than Mr. Fremont. A great por- 
 tion of his life has been spent as a trapper 
 and hunter among the Indians. He is a short, 
 light, but muscular man, with mild blue eyes, 
 an open, pleasant countenance, indicative of a 
 naturally amiable disposition. He is fearless, 
 thoroughly trained to the difficulties and dan- 
 gers of life in the wilderness, a dead shot with 
 the rifle, can track an Indian as if with the 
 scent of a hound, and in an emergency can 
 even practice tiie trick of tlie savage with the 
 scalping-knife. He sticks to a steed as the 
 skin on his back, and rides like the wind. 
 Fremont says in his narrative that, mounted 
 on a fine horse, without a saddle, and scouring 
 bareheaded over the prairies. Kit was one of 
 the finest pictures of a horseman that he had 
 ever seen. His first wife was a Sioux. After 
 her death he married a native of New Mexico, 
 where he now lives, surrounded by his family, 
 engaged in the peaceful pursuit of farming, and 
 also acting in the official capacity of Indian 
 Agent for that territory. Lieutenant Fremont 
 first fell in with Carson on a steamboat above 
 St. Louis, as he was starting on this expedi- 
 tion. He was fortunate in securing such a 
 guide. 
 
LIFE Off COL. FREMONT. 
 
 Before starting on this jonrney, Lieutenant 
 Fremont received a marked compliment — thus 
 soon after his marriage — from his father-in- 
 law, who entrusted to him, under the hazard- 
 ous circumstances which must attend his ex- 
 ploits, his only son, Randolph Benton, then a 
 boy of twelve years. Young Benton soon 
 proved himself worthy of his name and blood. 
 His first night on guard was one in which the 
 blackness of darkness was made visible by the 
 frequent lightning with which the whole sky 
 seemed tremulous. Rain poured in torrents, 
 and the loud thunder rolled overhead. Ston«s 
 of bloody Indian fights were rife in the camp. 
 But the brave boy — -with a companion of nine- 
 teen, Henry Brant of St. Louis — stood it out, 
 and they regularly took their turn afterwards. 
 At Fort Laramie the hostile disposition pre- 
 vailing among the Indians became so clearly 
 developed that it was deemed prudent to leave 
 tliem both. Benton, to use the language of 
 Fremont, had been " the life of the camp." 
 They were sorry to part with him. His sud- 
 den death, at St. Louis, at the age of twenty- 
 one, after manifesting bright signs of promise, 
 gives a melancholy interest to this brief men- 
 tion of him. He was the sole inheritor of his 
 father's name. Only a few days before his 
 death he made an address in German to Gov. 
 Kossuth, then on a visit to Missouri, which 
 was highly commended. 
 
 Fremont had one man in his party who had 
 probably received his training at the hands of 
 some old politicians. On the morning of June 
 22d, as they were proceeding up the valley of 
 a little creek in the country of the Pawnees, 
 this man, who was a short distance in the 
 rear, came spurring up in great haste, shouting 
 Indians ! Indians ! He had been near enough 
 to see and count them, according to his report, 
 and had made out twenty-seven. They im- 
 mediately halted and put their arms in order, 
 and Kit Carson was dispatched to reconnoitre. 
 He soon returned with the intelligence that 
 the Indian war party of twenty-seven, con- 
 sisted of six elk, which had been gazing 
 curiously at the caravan as it passed by and 
 were now scampering otf at full speed ! 
 
 If the man who made the first report, not 
 only more than quadrupling their number, 
 but also converting these simple elk into 
 savage Indians, with tomahawk and scalping- 
 knife in hand, is still extant, he might find 
 congenial employment, though not without 
 powei^l rivalry, in the service of the Demo- 
 cratic party. 
 
 Fremont gives the following account of a 
 dog feast, which, in compliance with one invi- 
 tation out of many of a similar character from 
 the Indians, he attended : 
 
 "The women and childrea were sitting outside 
 the lodge, and we took our seats on buffalo robes 
 spread around. The dog was in a large pot over 
 
 the fire, in the middle of the lodge, and immediately 
 on our arrival was dished up in large wooden bowls, 
 one of which was handed to each. The flesh ap- 
 peared very glutinous, with something of the flavor 
 and appearance of mutton. Feeling something mov« 
 behind me, 1 looked round, and found that I had 
 taken my seat among a litter of fat young puppies. 
 Had I been nice in such matters, the prejudices of 
 civilization might have interfered with my tranquil- 
 lity ; but, fortunately, I am not of delicate nerves, 
 and continued quietly to empty my platter." 
 
 On the 13th of July they arrived at Fort 
 Laramie, in Nebraska. Here they found that 
 the country was swarming with scattered war- 
 parties of Indians. The very atmosphere 
 seemed to be filled with stories of blood and 
 carnage, which in some form were inhaled 
 with every breath. Ditficulties and encoun- 
 ters had taken place between parties of whites 
 and the savages, and the'latter were terribly ex- 
 asperated. Panic seized the men. Fremont 
 remained calm and determined. Desiring to 
 have no one with him who was afraid, he ad- 
 dressed his men and told thera that such as 
 were anxious to return had only to come for- 
 ward at once and state their deaire, and they 
 would be discharged with the amount due to 
 them for the time they had served. Only one 
 man, however, availed himself of the permis- 
 sion. But those who resolved to go on were 
 not insensible to the dangers actually existing. 
 Even Kit Carson made his will. 
 
 On the twenty-first they were ready to de- 
 part. The tents were struck, the mules geared 
 up, the horses saddled, they had walked to the 
 fort to take a stirrup cup with their friends, 
 in an excellent home-brewed preparation, whea 
 in rushed four powerful, tine-looking Indiaa 
 chiefs, rejoicing respectively in the names of 
 Otter-Hat, Breaker of Arrows, Black-Night, 
 and BuU's-Tail, and delivered to Lieut._ Fre- 
 mont a note from Joseph Bissonette, the inter- 
 preter, advising him that the chiefs in council 
 liad told him to warn Fremont not to set onfe 
 before their young men, who had gone to th« 
 mountains, and who would be sure to fire on 
 him as soon as they should meet him, should 
 return. Then one of the savages stood up and 
 spoke as follows : 
 
 WARNING OP THE INDIAN CHIEF. 
 
 "Yon have come among us at a bad time. Some 
 of our people have been killed, and our young men, 
 who have gone to tie mountains, are eager to 
 avenge the blood of their relations, which has been 
 shed by the whites. Our young men are bad, and, 
 if they meet you, they will believe that you are car- 
 ryintr goods and ammunition to their enemies, and 
 will fire upon you. You have told us that this will 
 make war. We know that our great father has 
 many soldiers and big guns, and we are anxious to 
 have our lives. We love the whites, and are desir- 
 ous of peace. Thinking of all these things, we have 
 determined to keep you here until our warriors re- 
 turn. We are glad to see you among us. Oar 
 father is rich, and we expected that you would have 
 brought presents to us— horses, guns, and blanketa. 
 
LIFE OF COI^ FEEMONT. 
 
 Bat we are glad to see you. We look upon your 
 coming as the light which goes before the sun ; for 
 you will tell our great father that you have seen us, 
 and that we are naked and poor, and have nothing 
 to eat; and he will send us all these things," 
 
 Lieut. Fremont, through an interpreter, re- 
 quested some of the Indians to accompany 
 him, as their presence would avert the dan- 
 ger. They refused. It was then tliat the 
 young explorer, rising with the emergency, to 
 the sublimest heroism, gave back in response 
 for their false professions and menacing asser- 
 tions, the He and defiance in their teeth. 
 
 The addresses by Bonaparte to his soldiers, 
 before his great battles, and on the fields of his 
 glory, are almost matchless in their eloquence, 
 and among tlie most brilliant emanations of 
 genius. Is there anything in them, which — 
 especially if all the surrounding circumstances 
 be taken into consideration — surpasses the fol- 
 lowing ? 
 
 Fremont's beply to the indian chief. 
 
 "Yon say that you love the whites; why have you 
 killed so many already this spring? You say that 
 you love the whites, and are full of many expressions 
 of friendship to us ; but you are not wilUng to under- 
 go the fatigue of a few days' ride to save our lives. 
 We do not believe what you have said, and will not 
 listen to you. Whatever a chief among us tells his 
 soldiers to do, is done. We are the soldiers of the 
 great chief, your father. He has told us to come here 
 and see this country, and all the Indians his children. 
 Why should we not go ? Before we came, we heard 
 that you had killed his people, and ceased to be his 
 children ; but we came among you peaceably, holding 
 out our hands. Now, we find that the stories we 
 heard are not lies, and that you are no longer his 
 friends and children. We have thrown away our 
 bodies, and will not turn back. When you told us 
 that your j'oungmen would kill us, you did not know 
 that our hearts were strong, and you did not see the 
 rifles which my young men carry in their hands. 
 We are few, and you are many, and may kill us all ; 
 but there will be much crying in your villages, for 
 many of your young men will stay behind, and forget 
 to return with your warriors from the mountains. Do 
 you think that our great chief will let his soldiers 
 die and forget to cover their graves? Before the 
 snows melt again, his warriors will sweep away 
 your villages, as the fire does the prairie in the au- 
 tumn. See ! I have pulled down my white houses, 
 and my people are ready ; when the sun is ten 
 paces higher, we shall be on the march. If you 
 have anything to tell us, you will say it soon." 
 
 " Is the route practicable ?" asked Napoleon 
 of the engineer who had been sent forward to 
 survey Mount St. Bernard. " It is barely pos- 
 sible," was the reply. " Forward then," said 
 Napoleon ; and his words became immortal. 
 
 Fremont received a different answer from 
 his guide. Friend and foe alike held up before 
 him, vividly, the prospect of certain destruc- 
 tion. Carson, the personification of courage, 
 saw occasion to make the last preparations for 
 death, and executed his will. Condensing his 
 soul into a few undying words : " "We have 
 
 thrown away our bodies and will not turn 
 back," said the unwavering hero. 
 
 They mounted their horses and rode on. 
 The Indians, notwithstanding all that they had 
 said, sent a chief up, just as they were start- 
 ing, and promised a guide, who joined them 
 at tlieir stopping-place that evening. He came 
 with Mr. Bissonette, the interpreter, and was 
 accompanied by his wife. Her services proved 
 very convenient just at that hour. Lieut. 
 Fremont had procured a large Indian lodge at 
 the Fort, and none of the men understood how 
 to pitch it. The squaw laughed at their awk- 
 wardness and ofl:ered her assistance, which 
 they continued to avail themselves of till the 
 men acquired sutficient expertness to pitch 
 it without difiiculty. On the 28th of July they 
 met a large company of Indians who gave a 
 very discouraging picture of the country. The 
 great draught, and the plague of grasshoppers, 
 had swept it so that scarce a blade of grass 
 was to be seen, and there was not a buS"alo to 
 be found in the whole region. Their people, 
 they further said, had been nearly starved to 
 death, and their road would be found marked 
 by lodges which they had thrown away in or- 
 der to move more rapidly, and by the carcas- 
 ses of the horses which they had eaten, or 
 which had perished by starvation. Such was 
 the prospect which they depicted. Mr. Bis- 
 sonette, the interpreter, immediately rode up 
 to Col. Fremont and urgently advised tliat he 
 should entirely abandon the further prose- 
 cution of his exploration. "The best advice 
 I can give you," said he, "is to turn back at 
 once." It was his oAvn intention to return, as 
 they had now reached the point to which he 
 had engaged to go. Lieut. Fremont called up 
 his men, and communicated to them fully the 
 information he had received, and then ex- 
 pressed to them his fixed determination to 
 proceed to the end of the enterprise on which 
 he had been sent; but as the situation of the 
 country gave some reason to apprehend that 
 it might be attended Avith an unfortunate re- 
 sult to some, he would leave it optional with 
 them to continue with him or to return. 
 
 But not a man flinclied from the undertaking, 
 " We'll eat the mules," said Basil Lajennesse ; 
 and thereupon tliey shook hands with the in- 
 terpreter and his Indians, and parted. With 
 them was sent back one of the men, Dumes, 
 whom the eflfects of an old wound in the leg 
 rendered incapable of continuing the journey 
 on foot, and whose horse seemed on the point 
 of giving out. 
 
 The second day after this, as they were cross- 
 ing over from the Platte to the Sweet Water 
 River, they discovered, for the first time, nu- 
 merous herds of mountain sheep, or goats, for 
 they are called by both names. The flesh of 
 these animals resembles that of the Alleghany 
 mountain sheep. Their horns are frequently 
 
LIFE OF OOL, FREMONT. 
 
 three fe«t long, and seventeen inches in cir- 
 cumfereace at the base, weighing eleven 
 pounds. The use of these horns seems to be 
 to protect the animal's head in pitching down 
 precipices to avoid the pursuing wolves. 
 
 On the 10th day of August they came un- 
 expectedly in view of a must beautiful lake, 
 set like a gem in the mountains. Proceeding 
 on, amid the graud scenery by which they 
 were surrounded, they soon reached the out- 
 let, and in attempting to ford it, experienced a 
 piece of bad luck, which, with the remedy in- 
 vented for it, are thus described in the narra- 
 tive: 
 
 " In crossing this stream, I met with a great misfor- 
 tune in having my barometer broken. It was the 
 only one. A great part of the interest of the journey 
 for me \va,a in the exploration of these mountains, of 
 which much had been said that was doubtful and 
 contradictory; and now their snowy peaks rose ma- 
 jestically before me, and the only means of giving 
 them authentically to science, the object of lAy anx- 
 ious solicitude by night and day, was destroyed. 
 We had brought this barometer in safety a thousand 
 miles, and broke it almost among the snow of the 
 mouutains. The loss was felt by the whole camp — 
 all had seen my anxiety, and aided me in preserving 
 it. The height of these mountains, considered by 
 the hunters and traders the highest in the whole 
 range, had been a theme of constant discussion 
 among them; and all had looked forward with plea- 
 sure to the moment when the iustrumeut, which they 
 believed to be true as the sun, should stand upon the 
 summits, and decide their disputes. Their grief was 
 only inferior to my own. 
 
 As soon as the camp was formed, I set about 
 endeavoring to repair my barometer. As I have 
 already said, this was a standard cistern barometer, 
 of Troughton's construction. The glass cistern had 
 been broken about midway ; but as the instrument 
 had been kept in a proper position, no air had found 
 its way into the tube, the eud of which had always 
 remained covered. I had with me a number of vials 
 of tolerably thick glass, some of which were of the 
 same diameter as the cistern, and I spent the day in 
 slowly working on these, endeavoring to cut them of 
 the requisite length ; but as my instrument was a 
 very rough tile, 1 invariably broke them. A groove 
 was cut iu one of the trees, where the barometer was 
 placed during the night, to be out of the way of any 
 possible danger, and in the morning I commenced 
 again. Among the powder-horns in the camp, I 
 found one which was very transparent, so that its 
 contents could be almost as plainly seen as through 
 glass. This I boiled and stretched on a piece of wood 
 to the requisite diameter, and scraped it very thin, in 
 order to increase to the utmost its transparency. I 
 then secured it tirmly in its place on the instrument, 
 with strong glue made from a buffalo, and tilled it 
 with mercury, properly heated. A piece of skin, 
 which had covered one of the vials, furnished a good 
 pocket, which was well secured with strong thread 
 and glue, and theu the brass cover was screwed to 
 its place. The instrument was left some time to dry ; 
 and whi?!i I reversed it, a few hours after, 1 had the 
 satisfaction to find it in perfect order ; its indication 
 being about the same as on the other side of the lake 
 before it had been broken. Our success in this little 
 incident diffused pleasure throughout the camp ; and 
 we immediately set ai)Out our preparations for as- 
 cending the mountains." 
 
 They were now on that short mountain 
 chain from which flow the Platte and Mis- 
 
 souri Elvers to the East and the Colorado and 
 Columbia Avestward. Their provisions had 
 well nigh disappeared. Two or three pounds 
 of coffee, a little macaroni, and some dried 
 buftalo meat, as hard as wood, were all they 
 had remaining. Bread had long been out of 
 the question. Game was vei-y scarce. They 
 were surrounded by the Black Feet Indians, 
 who were not friendly, and a strong guard was 
 constantly necessary. But Fremont would not 
 turn his face from the mountains till he should 
 have explored their highest peak. In a grove 
 of beech, near a lake, they erected a breast- 
 work of felled timber and interwoven branches, 
 facing an Indian fort only two or three hun- 
 dred fe^et distant. Fifteen of the best mules 
 and fourteen men were selected for the moun- 
 tain party. 
 
 Early on the morning of August 12th, they 
 left the camp and commenced the ascent. 
 They found a rocky road and a tortuous way, 
 interrupted by broken ledges, precipices and 
 lakes of surpassing beauty. Impassable barriers, 
 at which the guides seemed astonished, barred 
 their progress, and from one route they turned 
 to another. Finally, in the afternoon, they dis- 
 covered a little defile leading towards what, 
 after long consultation, they had decided to be 
 the highest peak of the range, and were de- 
 lighted with the prospect of a smoother road 
 for the next day. They returned just in time 
 for supper. 
 
 The next morning they started again bright 
 and early, and having entered the little defile, 
 followed it about three miles, when they 
 reached its al)rupt termination. Tlie view- 
 here was grand and beautiful. Tlie eye could 
 stretch forward, but there was no chance for 
 the mules to go. Asters were in bloom 
 around, and their fragrance ascended. The 
 men began to wish that they might go up as 
 easily as this sweet smell, for unless they could 
 climij by the atmosphere tliere seemed to be 
 no otlier mode of ascent. Tliey had the con- 
 solation to reflect that their bodies were daily 
 growing ligliter, and might not encumber their 
 spirits much longer. Fremont, however, wa.s 
 determined to go on whetlier there was any 
 way or not. They left their mules and under- 
 took to proceed on foot. A few men remained 
 in charge of tlie animals, and the rest moved 
 forward as they could. The peak seemed 
 near, and they thought that they could reach 
 it and get back to tlie camp before night. 
 They soon found themselves involved in rag- 
 ged precipices. They clambered on, always 
 expecting, with every ridge they crossed, to 
 reach the foot of the peak, and always disap- 
 pointed. At night they encamped by a little 
 lake. Large flocks of mountain-goats appear- 
 ed in sight. Several went in pursuit of them, 
 but returned without killing any. Shortly 
 after they encamped, Fremont was taken and' 
 
10 
 
 LIFB OF COL. FREMONT. 
 
 denly sick, with head-ache and vomiting, 
 ■which continued till late in the night. 
 
 The following morning they rose from their 
 gi-anite beds with the daylight, and tried again 
 to make the ascent. They got dispersed 
 among some ice-fields, every man trying to 
 find the best way up. One man, Mr. Preuss, 
 attempted to walk on the edge of one of these 
 ice-fields, when his feet slipped from under 
 Jiim, and he went plunging down the plain 
 several hundred feet, among some sharp frag- 
 ments of rock, turning two somersets on his 
 way down. Carson made out to reach one of 
 the snowy summits of the main ridge, and 
 still beheld the peak, towards which all their 
 efforts were directed, towering eight or ten 
 hundred feet into the air above him. Fre- 
 mont grew worse rather than better, and des- 
 patched Basil Lajeunesse and four men back 
 to the place where the mules had been left, 
 with directions to bring back, if possible, four 
 or five mules with him, and such provi- 
 sions as there were remaining. The party 
 now straggled back, one atler another, into 
 the camp. Basil returned in the evening, hav- 
 ing exchanged his four men for fresh ones, and 
 bringing some dried beef, coflfee, and blankets. 
 Lieut. Fremont entirely recovered his health 
 that night. 
 
 In the morning, Carson returned to the 
 eamp of the mules, leaving only four men with 
 Fremont. This was the 15th of August, the 
 great day of the expedition, for on this day 
 the excelsior dream of the explorer was real- 
 ized, and the American flag was carried higher 
 than it ever went before. 
 
 The sure-footed mules leaped from one 
 
 sharp angular point of rock to another as far 
 as they could go ; then they were left and the 
 men climbed up the steep, slippery rocks, 
 holding on with their toes and fingers. At 
 last, Fremont sprang upon the summit. Ano- 
 ther step would have precipitated him into an 
 immense snow-field five hundred feet below. 
 To the edge of this field was a sheer icy pre- 
 cipice ; and then with a gradual fall, the field 
 sloped off for about a mile, until it struck the 
 foot of another lower ridge. Fremont stood 
 on a narrow crest, only about three feet wide, 
 with a considerable inclination. He got 
 down, and every man ascended in his turn. 
 He would allow but one at a time to mount 
 the unstable and precarious slab, which it 
 seemed a breath would hurl into the abyss 
 below. Here they mounted the barometer in 
 the snow of the summit, and fixing a ramrod 
 in a crevice, unfurled the national flag to 
 wave in the breeze where never flag waved 
 before. Strangely enough a solitary bee ap- 
 peared in this elevated and cold place, and lit 
 on the knee of one of the men. He was 
 pressed between the leaves of a large book of 
 flowers. They regarded him as the emblem 
 of civihzation, the precursors in which often 
 meet his fate : they perish but are preserved in 
 books. This is the higliest peak of the Eocky 
 Mnuntains, and is now called Fremont's Peak. 
 Tliat night they got back to tlieir deposit 
 of provisions, and slept on tlie solid rock. Tlie 
 nextday they were again in motion, homewards 
 bound ; and on the I7th of October, having 
 experieViced many vicissitudes of more or le^s 
 interest and hazard, they were once more safe 
 at St. Louis. 
 
 CHAPTER HI. 
 
 Second Expedition — Gentlemen a Nuisance among Explorers — Fremont chooses himself to Experiment on with Sus- 
 pected Meat — The Widow of a Murdered Man protected — Finding of a Stray Ox — Irruption of Shoshonee Indians — 
 Eating Valerian— Destitute Condition of Indian Women— Liider's Bay— The Indian Guide Deserts— Feast on Pea 
 Soup, Mule and Dog— Man Craied by Hunger— Arrival at Sutter's Fort— Set out to Return— Scalping a Live Indian 
 —A Man Murdered by the Savages— Another Killed by Accident — Arrival at St. Louis. 
 
 ACCOMPANIED by thirty-nine men, Fre- 
 mont left the town of Kansas, on his 
 second exploring expedition, May 29, 1843. 
 His instructions were to connect his recon- 
 noisance of 1842 with the surveys of Com- 
 mander Wilkes on the Pacific ocean, so as to 
 give a connected survey of the interior of our 
 continent. 
 
 He permitted a few travellers not belonging 
 to the party to accompany him, but soon came 
 near paying a severe penalty for this courtesy. 
 A horse belonging to one of these persons was, 
 through carelessness, allowed to escape. A man 
 who was sent in pursuit of him returned to 
 
 the camp at full speed, followed by a war par- 
 ty of Osage Indians, with gay, red blankets, 
 and heads shaved to the scalp lock. The Osages 
 when they charged into the camp drove off a 
 number of the best horses ; but fortunately 
 they were all recovered. " This accident," says 
 Lieut. Fremont, " which occasioned delay and 
 trouble, and threatened danger and loss, and 
 broke down some good horses at the start, and 
 actually endangered the expedition, was a first 
 fruit of having gentlemen in company — very 
 estimable, to be sure, but who are not trained 
 to the care, and vigilance, and self-dependence 
 which such an expedition required, and who 
 
^MMMUhriHAaAftMh^MliiiMMiMM^i^^MH 
 
 ^dU^ 
 
12 
 
 LIFE OF COL. FREMONT. 
 
 are not subject to tlie orders whicli enforce at- 
 tention and exertion." 
 
 On the 9th of July they killed a buffiilo bull. 
 The day following several of tlie ineu were 
 sick, and Lieut. Fremont attributed it to eat- 
 ing the bull's meat. On the 11th he writes : 
 
 " As the greater part of the men continued sick I 
 encamped here for the day, and ascertained conclu- 
 sively from experiments on myself that their illness 
 was caused by meat of the buflalo bull." 
 
 On July 20th, some Delaware Indians who 
 had been of the party were obliged to return to 
 their homes, and Alexander Gode}', a young 
 man of about 25 years of age, in courage and 
 skill as a hunter a formidable rival to Carson, 
 was engaged, in their place, to shoot game. 
 
 An Indian woman of the Snake nation, the 
 widow of a Frenchman who had been mur- 
 dered alittle previous, was here taken into pro- 
 tection, with her two little half-breeds, and 
 provided with a small tent. SJie was return- 
 ing to her own people. 
 
 On the second of August, everybody, was 
 surprised by the appearance of a large red ox. 
 He had probably made his escape from some 
 party of emigrants on Green Kiver ; and with 
 a vivid remembrance of some old green fiebl, 
 he was pursuing the straightest course for tlie 
 frontier that the country admitted. Fremont 
 says : 
 
 " We carried him along with us as a prize ; and 
 ■vfhen it wa« found in the morning that he had wan- 
 dered off, I would not let him be pursued, for I 
 would rather have gone through a starving time of 
 three entire days, than let him be killed after he 
 had successfidly run the gauntlet so far among the 
 Indians." 
 
 The reader familiar with the political his- 
 tory of this country will be struck with the 
 marked resemblance of the sentiment here ex- 
 hibited, and that once so tersely expressed by 
 Hknkt Clay on the recapture of fugitive 
 slaves. 
 
 " I have been told," continues Fremont, " by Mr. 
 Bent's people, of an ox born and raised at St. Vrain's 
 fort, which made his escape from them at Elm grove, 
 near the frontier, Tiaving come in that year with the 
 wagons. They were on their way out, and saw occa- 
 sionally places where he had eaten and lain down to 
 rest ; but did not see him for about 700 miles, when 
 they overtook him on the road, travelling along to 
 the fort, having unaccountably escaped Indians and 
 every other mischance. 
 
 August 21st, in the valley of Bear River, 
 the principal tributary to tlie Great Salt Lake, 
 they came into tlie vicinity of a large villag® 
 of the Shoshonee Indians. The narrative 
 says : 
 
 " We had approached within something more than 
 ft mile of the village, when suddenly a single horse- 
 man emerged from it at full speed, oUowed by ano- 
 
 ther, and another in rapid succession; and then 
 party after party poured into the plain, until, when 
 the foremost rider reached us, all the whole inter- 
 vening plain was occupied by a mass of horsemen, 
 which came charging down upon us with guns, 
 naked swords, lances, and bows and arrows — Indians 
 entirely naked, and warriors fully dressed for war, 
 with the long red streamers of their war bonnets 
 reaching nearly to the ground, all mingled together 
 in the bravery of savage warfare. They had been 
 thrown into a sudden tumult by the appearance 
 of our flag, which, among these people, is regarded 
 as an emblem of hostility — it being usually borne by 
 the Sioux, and the neighboring mountain Indiana 
 when they come here to war : and we had accord- 
 ingly, been mistaken for a body of their enemies. A 
 few words from the chief quieted the exritfment ; 
 and the whole band, increasing every moment in 
 number, escorted us to their encampment. I ate there 
 for the first time, the Kooijah, or tobacco root, {vale- 
 rina edidis), the principal edible root among the In- 
 dians who inhabit the upper waters of the streams 
 on the western side of the mountains. It has a very 
 strong and remarkably peculiar taste and odor, 
 which I can compare to no other vegetable that I 
 am acquainted with, and whicli to some persons is 
 extremely offensive. It was characterized by Mr. 
 Preuss as the most horrid food he had ever put in his 
 mouth ; and when, in the evening, one of the chiefs 
 sent his wife to me with a portion which she had 
 prepared as a delicacy to regale us, the odor imme- 
 diately drove him out of the lodge ; and frequently 
 afterwards he used to beg that when those who liked 
 it had taken what they desired, it mi^ht be sent 
 away. To others, however, the taste is rather an 
 agreeable one ; and I was afterwards always glad 
 when it formed an addition to our scanty meals. It 
 is full of nutriment; and in its unprepare'd state is 
 said by the Indians to have very strong poisonous 
 qualities, of which it fs deprived by a peculiar pro- 
 cess, being baked in the ground for about two 
 days." 
 
 On the 4th of November they were within 
 hearing of the Falls of the Columbia. The 
 Columbia Indians are descx'ibed as very infe- 
 rior. Fremont says : 
 
 " In comparison with the Indians of the Rocky 
 Mountains and the great Eastern plain, these are 
 disagreeably dirty in their habits. We were some- 
 what amused with the scanty dress of one woman, 
 who, in common with the others, rushed out of the 
 huts on our arrival, and who, in default of other cov- 
 eriwg, used a child for a fig leaf." 
 
 A Methodist Missionary Station, about a 
 hundred miles above Fort Vancouver, terml. 
 uated the Western journey of most of the 
 party, while Fremont himself, with a few 
 men, went down to the Fort, which is within 
 about seventy miles of the Pacific. 
 
 The following Uttle incident, narrated under 
 date of November 13th, shows the kind feel- 
 ing in which the name of Liidei's Bay was 
 conceived : 
 
 " A gentleman named Liiders, a botanist from the 
 city of Hamburg, arrived at the bay I have called by 
 his name while we were occupied in bringing up the 
 boats. I was delighted to meet at such a place 
 a man of kindred pursuits; but we had only the 
 pleasure of a brief conversation, as his canoe, under 
 the guidance of two Indians, was about ^ run 
 the rapids, and I could not enjoy the satisfaction of 
 
LIFE OF COL. FKEMONT. 
 
 13 
 
 regaling him with a breakfast, which, after his recent 
 journey, would have been an extraordinary luxury. 
 All of his few instruments and baggage were in the 
 canoe, and he hurried around by land to meet it at 
 the Grave-yard bay; but he was scarcely out of 
 sight when, by the carelessness of the Indians, the 
 boat was drawn into the midst of the rapids, and 
 glanced down the river, bottom up, with the loss of 
 everything it contained. In the natural concern I 
 felt for his misfortune, I gave to the little cove the 
 name of Lilder's Bay." 
 
 From the Indians about the missionary sta- 
 tion they procured some new animals, and 
 from Vancouver a number of cattle. Altoge- 
 ther, when they started on their return, the 
 25th day of November, they had 104 umles 
 and horses. Their course was southerly, as 
 their plan was to pursue a new route home. 
 There was at that time a general belief, 
 founded on the reports of trappers, in the 
 existence of a large river having its rise in the 
 Rocky Mountains, and emptying into the Pa- 
 cific Ocean. Fremont travelled a thousand 
 miles to find it, designing to tbllow its valley 
 homeward. But the river existed only in the 
 ignorant conjectures of the times. In the 
 progress of their journey, they encountered 
 many difficulties. 
 
 Ftbrxiai~y ith, Fremont writes : " I went ahead 
 early with two or three men, each with a led horse, 
 to break the road. We were obliged to abandon the 
 hollow entirely, and work along the mountain side, 
 which was very steep, and the snow covered with an 
 icy crust. We cut a footing as we advanced, and 
 trampled a road through for the animals ; but occa- 
 sionally one plunged outside the trail, and slided 
 along the field to the bottom, a hundred yards 
 below. 
 
 " To-night we had no shelter, but we made a large 
 fire around the trunk of one of the huge pines : and 
 coverftig the snow with small boughs on which we 
 spread our blankets, soon made ourselves comforta- 
 ble. The night was very bright and clear, though 
 the thermometer was only at 10°. A strong wind 
 which sprang up at sundown, made it intensely cold, 
 and this was one of the bitterest nights during the 
 journey. 
 
 " Two Indians joined onr party here ; and one of 
 them, an old man, immediately began to harangue 
 ns, saying that ourselves and animals would perish in 
 the snow; and that if we would go bade, he would 
 show us another and a better way acKiss the moun- 
 tain. He spoke in a very loud voice, and there was 
 a singular repetition of phrases and arrangement of 
 words, which rendered his speech striking and not 
 unmusical. 
 
 '' We had now begun to understand some words, 
 and with the aid of signs, easily comprehended the 
 old man's simple idea. 'Rock upon rock — rock 
 upon rock — snow upon snow — snow upon snow,' 
 said he ; ' even if you get over the snow, you will 
 not be able to get down fi'om the mountains.' He 
 made ns the sign of precipices, and showed us how 
 the feet of the horses would slip, and throw them itff 
 from the narrow trails which led along their sides. 
 Our Chino/ik, who comprehended even more readily 
 than ourselves, and believed our situation hopeless, 
 covered his head with his blanket, and began to 
 weep and lament. ' I wanted to see the whites,' 
 said he ; 'I came awfty from my own people to see 
 the whites, and I wouldn't care to die among them ; 
 but here — ' and he looked around into the cold 
 
 night and gloomy forest, and, drawing his blank&t 
 over his head, began again to lament. 
 
 " Seated around the tree, the fire illuminating the 
 rocks, and the tall bolls of the pines round about, and 
 the old 'adian haranguing, we presented a group of 
 very serious faces. 
 
 February 5. — "The night had been too cold to sleep, 
 and we were up very early. Our guide was standing 
 by the fire with all his finery on, and seeing him 
 shiver in the cold, I threw on his shoulders one of 
 my blankets. We missed him a few minutes after- 
 wards, and never saw him again. He had deserted. 
 His bad faith and treachery were in perfect keeping 
 with the estimate of Indian character, which a long 
 intercourse with this people had gradually forced 
 upon my mind. 
 
 Feh-uary 6. — "Accompanied by Mr. Fitzpatrick, I 
 set out to-day with a reconnoitering party, on snow- 
 shoes. We marched all in single file, trampling the 
 snow as heavily as we could. Crossing the open 
 basin, in a march of about ten miles, we reached the 
 top of one of the peaks, to the left of the pass indi- 
 cated by our guide. Far below us, dimmed by the 
 distance, was a large snowless valley, bounded ott 
 the western side, at the distance of about a hundred 
 miles, by a low range of mountains, which Carson 
 recognized with delight as the mountains bordering 
 the coast. 'There,' said he, 'is the little moun- 
 tain—it is fifteen years ago since I saw it ; but I am 
 just as sure as if I had seen it yesterday.' Betweea 
 us, then, and this low coast range was the valley of 
 the Sacramento, and no one who had not accompa- 
 nied us through the incidents of our life for the last 
 few months, could realize the delight with which at 
 last we looked down upon it. At the distance of 
 apparently thirty miles beyond us were distinguished 
 spots of prairie; and a dark line, which could be 
 traced with the glass, was imagined to be the course 
 of the river; but we were evidently at a great 
 height above the valley, and between us and the 
 plains, extended miles of snowy fields and broken 
 ridges of pine-covered mountains. 
 
 " It was late in the day when we turned towards 
 the camp, and it grew rapidly cold as it drew 
 towards night. One of the men became fatigued, 
 and his feet began to freeze, ajid building a fire in 
 the trunk of a dry old cedai, Mr. P'itzpatrick re- 
 mained with him until liis clothes could be dried, and 
 he was in a condition to come on. After a day's 
 march of twenty miles, we straggled into camp, one 
 after another, at nightfall, the greater number ex- 
 cessively fatigued, only two of the party having ever 
 travelled on snow-shoife before. 
 
 February 13.—" The meat train did not arrive this 
 evening, and I gave Godey leave to kill our little dog 
 (Tlamath), which he prepared in Indian fashion; 
 scorching off the hiar, and washing the skin with 
 soap and snow, and then cutting it up into pieces, 
 which were laid on, the snow. Shortly afterwards 
 the sleigh arflved vrith a supply of horse-meat, and 
 we had to-night an extraordinary dinner— pea-sonp, 
 mule, and dog." 
 
 One of the men, Qharles Towns, became 
 light-headed from hunger and fatigue; and 
 Proveau, the favorite horse of Lieut. Fre- 
 mont, grew too weak to keep- up, on the 27th 
 of February, and Demsier volunteered, on tha 
 29th, to bring up Proveau, but did not appear 
 at camp with him that night. 
 
 March 1, Fremont writes : "We began to be uneasy 
 at Derosier's absence, fearing he might have beek 
 bewildered in the woodg. Charles Towns, who haS 
 not yet recovered his mind, went to swim in the 
 river, as if it were summer, and the stream placid, 
 when it was a cold mountain torrent foaming among 
 
14 
 
 LITE OF COL. FREMONT. 
 
 rocka. We -vrere happy to see Derosier appear in 
 the evening. He came in, and sitting down by the 
 fire, began to tell us where he had been. He ima- 
 gined he had beea gone several days, and thought 
 we were still at the camp where he had left us ; and 
 we were pained to see that his mind was deranged. 
 It appeared that he had been lost in the mountain, 
 and hunger and fatigue, joined to weakness of body 
 and fear of perishing in the mountains, had crazed 
 him. The times were severe when stout men lost 
 their minds from extremity of suffering — when horses 
 died — and when mules and horses, ready to die of 
 starvation, were killed for food. Yet there was no 
 murmuring or hesitation." 
 
 On the 6th of March, Lieut. Fremont, with 
 an advance party, arrived at Sutter's Fort, on 
 the Sacramento river, and were cordially wel- 
 comed by Capt. Sutler. The next day, supplied 
 with fresh horses and provisions, tliey returned 
 to the mountains for the party left behind. 
 The narrative continues: 
 
 "On the second day, we met, a few miles below 
 flie forks of the Rio de los Americanos; and a more 
 forlorn and pitiable sight than they presented, can- 
 not well be imagined. They were all on foot— each 
 man, weak and emaciated, leading a horse or mule 
 as weak and emaciated as themselves. They had 
 experienced great difficulty in descending the moun- 
 tains, made slippery by rains and melting snows, and 
 many horses fell over precipices and were killed, and 
 with some were lost the paclis they carried. 
 
 "Out of sixty-seven horses and mules with which 
 we commenced crossing the Sierra, only thirty-three 
 reached the valley of Sacramento, and they only 
 in a condition to be led along." 
 
 On the 24th they resumed tlieir journey, with 
 an ample stock of provisions and a large caval- 
 cade of aninials, consisting of 130 horses and 
 mules, and about 30 head of cattle, live of 
 which were milch cows. 
 
 Lieut. Fremont had now made a very im- 
 portant addition to the geographical knowledge 
 of the country, and corrected a macenal error 
 of long standing. He might well reflect, as he 
 once more tui-ned away from the face of civi- 
 lized man, tliat if correct information of tlie 
 geography of that vast region, should prove 
 as valuable to otliers as it would have been to 
 him, his labors, however arduous, would not 
 be lost. While they were encamped near Sut- 
 ter's Fort, Derosier, one of the best men, 
 wandered off and has never since been heard 
 of. 
 
 They had been on their homeward journey 
 a month since leaving Sutter's, when on the 
 25th of April, they discovered that a number 
 of tlieir horses had been driven off by a party 
 of marauding Indians. Three men, Fuentes, 
 Carson, and Godey, went in pursuit. Fuentes 
 came back the same evening, his horse having 
 given out. Carson and Godey did not return 
 until they had performed some bloody work. 
 The journal of the 25th says : — 
 
 " In the afternoon of the next day, a war-hoop was 
 keard, such as Indians make when returning from a 
 
 victorious enterprise ; and soon Carson and Gfbdej 
 appeared, driving before them a band of horses, 
 recognized by Fuentes to be part of those they had 
 lost. Two bloody scalps, dangling from the end oif 
 Godey's gun, announced that they had overtaken tBa 
 Indians as well as the horses. They informed us 
 that after Fuentes left them, from the failure of 
 his horse, they continued the pursuit alone, and 
 towards night-fall entered the mountains, into ■which 
 the trail led. After sunset the moon gave light, and 
 they followed the trail by moonshine until late in the 
 night, when it entered a narrow delile, and was difft- 
 cult to follow. Afraid of losing it in the darkness of 
 the defile, they tied up their horses, struck no fiie, 
 and lay down to sleep in silence and in darkneas. 
 Here they lay from midnight till morning. At day- 
 light they resumed the pursuit, and about sunriso 
 discovered the horses ; and immediately dismountrag 
 and tying up their own, they crept cautiously to & 
 rising ground which intervened, from the crest of 
 which they perceived the encampment of four lodges 
 close by. They proceeded quietly, and had got 
 within thirty or forty yards of their object, when a 
 movement among the horses discovered thorn to th« 
 Indians ; giving the war-shout, they immediatelT 
 charged into the camp, regardless of the number 
 which the four lodges would imply. The Indians 
 received them with a flight of arrows shot from their 
 long bows, one of which passed through Godey'* 
 shirt collar, barely missing the neck ; our men fired 
 thpir rides upon a steady aim, and rushed in. Two 
 Indians were stretched on the ground, fatally pierced 
 with bullets ; the rest fled, except a lad that was 
 captured. The scalps of the fallen were instantly 
 strijiped off; but in the process one of them, who 
 had two balls through his body, sprung to his feet- 
 the blood streaming from his skinned head, and 
 uttering a hideous howl. An old squaw, possibly 
 his mother, stopped and looked back from the moua- 
 tain-side she was climbing, threatening and lament- 
 ing. The frightful spectacle appalled the stout 
 hearts of our men ; but they did what humanity 
 required, and quickly terminated the agonies of thd 
 gory savage." 
 
 On April 24th, Fremont was surprised by 
 the sudden appearance in his camp of two Mex- 
 icans, a man and a boy. Tlie boy, then a 
 handsome lad of eleven years, was Pablo Her- 
 nandez, who returned with Fremont, and 
 afterwards lived in the family of Col. Benton^ 
 at Washington. They were the only two, of 
 a party of six, who had escaped from a treach- 
 erous attack of Indians. On the 29tli of 
 April, Capt. Fremont reached the lonely place 
 where the tragedy had been enacted, and h* 
 thus describes the scene : 
 
 " The dead silence of the place was ominous ; and, 
 galloping rapidly up, we found only the corpses of 
 tiie two men : everything else was gone. They 
 were naked, mutDated, and pierced with arrows, 
 Hernandez had evidently fought, and with despera- 
 tion. He lay in advance of the willow half-faced 
 tent, which sheltered his family, as if he had come 
 out to meet danger, and to repulse it from that asy- 
 lum. One of his hands, and both his legs, had been 
 cut off. Giacome, who was a large and strong-lool»- 
 ing man, was lying in one of the willow shelt-'rs, 
 pierced with arrows. Of the women no trace could 
 be found, and it was evident they had been carried 
 off captive. A little lap-dog, which had belonged to 
 Pablo's mother, remained with the dead bodies, and 
 was frantic with joy at seeing Pablo : he, poor child, 
 was frantic with "grief ; and filled the air with lamen- 
 
LIFE OF CJOL. FEEMONT. 
 
 15 
 
 tations for his father and mofher. ' Mi padre ! Mi 
 vnadre !' was his incessant cry. When we beheld 
 this pitiable sight, and pictured to ourselves the fate 
 of the two women, carried off by savages so brutal 
 and so loathsome, all compunction for the scalped- 
 ftlive Indian ceased ; and we rejoiced that Carson 
 and Godey had been able to give so useful a lesson 
 to these American Arabs, who lie in wait to murder 
 and plunder the innocent traveller." 
 
 On the 9th of May, Carson came to Fre- 
 mont in the afternoon, and reported that 
 Tabeau, who, in the morning, left his fort 
 without the captain's knowledge, and rode 
 back to the camp they had left, in search of a 
 lame mule, had not returned. The narrative 
 goes on to say : 
 
 " "While we were speaking, a smoke rose sud- 
 denly from the cotton wood grove below, which 
 plainly told us what had befallen him ; it was raised 
 to inform the surrounding Indians that a blow had 
 been struck, and to tell them to be on their guard. 
 Carson, with several men well mounted, was instant- 
 ly sent down the river, but returned in the night 
 without tidings of the missing man. They went to 
 the camp we had left, but neither he nor the mule 
 was there. Searching down the river, they found 
 the tracks of the mule, evidently driven along by 
 Indians, whose tracks were on each side of those 
 made by the animal. After going several miles, they 
 came to the mule itself, standing in some bushes, 
 mortally wounded in the side by an arrow, and left 
 to die, that he might be afterwards butchered for 
 food. They also found, in another place, as they 
 were hunting about on the ground for Tabeau's 
 tracks, something that looked like a little puddle of 
 blood, but which the darkness prevented them from 
 verifying. With these details they returned to our 
 camp, and their report saddened all our hearts. 
 
 May 10. — " This morning as soon as there was light 
 enough to follow tracks, I set out myself, with Mr. 
 Fitzpatrick and several men, in search of Tabeau. 
 We went to the spot where the appearance of pud- 
 dled blood had been seen ; and this, we saw at once, 
 had been the place where he fell and died. Blood 
 upon the leaves and beaten down bushes, showed 
 tliat he had got his wound about twenty paces from 
 where he fell, and that he had struggled for his life. 
 He had probably been shot through the lungs with 
 
 an arrow. From the place where he lay and bled, it 
 could be seen that he had been dragged to the river 
 bank, and thrown into it. No vestige of what had 
 belonged to him could be found, except a fragment 
 of his horse equipment — horse, gun, clothes — all be- 
 came the prey of these Arabs of the New World. 
 
 " Tabeau had been one of our best men, and his un- 
 happy death spread a gloom over our party. Men, 
 who have gone through such dangers and suffering* 
 as we had seen, become like brothers, and feel each . 
 other's loss. To defend and avenge each other, is 
 the deep feeling of all. We wished to avenge hia 
 death ; but the condition of our horses, languishing 
 for grass and repose, forbade an expedition into un- 
 known mountains. We knew the tribe who had 
 done the mischief — the same which had been insult- 
 ing our camp. They knew what they deserved, and 
 had the discretion to show themselves to us no more. 
 The day before, they infested our camp ; now, not 
 one appeared ; nor did we ever afterwards see but 
 one who even belonged to the same tribe, and he at 
 a distance." 
 
 On May 23d, Trangois Badeau, who had been 
 ^v^th Fremont during both his expeditions, 
 and had always been one of his most faithful 
 and efficient men, was killed in drawing 
 towards him a gun by the muzzle; the hanv 
 mer being caught, discharged the gun, driving 
 the ball through his head. 
 
 After an absence of fourteen months, during 
 which, with all their exposure, no case of 
 sickness had ever occurred among them, Col. 
 Fremont and his party arrived at St. Louis on 
 the 6th day of August, 1844. Important ad- 
 ditions to the treasures of geograi)}iical sci- 
 ence had been made by this exfiedirion. The 
 Great Basin, Great Salt Lakv, Little Salt Lake, 
 and the Sierra Nevada Mountains had been ia 
 part developed. Tlie fact that no rivei-u 
 issued from the Great Basin had been ascer- 
 tained; and the non-existence of the rivejr 
 Buenaventura, long laid down on all the 
 maps, and even on the manuscript map of the 
 Hudson's Bay Company, a.s located by their 
 own hunters, had been conclusively estab- 
 lished. 
 
 CHAPTER lY. 
 
 Ihird Erpedition — First Raising of the U. S. Flag in California — Journey to Oregon — Orders received in the Mountalna 
 by hand of Capt. Gillespie — Camp attacked by Tlamath Indians in the night— Three men slaiu—Kevenge— Their Vil- 
 lage Destroyed— Fremont's Favorite Horse, Sacramento — Saving of Carson's Life — Extracts from Mr. Marcy's Report — 
 Two Hundred of Castro's Horses Captured— Samona Surprised and Taken— Fremont appointed Governor of California 
 —Reliance of the Americans upon Col. Fremont^-Arrest of Pico— Sentenced to be Shot— Fremont Pardons him— Rid« 
 of Eight Hundred Miles in Eight Days— Desperate Encounter with Grizily Bears— Twelve KiUed— Capitulation of Co*- 
 Miga — Fremont's Proclamation of Peace. 
 
 IN" January, 1845, Fremont, on the recom- 
 mendation of Gen. Scott, in a special re- 
 port, was promoted by a brevet commission of 
 First Lieutenant and a brevet commission of 
 Captain of the corps of Topographical Engi- 
 neers at the same time. 
 
 In the s]-)ring of that year, he obtained or- 
 ders to conduct a third expedition, which com- 
 
 prehended in its object a more thorough ex- 
 ploration of the Great Basin, of whiclt he had 
 already obtained considerable knowledge, and 
 of California and Oregon, aa well as the dis- 
 covery of a new and shorter route from th© 
 Western base of tlie Rocky Mountains to the 
 mouth of the Columbia River. 
 
 Hunger, thirst, cold, the loss of cattle, the 
 
16 
 
 LIFB OF OOL. FREMONT. 
 
 tomahawk of the Indian, he was destined to 
 encounter again, as he had done in his two 
 previons expeditions. Through all obstacles, 
 he again persevered, and once more reached 
 the Tacific coast. 
 
 Oapt. Fremont was aware, when he left the 
 United States, that a war with Mexico was 
 probable. On that account he took great 
 pains, when he arrived in California — then a 
 department of Mexico — to apprise Manuel 
 Castro, the commanding general, of the peace- 
 ful nature of his mission. He requested liberty 
 to winter in the country. It was granted. 
 Judge of his surprise at receiving shortly 
 afterwards from Castro, an insolent and per- 
 emptory order to quit the country forthwith, 
 accompanied by a threat of destruction in case 
 of non-compliance. Fremont had already lo- 
 cated the South Pass across the Eocky Moun- 
 tains ; he had ascended a peak where never 
 human feet trod before ; he had made many 
 important discoveries in the geograi>hy of the 
 West : but he liad never yet found out the way 
 to run. lie climbed up with his men to the 
 summit of Hawks' Peak, a mountain overlook- 
 ing the Salinas Plains, which lie between that 
 and Monterey. 
 
 A breast- work was hastily thrown up, and 
 the United States flag was hoisted for the first 
 time in California. From this place he wrote 
 the following note to Mr. Larkin, U. S. Con- 
 sul at Monterey : 
 
 " March 10, 1846. 
 
 " My Dear Sir : — I this moment received your let- 
 ters, and without waiting to read them, acknowledge 
 the receipt, which the courier requires, immediately. 
 
 "I am making myself as strong as possible, in the 
 intention that if we are unjustly attacked, we will 
 fight to extremity, and refuse quarter trusting to our 
 country to avenge our death. No one has reached 
 our camp, and from the heights we are able to see 
 the troops (with the glass) mustering at St. John's 
 and preparing cannon. I thank you for your kind- 
 ness and good wishes, and would write more at 
 length as to my intentions, did I not fear that my 
 letter would be intercepted. We have in no wise 
 done wrong to the people or the authorities of the 
 country, and if we are hemmed in and assaulted here, 
 we will die every man of ua, under the flag of our 
 country. 
 
 "Very truly yours. 
 
 "J. C. FREMONT." 
 
 Captain Fremont remained on the Peak till 
 the evening of the fourth day, when it being 
 clear that Castro would not attack him in his 
 commanding position, — certainly not without 
 powerful accessions to his own strength, already 
 at least five hundred men — and knowing that 
 it was impossible to obtain provisions for his 
 support, he witlidrew, crossed over to the San 
 Joaquin Valley, and slowly and, to use his 
 own language, " growlingly" pursued his jour- 
 ney, by the way of Sacramento Valley, up into 
 the mountain regions of Oregon. 
 
 Tlie next incident of particular interest which 
 
 occurred to Capt. Fremont, is thus narrated ISj 
 Col. Benton : 
 
 " In the first week of May lie was at the north end 
 of the great Tlamath lake, and in Oregon — the lake 
 being cut near its south end by the parallel of 42 de- 
 grees north latitude. On the 8th day of that month 
 a strange sight presented itself^almost a startling 
 apparition — two men riding up and penetrating a 
 region which few ever approached without paying 
 toll of life or blood. They proved to be two of Mr. 
 Fremont's old voyageurs, and quickly told their story. 
 They were part of a guard of six men conducting a 
 United States oflicer, who was on his trail with dis- 
 patches from Washington, and whom they had left 
 two days back, while they came on to give notice of 
 his approach, and to ask that assistance might be 
 sent him. They themselves had only escaped the 
 Indians by the switl.ness of their horses. It was a 
 case in which no time was to be lost, nor a mistake 
 made. Mr. Fremont determined to go himself; and 
 taking ten picked men, four of them Delaware In- 
 dians, he took down the western shore of the lake on 
 the morning of the 9th (the direction the ofiicer was 
 to come), and made a ride of sixty miles without a 
 halt. But to meet men, and not to miss them, was 
 the difficult point in this trackless region. It was not 
 the case of a high road, where all travellers must 
 meet in passing each other : at intervals there were 
 places — defiles, or camping grounds — where both 
 parties must pass ; and watching for these, he came 
 to one in the afternoon, and decided that, if the party 
 was not killed, it must he there that night. He halted 
 and encamped ; and, as the sun was going down, 
 had the inexpressible satisfaction to see the fom- men 
 approaching. The officer proved to be a lieutenant 
 of the United States Marines, who had been de- 
 spatched from Washington, the November previous, 
 to make his way by Vera Cruz, the City of Mexico, 
 and Mazatlan, to Monterey, in Upper California, 
 deliver despatches to the United States consul there, 
 and then find Mr. Fremont, wherever he should be. 
 His despatches for Mr. Fremont were only a letter 
 of introduction from the Secretary of State (Mr. 
 Buchanan), and some letters and slips of newspa- 
 pers from Senator Benton and his family, and some 
 verbal communications from the Secretary of State. 
 The verbal communications were that Mr. Fremont 
 should watch and counteract any foreign scheme on 
 California, and conciliate the good will of the inhabi- 
 tants towards the United States. Upon this intima- 
 tion of the government's wishes, Mr. Fremont turned 
 back from Oregon, in the edge of which he then was, 
 and returned to California. The letter of introduction 
 was in the common form, that it might tell nothing 
 if it fell into the hands of foes, and signified nothing 
 of itself; but it accredited the bearer, and gave the 
 stamp of authority to what he communicated; and 
 upon this Mr. Fremont acted: for it was not to be 
 supposed that Lieutenant Gillespie had been sent so 
 far, and through so many dangers, merely to deliver 
 a common letter of introduction on the shores of the 
 Tlamath lake." 
 
 That niglit a war party of Tlamath Indians 
 who had followed Gillespie's trail, attacked 
 the camp, and killed three of Fremont's best 
 men — one of them a Delaware Indian. One 
 bold young Flaraath chief paid the penalty of 
 his life on the spot. He fell at the beginning 
 of the fight, leaving his quiver full of unspent 
 arrows. 
 
 Capt. Fremont now turned back to meet the 
 reinainder of his men, and they encamped to- 
 gether that night. He told them that the 
 
LIFE OF OOL. FREMONT. 
 
 17 
 
 death of their friends who had fallen must be 
 avenged ; and the following morning he re- 
 turned up the West side of the lake, towards 
 the north end, to the principal village of the 
 Tlamaths. His Delawares had painted theni- 
 gelves black, in sign of mourning at the loss of 
 one of their tribe who had been slain, and of 
 the vengeance. Capt. Fremont attacked the 
 Tlamaths, destroyed their village, and after a 
 considerable number of them had been killed, 
 the rest tied. 
 
 Capt. Fremont, accompanied by his own 
 party and Gillespie's, now retraced his steps 
 towards California. At this time he was 
 mounted on a noble iron-grey horse, named 
 Sacramento, which he had received as a pre- 
 sent from Capt. Sutter, on his second expe- 
 dition, rode most of the way as far as Kfen- 
 tucky, and left to summer on Col. Benton's 
 farm. Tliis fine animal had borne his owner 
 a large part of this journey out. He was high- 
 spirited, sure-footed, and an almost miraculous 
 leaper. Two days after the massacre, as Capt. 
 Fremont was riding at full speed abreast Avith 
 Kit Carson and one or two others, his com- 
 panions crowded him directly on to the top of 
 a large, fallen tree. Carson shouted : " Look 
 out for a fall!" But, with an incredible jump, 
 Sacramento cleared the enormous tree top, and, 
 greeted by a cry of applause from the men, 
 SAviftly flew on. They were reconnoitring for 
 a body of Indians who were reported approach- 
 ing. A quarter of a mile fartlier on their way, 
 the mettle of the brave courser was put to a 
 ditferent test. They were still beside the 
 Tlamath lake, when they suddenly came upon 
 a •••mall party of Indians. Fremont saw a 
 Ravage with his bow drawn to the arrow's 
 head, and a deadly aim at Carson, who was 
 standing only ten feet distant, with his rifle 
 levelled at the Indian's head. Carson was 
 pulling at the trigger, when the quick com- 
 prehension of Capt. Fremont detected that his 
 gun was only half cocked. A man a little in 
 front of Fremont apparently wavered in reso- 
 lution. " Get out of the way !" shouted Fre- 
 mont. The man turned aside. Sacramento 
 dashed on. Fremont's rifle was brought to 
 bear in an instant, and almost the same second 
 ■with its discharge, the hoofs of the courser 
 trampled the Tlamatli in the dust. The balls 
 from the rifles of the Delawares pierced his 
 body, and before the rider of Sacramento could 
 turn round, he heard the heavy war club of 
 Sagliundai, the chief, break through his skull. 
 When he turned back, the fierce hand of a 
 Delaware held dangling aloft the gory scalp of 
 the Tlamath Indian. " Them two," says Car- 
 son, " Sacramento and the Colonel, saved my 
 life that day." 
 
 Sacramento afterwards escaped into a drove 
 of wild horses, and loving freedom like his 
 master, could never be re-taken. 
 
 The annual report for 1845, of the Hon. Wil- 
 liam L. Marcy, then Secretary of War, now 
 Secretary of State, briefly chronicles as fol- 
 lows — quoting from this point — some of the 
 achievements of Col. Fremont in the conquest 
 of California : 
 
 [From the Anual Report of the Secretary of War, Decem- 
 ber 5, 1846.J 
 
 [extract.] 
 
 War Department, Dec. 5, 1846. 
 ********* 
 
 At the same time, information reached him that 
 General Castro, in addition to his Indian allies, was 
 advancing in person against him, with artillery and 
 cavalry, at the head of four or five hundred men; 
 that they were passing around the head of the Bay 
 of San Francisco to a rendezvous on the north side 
 of it, and that the American settlers in the valley of 
 the Sacramento were comprehended in the scheme 
 of destruction meditated against his own party. 
 
 Under these circumstances, he determined to turn 
 upon his Mexican pursuers, and seek safety both for 
 his own party and the American settlers, not merely 
 in the defeat of Castro, but in the total overthrow of 
 the Mexican authority in California, and the establish- 
 ment of an independent government in that exten- 
 sive department. It was on the 6th of June, and 
 before the commencement of the war betweeit the 
 United States and Mexico could have there been 
 known, that this resolution was taken ; and by the 
 5th of July, it was carried into etfect by a series of 
 rapid attacks, by a small body of adventitrous men, 
 under the conduct of an intrepid leader, quick to 
 perceive and able to direct the proper measures for 
 accomplishing such a daring enterprise. 
 
 On the 11th of June, a convoy of 200 horses for 
 Castro's camp, with an officer and 14 men, were sur- 
 prised and captiu-ed by twelve of Fremont's party. 
 On the 15th, at daybreak, the military post of Sanoma 
 was also surprised and taken, with nine brass cannon, 
 two hundred and fifty stand of muskets, and several 
 officers, and some men and munitions of war. 
 
 Leaving a small garrison at Sanoma, Colonel Fre- 
 mont went to the Sacramento to rouse the American 
 settlers ; but scarcely had he arrived there, when an 
 express reached him from the garrison at Sanoma, 
 with information that Castro's whole force was cross- 
 ing the bay to attack that place. This intelligence 
 was receivefl in the afternoon of the 23d of June, 
 while he was on the American fork of the Sacra- 
 mento, eighty miles from the little garrison at Sano- 
 ma; and at two o'clock on the morning of the 25th, 
 he arrived at that place with ninety riflemen from 
 the American settlers in that valley. The enemy had 
 not yet appeared. Scouts were sent out to recon- 
 noitre, and a party of twenty fell in with a squadron 
 of seventy dragoons (all of Castro's force which had 
 crossed the bay), attacked and defeated it, killing 
 and wounding five, without harm to themselves; the 
 Mexican commander, De la Torre, barely escaping 
 with the loss of his transport boats and nine pieces 
 of brass artillery spiked. 
 
 The country north of the Bay of San Francisco 
 being cleared of the enemy, Colonel Fremont re- 
 turned to Sanoma on the evening of the -ith of July, 
 and, on the morning of the 5th, called the people 
 together, explained to them the condition of things 
 in the province, and recommended an immediate 
 declaration of independence. The declaration was 
 made, and he was selected to take the chief direction 
 of affairs. 
 
 The attack on Castro was the next object. He 
 was at Santa Clara, an entrenched post on the upper 
 or south side of the Bay of San Francisco, with four 
 2 
 
18 
 
 LIFE OF COL. FREMONT. 
 
 hundred men and two pieces of field artillery. A 
 circuit of more than a hundred miles must be tra- 
 versed to reach him. On the 6th of July the pursuit 
 was commenced, by a body of one hundred and sixty 
 mounted riflemen, commanded by Colonel Fremont 
 in person, who, in three days, arrived at the Ameri- 
 can settlements on the Rio de los Americanos. Here 
 he learned that Castro had abandoned Santa Clara, 
 and was retreating south towards Ciudad de los An- 
 geles (the city of the Angels), the seat of the Gover- 
 nor-General of the Califjornias, and distant four hun- 
 dred miles. It was instantly resolved on to pursae 
 him to that place. At the moment of departure, the 
 gratifying intelligence was received that war with 
 Mexico had commenced ; that Monterey had been 
 taken by our naval force, and the flag of the United 
 States there raised on the 7th of July ; and that the 
 fleet would co-operate in the pursuit of Castro and 
 his forces. The flag of independence was hauled 
 down, and that of the United States hoisted, amidst 
 the hearty greetings and to the great joy of the Ame- 
 rican settlers and the forces under the command of 
 Colonel Fremont. 
 
 The combined pursuit was rapidly continued; and 
 on the 12th of August, Commodore Stockton and 
 Colonel Fremont, with a detachment of marines from 
 the squadron ami some riflemen, entered the city of 
 the Angels, without resistance or objection ; the Go- 
 vernor-General Pico, the Commandant-General Cas- 
 tro, and all the Mexican authorities, having fled and 
 dispersed. Commodore Stockton took possession of 
 the whole country as a conquest of the United States, 
 and appointed Colonel Fremont Governor, under the 
 law of nations ; to assume the functions of that office 
 when he .'-hould return to the squadron. 
 
 Thus, in the short space of sixty days from the first 
 decisive movement, this conquest was achieved, by a 
 small body of men, to an extent beyond their own 
 expectation ; for the Mexican authorities proclaimed 
 it a conquest, not merely of the northern part, but 
 of the whole province of the Californias. 
 
 The Commandant-General, Castro, on the 9th of 
 August, from his camp at the Mesa, and next day 
 "on the road to Sonora," announced this result to 
 the people, together with tlie actual flight and dis- 
 persion of the former authorities ; and, at the same 
 time, he oflBcially communicated the fact of the con- 
 quest to the French, English and Spanish consuls in 
 California; and, to crown the whole, the official pa- 
 
 Eer of the Mexican government, on the IGth of Octo- 
 er, in laying these official communications before 
 the public, introduced them with the emphatic decla- 
 ration, " The loss of the Californias is consummated." 
 The whole province was yielded up to the United 
 States, and is now in our miUtary occupancy. * * * 
 
 W. L. MARCy. 
 To THB President of thk Ukitsd States. 
 
 On Fremont's retui*n to the Sacramento 
 Valley, he encamped at the Three Buttes, near 
 the junction of the Yuba and Feather rivers. 
 The Buttes are three lofty mountain peaks, 
 rising out of tlie middle of a vast plain, famous 
 landmarks in California. Here he was joined 
 by the American settlers from all parts of the 
 Valley. They had heard of his danger ; of his 
 resolute action at Hawks' Peak, and now that 
 the anger and resentment of the Mexican 
 General were directed equally against them, 
 they were eager to greet Fremont as their 
 champion and leader. " The news travelled," 
 wrote one of them, " witli all the speed of the 
 swiftest horses, among all the Americans in a 
 scope of country 160 miles in extent, in 24 
 hours, and from every direction we rushed to 
 
 the assistance of Captain Fremont, imder the 
 impression that if he was defeated, we should 
 be taken at our homes, as reported." 
 
 On the 27th of October, at Monterey, Fre- 
 mont received a commission of Lieutenant- 
 Colonel of a rifle regiment, in the army of the 
 United States, signed by President Polk, dated 
 the 29th of tlie May previous. 
 
 The capture of Sonoma was achieved by a 
 detachment of thirty men dispatched by Col. 
 Fremont for that purpose. The day following, 
 a portion of this detachment appeared in front 
 of Col. Fremont's encampment, on the bank 
 of the American river, bringing with them 
 Vallejo, the Mexican general commanding in 
 the North, whom they had taken prisoner at 
 the surprise of Sonoma, and two other officers. 
 The general stepped forward and tendered to 
 Col. Fremont his sword. The Colonel courte- 
 ously declined to receive it, in consideration 
 of the superior age of the Mexican general, and 
 of his own desire to concihate as far as pos- 
 sible the Californians. He sent Gen. Vallejo 
 to Sutter's Fort, where he remained several 
 months a prisoner. 
 
 On the 1-ith of December, 1846, at San 
 Louis Obispo, Don Jose Pico was arrested for 
 breaking his parole. He was tried by a Court 
 Martial and sentenced to be sliot. The next 
 morning Avas to witness his execution. His 
 wife and cliildren supplicated, in the bitterest 
 agony, tliat his life might be spared. After 
 mature deliberation, Colonel Fremont decided 
 to grant their request. Just before the hour 
 appointed for his execution, this pleasing in- 
 telligence was communicated to him. He was 
 overwhelmed. He broke forth into the most 
 entlnisiastic expressions of gratitude towards 
 Col. Fremont. His old life, he said, was gone; 
 Col. Fremont had given him a new life; and 
 he vowed for tlie future, the strictest fidelity. 
 Subsequently, in his own defence before a 
 Court Martial, Col. Fremont thus siioke of this 
 act of pardon : 
 
 " That pardon had its influence on all the subsequent 
 events ; Don Jose was the cousin of Don Andreas 
 Pico, against whom I was going, and was married to 
 a lady of the Cavillo family ; many hearts were con- 
 quered the day he was pardoned, and his own, above 
 all. Don Jose Pico attached himself to my person, 
 and remained devoted, and faithful under trying cir- 
 cumstances." 
 
 In March, 1847, Col. Fremont accomplished 
 a ride on liorseback which seems almost in- 
 credible ; but the California papers of that 
 date give the full particulars of it. He rode 
 from Los Angeles to Monterey and back 
 again, a distance of eight hundred miles, inside 
 of eight days — all stoppages included. Sub- 
 sequent measurement has proved the actual 
 distance to be considerably greater even than 
 it was there estimated. 
 
 In the autumn of 1846, Col. Fremont was 
 on his way up from Los Angeles to San Fra]> 
 
20 
 
 LIFE OF COL. EREMONT. 
 
 Cisco, to receive his commission as Governor 
 of California, from Commodore Stockton. 
 He had thirty-six men with him. They were 
 in Sahnas Valley. In the cool of the morn- 
 ing, a little after sunrise, Col. Fremont and 
 four or five others were riding leisurely along, 
 a little ahead of the rest of the party, when 
 tliey discovered thi*ee young grizzly bears up 
 some oak trees, apparently eating acorns. 
 There happened to be at hand, leading in 
 the direction of the trees, and past them, a 
 deep, ditch-like gully. They all jumped otf 
 their horses and ran along up the gully 
 towards the trees. As they approached, the 
 young bears discovered them, and seeming 
 greatly agitated, commenced running down 
 the trees, and then up again. Col. Fremont 
 and his men were at a loss to understand 
 the meaning of this. As they raised them- 
 selves up to shoot they were in their turn 
 somewhat surprised at observing four or five 
 overgrown old bears around the foot of tiie 
 nearest tree. A bear has a quick eye, and 
 the discovery was nmtual. The agitation of 
 the young bears was explained at once. The 
 large ones were too heavy to climb, and it 
 appears, had sent up the young ones, who 
 were industriously engaged in breaking off 
 branches, and throwing them down with the 
 acorns to tlieir parents, who drove them 
 back up tlie trees as fast as they came 
 down, not then liaving perceived the cause 
 of their alarm. It was a case now of catch- 
 ing not merely a Tartar, but a good many of 
 them. Fremont and his companions instantly 
 charged upon the large bears. The firing 
 became so rapid that the party in the rear 
 rode up, thinking they were engaged with the 
 Spaniards. Ee-inforcements came in on all 
 sides. The bears gathered about as fast as 
 the men. The whole river bottom was cover- 
 ed with branches of willow trees, with oi)en 
 spaces and water holes scattered amongst 
 tliem. As the men charged upon the bears, 
 a tall Frenchman fell over a large cub, which 
 was trying to hide itself, lie screamed, and 
 the bear screamed. As t\© men heard him, 
 they raised a hearty shout of laughter. The 
 men were now scattered through the willows 
 in every direction, and every bear had a 
 chance, for it was a free fight. The huge 
 creatures repeatedly attempted to charge upon 
 their assailants, but the fire of so many rifles 
 at once, proved too lieavy for them. At last, 
 they retired^ leaving twelve dead upon the 
 field. In the heat of the encounter, three or 
 four bears had started to charge upon a group 
 of seven or eight men, m which was Col. 
 Fremont. In the suddenness of firing, the 
 men hardly looked to see who was in front of 
 their guns. Jerome Davis, who had just 
 finished loading, and jumped up to fire, threw 
 his head directly in front of the muzzle of Mr. 
 King's rifle, as King was puUii^g the trigger. 
 
 Fremont grabbed Davis by the collar, and 
 jerked him aside, just in season to save Ma i 
 head. 
 
 The grizzly bear is, perhaps, the most sav 
 age and ferocious animal in the world. They 
 are very tough, and tenacious of life. A sin- 
 gle ball rarely kills one. When wounded, 
 they never attempt to fly, but invariably turn 
 upon the hunter. If they can catch the direc- 
 tion, either by the report of the gun or the 
 sight of smoke, they always make for it 
 instantly, and as they can run faster than a 
 man, there is no chance of escape, frequently, 
 but in the trees, which, as already remarked, 
 the old ones are too heavy to climb. It is 
 very dangerous for one man alone to attack a 
 grizzly bear. 
 
 Although, in this instance, no quarter was 
 shown to the four-legged enemies thus unex- 
 pectedly encountered, a different policy was 
 generally adopted towards other foes. 
 
 The negotiation of peace in California was 
 greatly facilitated by the strict regard for the 
 riglits of the natives who remained peaceable, 
 which Col. Fremont invariably enforced. He 
 early gave notice that, while he would destroy 
 every house which he found deserted, no man 
 who remained quietly at home should be 
 injured or disturbed. The Califoruians, after 
 a while, conceived a very high regard for liim, 
 and, as soon as hostilities terminated, they 
 were singing his praises in the Spanish laur 
 guage. 
 
 The capitulation of Couenga, which put 
 an end to the war, occurred on the 13th of 
 January, 1847. The following proclamation 
 was issued by Col. Fremont : 
 
 "a circulak. 
 
 " The peace of the country being restored, and 
 future tranquillity vouchsafed hj a treaty made and 
 entered into by commissioners respectively appointed 
 by the properly authorized California officers, on the 
 one hand, and by myself, as military commandant of 
 the United States forces in the district of California, 
 on the other; by which a civil government is to take 
 place of the military, and exchange of all prisoners, 
 &c., &c., forthwith ensure to the end that order, and 
 a wholesome civil police, should obtain throughout 
 the land. A copy of which said treaty will be imme- 
 diately published in the California newspaper pub- 
 lished at Monterey. 
 
 "Therefore, in virtue of the aforesaid treaty, aa 
 well as the functions that in me rest as civil Go- 
 vernor of California, I do hereby proclaim order and 
 peace restored to the country, and require the imme- 
 diate release of all prisoners, the return of the civil 
 officers to their appropriate duties, and as strict an 
 obedience of the military to the civil authority as is 
 consistent with the security of peace, and the rmSt- 
 tenance of good order where troops are garrisoned. 
 
 " Done at the capitol of the Territory of California, 
 temporarily seated at the Ciudad de los Angeles, thia 
 22d day of January, A.D., 1847. 
 
 "J. C. FREMONT. 
 
 "Governor and Chtnmander-in- Chief of California. 
 
 " Witness. — Wm. H. Russell, 
 "Seoretari/ of Siaie." 
 
LITE OF COL. FKEMONT. 
 
 21 
 
 CHAPTER Y. 
 
 Arrest of Col. Fremont— Trial before a Court-Martial — Hia Defence— Oouviotion— Resigns his Commission. 
 
 AS Scott came home after his brilliant vic- 
 tories in Mexico, so Fremont returned 
 from the conquest of California, under arrest ! 
 
 Gen. Kearney and Oonimodore Stockton 
 quarrelled about their respective rank and 
 authority. Both required obedience to their 
 orders from Ool. Fremont. He could go as 
 fast and as far a3 any man in one direction ; 
 but he could not move two vyays at the same 
 time. The consequence was, that, although 
 he had served his country faithfully, and had 
 achieved a great conquest, he was now placed 
 in jeopardy, not of the loss of his commission 
 only, but of his life also ! 
 
 The court-martial for his trial assembled in 
 Wasliiugton in January, 184:8. 
 
 Before the court Ool. Fi-emont stood charged 
 with, 1. Mutiny; 2. Disobedience of orders; 
 
 3. CONDUOT PREJUDICIAL TO GOOD ORDER 
 AND DISCIPLINE. 
 
 After stating to the court that his case was 
 one whicli required "justice and not kind- 
 ness," Col. Fremont proceeded to say : 
 
 " A. subordinate in rank, as in the contest, long 
 and secretly marked out for prosecution by the com- 
 manding general, assailed in newspaper publications 
 when three thousand miles distant, and standing for 
 more than two months before this court, to hear 
 all that could be sworn against my private honor as 
 well as against my official conduct, I come at last to 
 the right to speak for myself. 
 
 " I ask this court to believe that the preservation 
 of a comraissioa is no object of my defence. It came 
 to me, as did those which preceded it, without ask- 
 ing, either by myself or by any friend in my behalf. 
 But I have a name which was without a blemish be- 
 fore I received that commission ; and that nagie it is 
 my intention to defend." 
 
 Goaded by persecution to the necessity of 
 referring to his own exploits, he does it with 
 characteristic modesty and reserve. He finds 
 occasion, as he proceeds, to contrast the valor 
 of his men with the ingratitude and neglect 
 which had been their oidy compensation, and 
 his simple narrative flashes into burning elo- 
 quence : 
 
 "On Christmas day, 1846," he says, "we strug- 
 gled on the Santa Barbara Mountain in a tempest of 
 chilling rains and winds, in which a hundred horses 
 perished, but the men stood to it, and I mention it to 
 iheir honor. They deserve that mention, for they 
 are not paid yet." 
 
 Unnecessary flestruotion of property and of 
 life has too often marked the progress of the 
 conquering hero. Tiie sublime spectacle of 
 courage and humanity walking hand in hand, 
 is not the usual characteristic of war. Col. 
 Fremont never for a moment forgot that con- 
 quest, and not carnage, was the great object to 
 
 be achieved. " A corps of observation," he 
 remarks, " of some fifty or a hundred horse- 
 men, galloped about us, without doing or re- 
 ceiving harm; for it did not come within my 
 policy to have any of them killed." His was 
 the skill and the glory finally to obtain a deci- 
 sive victory without bloodshed. This achieve- 
 ment and its valuable results, he thus briefly 
 sets forth before the court : 
 
 "We entered the plain of Couenga, occupied by 
 the enemy in considerable force, and I sent in a sum- 
 mons to them to lay down their arras, or fight at 
 once. The chiefs desired a parley with me in per- 
 son. I went alone to see them (Don Jose Pico only 
 being with me). They were willing to capitulate to 
 me ; the terms were agreed upon. Commissionera 
 were sent out on both sides to put it into form. It 
 received the sanction of the governor and the com- 
 mander-in-chief, Commodore Stockton, and was re- 
 ported to the Government of the United States. It 
 was the capitulation of Couenga. It put an end to 
 the war, and to the feelings of war. It tranquillized 
 the country, and gave safety to every American from 
 the day of its conclusion. 
 
 " My march from Monterey to Los Angeles, which 
 we entered on the Ulh of January, was a subject for 
 gratulation. A march of four hundred miles through 
 an insurgent country, without spilling a drop o'f 
 blood — conquering by clemency and justice^and so 
 gaining the hearts of all that, until troubles came on 
 from a new source, I could have gone back, alone 
 and unarmed, upon the trail of my marcli^ trasting 
 for life and bread to those alone among whom I had 
 marched as conqueror, and whom I have been repre- 
 sented as plundering and oppressing [" 
 
 He finished his defence as follows : 
 
 " My acts in California have all been with high 
 motives, and a desire for the public service. My 
 scientific labors did something to open California to 
 the knowledge of my countrymen ; its geography 
 had been a sealed book. My military operations 
 were conquests without bloodshed ; my civil admi- 
 nistration was for the public good. I offer Califor- 
 nia, during my administration, for comparison with 
 the most tranquil portions of the United States; I 
 offer it in contrast to the condition of NevT Mexico 
 during the same time. I prevented civil war against 
 Governor Stockton, by refusing to join General 
 Kearney against him; I arrested civil war against 
 myself, by consenting to be deposed — offering at the 
 same time to resign my place of lieuteuaut-colonel in 
 the army. 
 
 " I have been brought as a prisoner and a criminal 
 from that country. I could return to it, after this 
 trial is over, without rank or guards, and without 
 molestation from the people, except to be impor- 
 tuned for the money which the government owes 
 them. 
 
 " I am now ready to receive the sentence of the 
 court." 
 
 Of course Ool. Fremont was convicted. The 
 spirit of persecution which could arraign him 
 under such circumstances, took care to secure 
 a verdict of guilty. President Polk expressed 
 the opinion that the charge of mutiny was 
 
LIFE OF COL. FREMONT. 
 
 Hot sustained; and remitted the sentence of 
 dismissal from the service. But Ool. Fremont 
 immediately resigned his commission. After 
 a long delay and a second demand from him, 
 
 the resignation was accepted, Fremont' did 
 
 not want clemency; he wanted only justice, 
 and was willing to wait calmly and patiently 
 till it should come. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 Fourth Expedition— Misled by his Guide— Terrible Sufferings— Loss of Animals and Men— Arrival In California— 
 Engages in Gold Digging— Helps to make California a Free State — Elected to the United States Senate, 
 
 FREMONT was now his own man ; and he 
 Avas the same in spite of the persecutions 
 ■which he had endured, with his spirit un- 
 broken, and his resolution unsubdued. 
 
 Ab early as the expeditions in wliich he ac- 
 companied Mr. Nicollet, Mr. Fremont con- 
 ceived the idea of a railroad to the Pacific. 
 He saw the grand opening for trade in that 
 direction, and the importance of improved 
 facihties for carr3nng it on. On his first visit 
 to California, he had determined to make that 
 eountry his future home. He now devoted 
 himself anew, without the aid of government, 
 to developing the practicability of a i-ailroad 
 route from the eastern to the western side of 
 the continent. 
 
 On the 19th of October, 1848, Mr. Fremont 
 started on liis fourth expedition. This was 
 fitted out on the frontiers of Missouri. Some 
 friends of Ool. Fremont in St. Louis, prompt- 
 ed partly by tlieir interest in a railroad to the 
 Pacific, and partly by a desire to manifest 
 their disap])robation of the result of the Court 
 Martial, defrayed for the time being, the ex- 
 pense, which ultimately fell chiefly upon Mr. 
 Fremont himself. 
 
 Col. Fremont now set out for California as 
 an emigrant, having made up his mind fully 
 to cast his lot in that State, and he projected 
 this fourth expedition, principally to ascertain 
 whether the snows formed an impracticable 
 barrier to railroad travel in the mountain re- 
 gions in the winter. Mrs. Fremont accom- 
 panied him into what is now Kansas Territory. 
 A domestic affliction occurred at the com- 
 mencement of the journey, which added to 
 the sadness inseparable from such a parting. 
 On their way up the river, above St. Louis, 
 they lost one of their children, an infant 
 boy. 
 
 Of the hardships and sufferings to which 
 Ool. Fremont was subjected, before he reach- 
 ed New Mexico, a vivid idea may be formed 
 from the following extracts of a letter to his 
 wife: 
 
 Taos, New Mexico, Jantiury 2T, 1S49. 
 
 Mr VERT DEAR WiFE : 
 
 I write to you from the house of our good 
 friend Carson. 
 
 ***** « HI 
 
 Former letters have made you acquainted with our 
 
 journey so far as Bent's Fort, and from report yxDu 
 will have heard the circumstances of our departure 
 from the Upper Pueblo of the Arkansas. We left 
 that place about the 25th of November, with up- 
 wards of a hundred good mules and one hundred and 
 thirty bushels of shelled corn, intended to support 
 our animals across the snow of the high mountain^ 
 and down to the lower parts of the Grand River tri- 
 butaries, where usually the snow forms no obstacla 
 to winter travelling. At the Pueblo, 1 had engaged 
 as a guide an old trapper, well known as " Bill Wii- 
 bams," and who had spent some twenty-five years 
 of his life in trapping various parts of the Rocky 
 Mountains. The error of our journey was committed 
 in engaging this man. He proved never to have in 
 the least known, or entirely to have forgotten, th« 
 whole region of country through which we were to 
 pass. We occupied more than half a month in 
 making the journey of a few days, blundering a tor- 
 tuous way through deep snow which already began 
 to choke up the passes, for which we were obliged 
 to waste time in searching. About the 11th Decem- 
 ber we found ourselves at the north of the Del Norte 
 Cafion, where that river issues from the St. John's 
 Mountain, one of the highest, most rugged and im- 
 practicable of all the Rocky Mountain ranges, inao- 
 cessible to trappers and hunters even in the summer 
 time. Across the point of this elevated range our 
 guide conducted us, and having still great contidence 
 in his knowledge, we pressed onwards with fatal re- 
 solution. Even along the river bottoms the snow 
 was already belly deep for the mules, frequently 
 snowing in the valley and almost constantly in the 
 mountains. The cold was extraordinary ; at the 
 warmest hours of the day (between one and two) 
 the thermometer (Fahrenheit) standing in the shade 
 of only a tree trunk at zero ; the day sunshiny, with 
 a moderate breeze. We pressed up towards the sum- 
 mit, the snow deepening ; and in four or five days 
 reached the naked ridges which lie above the tin*- 
 bered country, and which form the dividing grounds 
 between the waters of the Atlantic and Pacific 
 oceans. Along these naked ridges, it storms nearly 
 all winter, and the winds sweep across them with re- 
 morseless fury. On our first attempt to cross, w« 
 encountered a pouderie (dry snow driven thick 
 through the air by violent wind, and in which objects 
 are visible only at a short distance), and were driven 
 back, having some ten or twelve men variously 
 frozen, face, hands or feet. The guide came nigh 
 being frozen to death here, and dead mules were 
 already lying about the fires. Meantime, it snowed 
 steadily. The next day we made mauls, and beating 
 a road or trench through the snow, crossed the crest 
 in defiance of the pouderie, and encamped immediate- 
 ly below in the edge of the timber. The trail showed 
 as if a defeated party had passed by ; pack-saddles 
 and packs, scattered articles of clothing, and dead 
 mules strewed along. A continuance of stormy 
 weather paralyzed all movement. We were encamp- 
 ed somewhere about 12,000 feet above the sea. 
 Westward, the country was buried in deep snow. It 
 was impossible to advance, and to turn back was 
 
LIFE OF COL. FEEMONT. 
 
 23 
 
 equally impracticable. We were overtaten by sud- 
 den and inevitable ruin. It bo happened that the 
 only places where any grass could be had were the 
 extreme summit of the ridges, where the sweeping 
 wmds kept the rocky ground bare and the snow 
 could not lie. Below these, animals could not get 
 about, the snow being deep enough to bury them. 
 Here, therefore, in the full violence of the storms we 
 were obliged to keep our animals. They could not 
 be moved either way. It was instantly apparent 
 that we should lose every animal. 
 
 I determined to recross the mountain more towards 
 the open country, and haul, or pack the baggage (by 
 men) down to the Del Norte. With great labor the 
 baggage was transported across the crest to the head 
 sprmgs of a little stream leading to the main river. 
 A few days were sufficient to destroy our fine band 
 of mules. They generally kept huddled together, 
 and as they froze, one would be seen to tumble down 
 and the snow would cover him ; sometimes they 
 would break off and rush down towards the timber 
 until they were stopped by the deep snow, where 
 they were soon hidden b}' the pouderk. The courage 
 of the men failed fast ; in fact, I have never seen men 
 so soon discouraged by misfortune as we were on 
 this occasion ; but, as you know, the party was not 
 constituted like the former ones. But among those 
 who deserve to be honorably mentioned, and who 
 behaved like what they were — men of the old ex- 
 ploring party— were Godey, King, and Taplin ; and 
 first of all Godey. In this situation, I determined to 
 send in a party to the Spanish settlements of New 
 Mexico, for provisions and mules, to transport our 
 baggage to Taos. With economy, and after we 
 should leave the mules, we had not two weeks' pro- 
 visions in the camp. These consisted of a store 
 which I had reserved for a hard day — macaroni and 
 bacon. From among the volunteers, I chose King, 
 Brackenridge, Creutzfeldt, and the guide Williams; 
 the party under the conunand of King. In case of 
 the least delay at the settlements, he was to send me 
 an express. In the meantime, we were to occupy 
 ourselves in removing the baggage and equipage 
 down to the Del Norte, which we reached with our 
 baggage in a few days after their departure (which 
 was the day after Christmas). Like many a Christ- 
 mas for years back, mine was spent on the summit 
 of a wintry mountain ; my heart filled with gloomy 
 and anxious thoughts — with none of the merry faces 
 and pleasant luxuries that belong to that happy time. 
 You may be sure we contrasted much this with the 
 last at Washington, and speculated much on your 
 doings, and made many warm wishes for your hap- 
 piness. Could you have looked into Agrippa's glass 
 for a few moments only ! You remember the volumes 
 of Blackstone which I took from your father's library 
 when we were overlooking it at our friend Brant's? 
 They made my Christmas amusements. I read them, 
 to pass the heavy time and forget what was around 
 me. Certainly you may suppose that my first law 
 lessons will be well remembered. Day after day 
 passed by and no news from our express party. 
 Snow continued to fall almost incessantly on the 
 mountain. The spirits of the camp grew lower. 
 Proue laid down in the trail and froze to death. In 
 a sunshiny day, and having with him means to make 
 a fire, he threw his blanket down in the trail, and 
 laid there till he froze to death. After sixteen days 
 Lad elapsed from King's departure, I became so 
 uneasy at the delay, that I decided to wait no longer. 
 I was aware that our troops had been engaged in 
 hostilities with the Spanish Utahs and Apaches, who 
 range in the North River valley, and became fearful 
 that they (King's party) had been cut off by these 
 Indians ; I could imagine no other accident. Leav- 
 ing the camp employed with the baggage, and in 
 charge of Mr. Vincenthaler, I started down the river 
 with a small party consisting of Godey (with his 
 
 young nephew), Mr. Preuss and Saunders. We 
 carried our arms and provisions for two or three 
 days. In the camp the messes had provisions for 
 two or three meals, more or less, and about five 
 pounds of sugar to each man. Failing to meet King, 
 my intention was to make the Ked River settlement, 
 about twenty-five miles north of Taos, and send back 
 the speediest relief possible. My instructions to the 
 camp were, that if they did not hear from me within 
 a stated time, they were to follow down the Del 
 Norte. 
 
 On the second day after leaving camp we came 
 upon a fresh trail of Indians, — two lodges, with a 
 considerable number of animals. This did not lessen 
 our uneasiness for our people. As their trail when 
 we met it turned and went down the river, we fol- 
 lowed it. On the fifth we surprised an Indian on the 
 ice of the river. He proved to be a Utah, son of a 
 Grand River chief, we had formerly known, and be- 
 haved to us in a friendly manner. We encamped near 
 them at night. By a present of a rifle, my two blan- 
 kets, and other promised rewards when we should 
 get in, I prevailed upon this Indian to go with us as 
 a guide to the Red River settlement, and take with 
 him four of his horses, principally to carry our little 
 baggage. These were wretchedly poor, and could 
 get along only in a very slow walk. On that day (the 
 sixth) we left the lodges late, and travelled only some 
 six or seven miles. About sunset we discovered a 
 little smoke, in a grove of timber off from the river, 
 and thinking perhaps it might be our express party 
 on its return, we went to see. This was the twenty- 
 second day since they had left us, and the sixth since 
 we had left the camp. We found them, — three of 
 them, — Creutzfeldt, Brackenridge, and Williams, — 
 the most miserable objects I have ever seen. I did 
 not recognize Creutzfeldt's features when Bracken- 
 ridge brought him up to me and mentioned his name. 
 They had been starving. King had starved to death 
 a few days before, itis remains were some six or 
 eight miles above, near the river. By aid of the 
 horses, we carried these three with us to Red River 
 settlement, which we reached (Jan. 20) on the tenth 
 evening after leaving our camp in the mountains, 
 having travelled through snow and on foot one hundred 
 and sixty miles. I look upon the anxiety which induced 
 me to set out from the camp as an inspiration. Had 
 I remained there waiting the party which had been 
 sent in, every man of us would probably have per- 
 ished. 
 
 The morning after reaching the Red River town, 
 Godey and myself rode on to the Rio Hondo and Taos, 
 in search of animals and supplies, and on the second 
 evening after that on which we had reached Red 
 River, Godey had returned to that place with about 
 thirty animals, provisions, and four Mexicans, with 
 which he set out for the camp on the following mor- 
 ning. On the road he received eight or ten others 
 which were turned over to him by the orders of Ma- 
 jor Beale, the commanding officer of this northern 
 district of New Mexico. 1 expect that Godey will 
 reach this place with the party on Wednesday even- 
 ing, the 3l8t. From Major Beale I received the offer 
 of every aid in his power, and such actual assistance 
 as he was able to render. Some horses which he had 
 just recovered from the Utahs were loaned to me, 
 and he supplied me from the commissary's depart- 
 ment with provisions which I could have had no- 
 where else. I find myself in the midst of friends. With 
 Carson is living Owens, and Maxwell is at his father- 
 in-law's, doing a very prosperous business as a mer- 
 chant and contractor for the troops. 
 
 ******* 
 
 Monday, 29th. — ^My letter now assumes a journal 
 form. No news yet from the party, — a great deal of 
 falling weather ; rain and sleet here, and snow in the 
 mountains. 
 
24: 
 
 LIFE OF COL. FREMONT. 
 
 I am anxiously waiting to hear, in much uncertamty 
 as to their fate. My presence kept them together 
 and quiet ; my absence may have a bad effect. When 
 ■we overtook King's starving party, Brackenridge 
 said he " would rather have seen me than his father." 
 He felt himself safe. 
 
 Taos, Nbw Mbxico, Feb. 6, 1S49. 
 After a long delay, which had wearied me to the 
 point of resolving to set out again myself, tidings 
 have at last reached me from my ill-fated party. Mr. 
 Haler came in last night, having, the night before, 
 reached Ked River settlement, with some three or 
 four others. Including Mr. King and Proue, we have 
 lost eleven of our party. Occurrences, after I left 
 them, are briefly these, so far as they are within 
 Haler's knowledge. 
 
 ******* 
 
 You will remember that I had left the camp with 
 occupation sufBcient to employ them for three or 
 four days, after which they were to follow me down 
 the river. Within that time I had expected the relief 
 from King, if it was to come at all. 
 
 They remained where I had left them seven days, 
 and then started down the rive r. Manuel— you will 
 remember Manuel, the Consuiie Indian— gave way 
 to a feeling of despair after they had travelled about 
 two miles, begged Haler to shoot him, and then 
 turned and made his way back to the camp ; intend- 
 ing to die there, as he doubtless did. They followed 
 our trail down the river— twenty- two men they were 
 in all. About ten miles below the camp, Wise gave 
 out, threw away his gun and blanket, and a few hun- 
 dred yards further, fell over into the snow and died. 
 Two Indian boys, young men, countrymen of 
 Manuel, were behind. They rolled up Wise in his 
 blanket, and buried him in the snow on the river 
 bank. No more died that day— none the next. 
 Carver raved during the night, his imagination 
 wholly occupied with images of many things which 
 he fancied himself eating. In the morning, he wan- 
 dered off from the party, and probably soon died. 
 They did not see him again. Sorel on this day gave 
 out, and laid down to die. They built him a fire, and 
 Moi-in, who was in a dying condition, and snow-blind, 
 remained. These two did not probably last till 
 morning. That evening, I think, Hubbard killed a 
 deer. They travelled on, getting here and there a 
 grouse, but probably nothing else, the snow having 
 frightened off the game. Things were desperate, 
 and brought Haler to the determination of breaking 
 up the party, in order to prevent them from living 
 upon each other. He told them "that he had done 
 all he could for them, that they had no other hope 
 remaining than the expected relief, and that their 
 best plan was to scatter, and make the best of their 
 ■way in small parties down the river. That, for his 
 part, if he was to be eaten, he would, at all events, 
 be found travelling when he did die." They accord- 
 ingly separated. With Mr. Haler continued five 
 others and the two Indian boys. Rohrer now be- 
 came very despondent; Haler encouraged him by 
 recalling to mind hiti. family, and urged him to hold 
 out a little longer. On this day he fell behind, but 
 
 Eromised to overtake them at evening. Haler, 
 cott, Hubbard, and Martin agreed that if any one 
 of them should give out, the others were not to wait 
 for him to die, but build a fire for him and push on. 
 At night, Kern's mess encamped a few hundred 
 yards from Haler's, with the intention, according to 
 Taplin, to remain where they were until the relief 
 should come, and in the meantime to live upon those 
 who had died, and upon the weaker ones as they 
 should die. With the three Kerns were Cathcart, 
 Andrews, McKie, Stepperfeldt, and Taplin. 
 
 Ferguson and Beadle had remained together be- 
 hind. In the evening, Rohrer came up and remained 
 
 with Kern's mess. Mr. Haler learnt afterwards ft-om ! 
 that mess that Rohrer and Andrews wandered off the ; 
 next day, and died. They say they saw their bodies. 1 
 In the morning, Haler's party continued on. After I 
 a few hours, Hubbard gave out. They built him a i 
 fire, gathered him some wood, and left him, without, 
 as Haler says, turning their heads to look at him as 
 they went off. About two miles further, Scott — you 
 remember Scott, who used to shoot birds for you at 
 the frontier — gave out. They did the same for him 
 as for Hubbard, and continued on. In the afternoon 
 the Indian boys went ahead, and before nightfall met 
 Godey with the relief. Haler heard and knew the 
 guns which he fired for him at night, and starting 
 early in the morning, soon met him. I hear that 
 they all cried together like children. Haler turned 
 back with Godey, and went with him to where they 
 had left Scott. He was still alive, and was saved. 
 Hubbard was dead — still warm. From the Kerns' 
 mess, they learned the death of Andrews and Rohrer, 
 and a little above met Ferguson, who told them that 
 Beadle had died the night before. 
 
 Godey continued on with a few New Mexicans and 
 pack mules, to bring down the baggage from the 
 camp. Haler, with Martin and Bacon, on foot, 
 and bringing Scott on horseback, have first arrived 
 at the Red River settlement. Provisions and horses 
 for them to ride were left with the others, who pre- 
 ferred to rest on the river until Godey came back. 
 ********* 
 
 Very affectionately, 
 
 J. C. FREMONT. 
 
 At Taos, Col. Fremont re-fitted Lis party, 
 borrowed money of friends "vvho appreciated 
 liim, and after about a fortnight piislied on. 
 He followed the valley of the Del Xorte down 
 nearly to the northern hne of Mexico, then 
 diverged to the south-west, through the Apa- 
 che country, and arrived in California the 
 latter part of March. "Wlien he got to the 
 Spanish towns on the Santa Cruz river, lie fell 
 in with large parties of rancheros — extensive 
 graziers — well mounted and fitted out, on 
 their way to California, to dig gold. They 
 a])plied to Col. Fremont to take conmiand of 
 them, as tliey were constantly appreliensive 
 of attacks from the Indians. He declined the 
 command, but consented to travel with them, 
 and render them any aid he could. The In- 
 dians at that time were extremely hostile to 
 the Mexicans, and committed constant depre- 
 dations upon their j)roperty. When Colonel 
 Fremont arrived in California a considerable 
 number of them requested permission to ao- 
 company him to Mariposa, and go to digging 
 gold on his land at the halves. To this pro- 
 position he agreed, and they went to work. 
 At the end of one month they divided about 
 one hundred pounds of gold. From May till 
 winter Col. Fremont was in Mariposa, and 
 the towns below. Mrs. Fremont had arrived 
 in June, by the way of the Isthmus. 
 
 Pending the formation of a State Constitu- 
 tion, he exerted a steady and poAverful influ- 
 ence to make California a free State. 
 
 In December, he was elected to the United 
 States Senate. 
 
LIFE OF COL. FKEMONT. 
 
 25 
 
 CHAPTER VIT. 
 
 Draws the Short Term — Bxtraordinary Amount of Work which he Accomplished in the Senate in Twenty-one Days— 
 Payors the Cause of Education — Advocates the Riglita of the Masses against Government Monopoly — His Votes. 
 
 DR. GWIX Avas elected to the U. S. Senate 
 with Col. Fremont. In drawing lots for 
 the long and short terms — they being the first 
 senators from the State — Col. Fremont got 
 the short term ; and as he did not return to 
 the short session, he was-Hvctually in the Sen- 
 ate cliainber only 21 working days. In that 
 short period of time he performed an amount 
 of useful work which would have been a lair 
 result for sis years of senatorial service. lie 
 introduced eigliteen important bills, among 
 which were : 
 
 I. — A Bill to Regulate the "Working of the 
 
 Mines in California. 
 II. — ^A Bill to Grant said State Public Lands 
 
 for Purposes of Education. 
 III. — ^A Bill to Grant Six Townships for an 
 
 University. 
 IV. — A Bill to Grant Lands for Asylums for 
 the Deaf and Dumb, for the Blind and 
 
 Insane. 
 V. — A Bill to Provide for Opening a Road 
 
 Across the Continent, 
 
 In an elaborate speech on his Bill to Regi>- 
 late the Working of the Mines, Mr. Fremont 
 said: 
 
 " The principles of this bill, as I have already 
 stated them, are to exclude all idea of making a 
 national revenue out of these mines, to prevent the 
 possibility of monopolies by moneyed capitalists, 
 and to give to natural capital, that is to say, to 
 LABOR and INDUSTRY, a fair chance to work, and 
 the secure enjoyment of what they find." 
 
 On a proposition to substitute for the bill 
 abolish the Slave Trade, a bill abolishing 
 Slavery in the District of Columbia, he voted 
 Nay. The vote stood. Yeas 5, Nays 45. 
 
 On a bill to suppress the Slave trade in the 
 District of Columbia, he voted Yea. 
 
 On a bill to punish any person who should 
 entice or induce a slave to run away, by con- 
 finement in the District Penitentiary "five years, 
 he voted Nay. 
 
 On a bill to authorize the corporations in 
 the District to prohibit free negroes under pen- 
 alty of fine and imprisonment, he voted Nay.' 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 Engaged in the Cattle business — Goes to England — Imprisoned for a Debt of the Government. 
 
 AFTER 144 ballots. Col. Fremont was de- 
 feated as a candidate for re-election to the 
 Senate, in 1851. He was too strongly anti- 
 slavery for the State at that time. 
 
 Not long after this he went to his Mariposa 
 estate, and engaged in cattle raising. About 
 this time treaties were negotiated betwen the 
 U. S. Commissioners, appointed for that pur- 
 pose, and the Indian tribes in California, by 
 the terms of whicli the Indians were to be 
 supplied with large amounts of beef. The 
 oominissioners advertised for proposals, and 
 Col. Fremont obtained a heavy contract, under 
 which he actually furnished several thousand 
 liead of cattle. It was only after a long con- 
 troversy, and by carrying the case before 
 Congress, that he obtained his pay, in 1354. 
 In committee of the whole, and through the 
 House, the appropriation passed without one 
 objection being raised to it. The next day it 
 passed the Senate. 
 
 In March, 1852, Col. Fremont went with 
 bis family to Europe. He was absent a year 
 and-a-haif. 
 
 While in London, in April, soon after his 
 
 arrival, just as he was leaving the Clarendon 
 Hotel to attend a dinner party, he was arrest- 
 ed for an obligation incurred by him, when in 
 the service of the government, and on its 
 account, while acting as governor of Califor- 
 nia, to clothe his battalion and enable them to 
 return home. He had just handed Mrs. Fre- 
 mont into a carriage, and was about getting 
 in himself, when four Bow Street oflicers step- 
 ped up to him, and said: "We arrest you, sir, 
 for debt." Their manner was insolent in the 
 extreme. A solicitor's clerk equally rude, ac- 
 companied them. They conducted Col. Fre- 
 mont to what is called a Sponging House. 
 Here he remained locked up till tlie next morn- 
 ing; his American friends rushed to him, and 
 offered to pay the heavy bribe which the offl- 
 cei's demanded to let him go the evening of his 
 arrest ; but Col. Fremont objected. He bore 
 the annoyance with perfect composure, and the 
 next morning the requisite bail Avas furnislied, 
 and he was released. Possibly he dreamed 
 that night of an administration under which 
 private citizens and faithful soldiers would not 
 be imprisoned for debts of the government. 
 
26 
 
 LIFE OF COL. FREMONT. 
 
 CHAPTEPw IX. 
 
 Fifth Expedition— The Cochatope Pass— Reduced to liring on Horse Meat — Short Allowance— Mr. Fuller glvea out— 
 Col. Fremont in a Critical Position— Hauling a Man up the Mountain— They reach an Indian Camp — Death of 
 Mr. Fuller— Arrival at Parawana— The Whites unable to Proceed — Fremont goes on with the Delawarea — Despe- 
 rate Descent upon Horse Thief Indians — Reach California. 
 
 UNDISMAYED by the catastrophes of 
 his last previous expedition, Ool. Fre- 
 mont was still determined to explore the 
 Cochatope Pass in mid-winter, and ascertain 
 by his own observation whether the snows 
 were so deep as to render rail-road travel im- 
 practicable through it at that season. 
 
 In the fall of 1853, he fitted out another 
 expedition at the great expense of himself and 
 Ool. Benton. 
 
 He went with his men to the frontiers in 
 September, but found himself so much pros- 
 trated by the remains of fever, as to make it 
 necessary for him to return to St. Louis for 
 medical advice. His party went on to Salt 
 Creek, in tlie Buffalo region, about two hun- 
 dred miles beyond Westport, and there re- 
 mained encamped, until he rejoined them on 
 the last day of October. 
 
 On the 14th of December, they went through 
 the Cochatope Pass, and, although it was an 
 • unusually severe winter, found only four inches 
 of snow oil the level. The access was easy, 
 described by Fremont as about like the ascent 
 to the White House at Washington. They had 
 begun at this time to get short of provisions ; 
 and serious troubles awaited them farther 
 on. 
 
 A few days after emerging from the pass, 
 they were obliged to ascend a very steep 
 mountain, covered at the time, with snow, 
 three or four feet deep. The liead mule pack- 
 ed with the buffalo robes of the camp, had 
 got up about two hundred feet, when his hind 
 legs sank down into the snow, so deep that he 
 tumbled over, and turning somerset after 
 somerset, came down to tlie base of the moun- 
 tain. In his descent he brought down nearly 
 all the animals, fifty-four in number, many of 
 them with riders. They all came tumbling 
 down together, rolling over and over. One 
 mule and one horse were killed. The next 
 morning they succeeded in ascending the 
 mountain, and encamped upon its summit, where 
 the snow was four feet deep. That night, the 
 thermometer sank to 30° below zero. The 
 men stood to their waists in the snow, 
 guarding tlie animals, to prevent their run- 
 ning away, because there was nothing for them 
 to eat. 
 
 In going down the other side of the moun- 
 tain the day following, they broke their large 
 tent pole, and were consequently obliged to 
 sleep in the open air upon the snow, with no 
 covering but their blankets, after that. 
 
 About the first of January, tliey were re- 
 duced to horse flesh, as their only food ; and 
 it became necessary to put them on a short 
 allowance even of this. Mr. Carvalho, of 
 Baltimore, who accompanied Col. Fremont 
 as daguerreotypist, gives tlio following ac- 
 count of their condition about this time: 
 
 "When an animal gave out, so that lio could not 
 proceed any further, he was shot down by the 
 Indians with us, who immediately cut his throat, and 
 saved all the blood, which, when boiled, served, 
 together with the entrails, as the meal for the whole 
 party. The animal was carefully divided into 
 twenty-two parts — two parts were given to Colonel 
 Fremont and his cook, ten parts to the white camp, 
 and ten parts to the Delawares. No part of the ani- 
 mal was suffered to be wasted : the boues were par- 
 tially burnt to afford some little employment to the 
 teutii, which were becoming dull from disuse. The 
 hide was also divided in equal proportions by the 
 man whose duty it was to officiate as cook. The 
 passions of the men were so distorted by their priva- 
 tions, that they were not satisfied with the cook's 
 division of the hide ; but one man turned his back, 
 while another asked him who was to have this piece, 
 and that, and so on, until all was divided. Tho 
 same process was gone through with in regard to 
 the horse-soup, which, when made with tlie entrails, 
 'shaken well,' and boiled in snow, possessed a fla- 
 vor peculiar to itself, and readily distinguished from 
 the various preparations made by the celebrated 
 'Ude,' of gastronomic memory. The hide was 
 roa-sted so as to burn off tlie hair and make it crisp, 
 the hoofs and shins were disposed of by regular rotar 
 tion. 
 
 " Our work was never done. When we got to 
 cam]), all the men off duty were dispatched to gather 
 fire-wood to burn during the night. One might be 
 seen with a decayed trunk on his shoulder, while a 
 half dozen others were using their combined efforts 
 to bring into camp some dried tree. Colonel Fre- 
 mont himself joined the men a. times, and whenever 
 it was peculiarly difficult, in prdcuring the necessary 
 material to prevent us from freezing while we were 
 in camp. 
 
 " The men all laid out in the open air witliont cover- 
 ing except their blanket^ and robes. I have been 
 awakened to go on guard in the morning watch, 
 when looking around, my companions appeared like 
 so many graves, covered with eight to twelve inches 
 of fresh snow. Some of the animals woKld eat the 
 snow, while others would not. To keep them alive, 
 we had to melt snow in our camp kettles, and give 
 it them to drink, which process wa.s attended with 
 much fatigue and trouble. The animals most gene- 
 rally were turned out on the snow, to gather what 
 they could find ; some of them, in their search after 
 grass, wandered a considerable distance from camp. 
 
 " We lived on horse meat fifty days. At the begin- 
 ning of the time, Colonel Fremont addressed us in a 
 few words on the prospect which was before us ; he 
 told us that it depended on ourselves whether we 
 should get through the difficulties, which he frankly 
 admitted would be great and dreadful, that we must 
 now inevitably encounter. He exhorted us to reso- 
 lution and perseverance. He informed us that on his 
 
LWB OF COL. TBEMONT. 
 
 27 
 
 last expedition, a detachment of men whom he had 
 sent for succor had been guilty of eating one of their 
 number. He expressed his abhorrence of the act, 
 and in conclusion told us that he would shoot the 
 first man who should propose, under any circum- 
 stances, that we should eat each other." 
 
 The Grand Eiver, the Eastern branch of the 
 Colorado, never having been explored nor laid 
 down on any map, Ool. Fremont was very de- 
 sirous to examine it. He followed the stream 
 down about one hundred mile-s. The abrupt 
 banks of the stream, composed of various 
 leolored sandstone, rise t« the height of several 
 jhundred feet, and the serpentine course of the 
 iriver rendered repeated crossings necessary. 
 jLeaving the Grand River, after following it 
 |for nearly a fortnight — passing over a divide 
 iof forty or fifty miles entirely destitute of 
 igrass and water, they reached a fertile little 
 spot on the Green River, the western part of 
 the Colorado, at which was an encampment 
 [of Indians. The sight of an Indian camp 
 [raised hopes in the minds of the lialf-famished 
 [fcravellers of finding food, but these miserable 
 isarages lived on fine grass seed in the winter, 
 only a small quantity of which could be ob- 
 tained from them. Shortly after crossing 
 Q-reen River, Mr. Fuller, of St. Louis, a tall, 
 large and powerful looking man, who had 
 odready crossed the plains to California, prin- 
 cipally on foot, suddenly showed signs of 
 axhaustion. He was a favorite with the men, 
 and those Avho were with him helped him on, 
 antil he said he could go no farther, and he 
 begged them to proceed to the camp and pro- 
 ,stire some nourishment and bring back, as lie 
 iwas starving. He was left wrapt in his blue 
 biajikets lying on the snow. It was a barren 
 waste, and no wood could be procured for a 
 
 J. At ten o'clock they arrived at camp, 
 aaad reported to Col. Fremont the facts. He 
 jent back a Mexican named Frank, with the 
 two best mules and some cooked horse meat, 
 to find Mr. Fuller. Of course, the whole party 
 wwe almost perfectly exhausted ; but no eye, 
 of Indian or white, closed in sleep that night, 
 aid at short intervals, the solemn stillness in 
 which they were held by the long agony of 
 iuspense was broken by their commander's 
 roice, inquiring from his tent of the guard, 
 for the missing man. Morning broke, and 
 neither Mr. Fuller nor the Mexican who had 
 been sent after him, had ap])eared. Three of 
 fliQ Delawares on three of the strongest ani- 
 mals were dispatched in quest of the two lost 
 men. About ten o'clock, one of the Dela- 
 wares brought in Frank, who reported that 
 he had missed his way, and had nearly frozen 
 to death. About four in the afternoon, the 
 ather two Delawares appeared with Mr. Ful- 
 ler, one supporting him on each side, as he 
 was too weak to sit on his horse without 
 sssiatanoe. The men all gathered round Mr. 
 
 Fuller, weeping like so many children, ovei^ 
 come with joy at his recovery. lie had kept 
 his eyes open through the whole dreary night, 
 for he knew tliat to him sleep and death 
 would be one. His feet and ankles were black 
 with frost. On Mr. Fuller's account, the 
 whole of the party remained at tliis encamp- 
 ment nearly three days, and as long as be 
 lived, every man in his mess, of his own 
 accord, cut from his scanty allowance of horse 
 meat a slice to add to Mr. Fuller's portion. 
 
 About the first of February, the liorses and 
 mules had become so much reduced, tliat Col. 
 Fremont was obliged to make a ccvche (deposit 
 under ground) of tlie daguerreotype apparatus, 
 and every other article that could be dispensed 
 with. 
 
 Col. Fremont had been tramping for a long 
 time ahead of his party, with the Delaware, 
 Solomon, by his side, breaking track through 
 the deep snow. It was afternoon. They 
 were on a steep mountain side, toiling slowly 
 up, when, for the first and only time in all his 
 expeditions. Col. Fremont himself, suddenly, 
 in tlie twinkling of an eye, felt his strength 
 give way. He could not move. He compre- 
 hended, in an instant, the crisis. He knew 
 that the fate, not of himself only, but of the 
 whole party, depended upon liis action at that 
 moment. Noticing that there was a clear spot 
 amid some trees near by, he remarked to Solo- 
 mcm, that it was a good place to encamp. No 
 one noticed that he could not un^ve ; no one 
 ever knew it. They stopped there that night, 
 and the next morning, refreshed by the inhe- 
 rent strength of his own will more than by 
 the dry horse meat which was his only food, 
 he led forward his half-starved men. 
 
 The snows were deep. Before this weik 
 had passed, another critical time came on. 
 An unsuccessful attempt had been made to 
 break through the snow. At iiiglit a council 
 was held by Fremont, Wolfe the Indian chief, 
 and Solomon. The Chief spoke first. It was 
 impossible, he said ; they could not get over 
 the mountain. Solomon silently looked up to 
 the Colonel for a reply. '• That is not the 
 point," said Col. Fremont, " whether we can 
 get through. We must cross. We are going 
 to cross. The question is how we can do it." 
 They crossed. 
 
 One of the men who had borne up as long 
 as he could, told Col. Fremont that he could 
 go no farther, and begged that he might be 
 left to die. They were climbing a mountain. 
 Col. Fremont was very anxious to save him. 
 He urged him to take courage, and try again. 
 It was all in vain. Col. Freinofit then 
 strapped him to his back, and with the blood 
 running from both his own knees he clambered 
 up among the rocks, and hauled the man to 
 the top of the mountain. 
 
 Fuller died, " like a man, in Lis saddle," as 
 
28 
 
 LIFE OF COL. FREMONT. 
 
 Fremont wrote to Col. Benton, the very day 
 at tlie close of which they reached an Indian 
 camp. At this place the Delawares purchased, 
 at an enormous price, an old dog, and made a 
 feast of him. The whites, at exorbitant prices, 
 obtained a very little food. The next day they 
 reached Parawan. Most of tlie men, whea 
 they got in sight of this Mormon settlement, 
 became like children. They were entirely 
 overcome. Some fell to the earth, uncon- 
 scious, like dead men. 
 
 All but one of the whites were left at Pa- 
 rawan. Ool. Fremont, after waiting a few 
 days to recruit, but a considerable portion of 
 which he spent in making scientific observa- 
 tions, continued on towards California. His 
 brave Delawares, who would have followed him 
 into regions which all of us wish to avoid, 
 stuck by him. 
 
 Before Col. Fremont reached California, they 
 met with other narrow escapes, and passed 
 through many scenes similar to some of the 
 most stirring of those recorded. 
 
 When they were in the mountains their 
 horses and mules had become starved almost 
 to death. Just at the edge of evening, one 
 
 day, a little valley was discovered, shut in all 
 round by mountains. With delight they made 
 towards it. When they were far down a very 
 abrupt descent — Col. Fremont and Solomon 
 some distance ahead of the otliers — they dis- 
 covered that a large body of Horse Thief In- 
 dians were encamped upon the green spot, 
 where they had a numerous band of fine horses, 
 which, of course, they had stolen. The Colo- 
 nel gave the command instantly to charge 
 down upon them. This was, perhaps, the 
 most dangerous attack in wliich he was 
 ever engaged. Down they dashed, the mules 
 jumping, sometimes, ofll" from square-front- 
 ed rocks five or six feet in height. A 
 shower of poisoned arrows from the bows of 
 the Horse Thieves greeted them. Two of 
 them struck a Delaware, and dangerously 
 wounded him. Five horses were killed and 
 more wounded. On, however, they rushed, 
 cutting ofi:* the foe from their band of horses, 
 and driving them up the mountain sides. 
 
 No reprisal could have been more timely. 
 The fresh, fine horses captured here, bore Ool. 
 Fremont and his men triumphantly over tii« 
 mountains, and into California. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 Nominations of Col. Fremont for President — His Speech from the Balcony — Letter to National Americana — Letter to 
 Piiiladelphia Committee of People's Convention — Platform of the Philadelphia Convention. Testimonials — From Souih 
 Carolina — From Baron Humboldt. 
 
 COL. FREMONT was first formally nom- 
 inated for the Pre-sidency in his own 
 camp on the banks of the Kansas river in 
 October, 1853, while he was detained at St. 
 Louis by illness. His name was proposed as 
 that of a man every way qualified for the 
 oflSce by one of his party from Charleston, 
 South Carolina, and was accepted by acclama- 
 tion as the first choice of every man in the 
 camp. 
 
 On the 10th of June last he was nominated 
 by a State Convention at Concord, New 
 Hampshire; and on the 18th of the same 
 month by the National People's Convention 
 at Philadelphia. He was afterwards nominated 
 by the National Americans at New York. 
 
 On the evening of June 25, after a large and 
 remarkably enthusiastic ratification meeting 
 at the Tabernacle in the city of New York, a 
 dense crowd of people proceeded to the house 
 of Col. Fremont in Ninth street, and in re- 
 sponse to their loud calls he appeared and 
 briefly addressed them. 
 
 OOL. frimont's speech. 
 
 Gentlemen, I thank you for this friendly call. 
 (Cheers.) I am happy to receive this enthusiastic 
 expression of devotion to the cause in which we are 
 engaged. (Loud and continued cheers.) The enthu- 
 
 siasm yon have manifested, and the soundness of the 
 cause to which it is directed, give me great con- 
 fidence in your final and complete success. (Deafen- 
 ing yells and cheers.) If I am elected to the high 
 office for which your partiality has nominated me, I 
 will endeavor to administer the government accord- 
 ing to the true spirit of the Constitution, (Cries of 
 "You know you will," and "You're our man,") as 
 it was intei-preted by the great men who framed and 
 adopted it, and in such a way as to preserve both 
 
 on"), especially as you will expect me hereafter to 
 communicate with you more fully. I therefore con- 
 tent myself with again thanking you very warmly for 
 your congratulations and the kindness you have man- 
 ifested towards me. 
 
 LETTBB FROM COLONEL FREMONT TO THE NATIONAI, 
 AMERICANS. 
 New York, Monday, Jime 80, 1856. 
 Gentlemen: I received with deep sensibility your 
 communication, informing me that a Convention of 
 my fellow-citizens, recently assembled in this city, 
 have nominated me their candidate for the highest 
 office in the gift of the American people ; and I de- 
 sire through you to offer to the members of that 
 body, and to their respective constituencies, my 
 grateful acknowledgment for this distinguished ex- 
 pression of confidence. In common with all who are 
 interested in the welfare of the country, I had been 
 strongly impressed by the generous spirit of concili- 
 ation which influenced the action of your assembl^y 
 and characterizes your note. A disposition to avoiq 
 
LITE OF COL. FEEMONT. 
 
 29 
 
 all special questions tending to defeat unanimity in 
 the great cause, for the sake of which it was con- 
 ceded that diflerences of opinion on less eventful 
 questions should be held in abeyance, was evinced 
 alike in the proceedings of your Convention in refer- 
 ence to me, and in the manner in which you have 
 communicated the result. In this course no sacrifice 
 of opinion on any side becomes necestary. 
 
 I shall, in a few days, be able to transmit you a 
 paper, designed for all parties engaged in our cause, 
 in which 1 present to the country my views of the 
 leading subjects which are now put in issue in the 
 contest for the Presidency. My confidence in the 
 success of our cause is greatly strengthened by the 
 belief that these views will meet the approbation of 
 your constituents. 
 
 Trusting that the national and patriotic feelings 
 evinced by the tender of your co-operation in the 
 work of regenerating the government, may increase 
 the glow of enthusiasm which pervades the country, 
 and harmonize all elements in our truly great and 
 common cause, I accept the nomination with which 
 you have honored me, and am, gentlemen, very re- 
 spectfully, Your fellow-citizen, 
 
 J. C. FREMONT. 
 Messrs. Thomas H. Ford, Ambrose Stevens, W. A. 
 Howard, Stephen M. Allen, Simon P. Case, 
 Thos. Shankland, J. E. Dunham, M. C. Geer — a 
 Committee of the National American Party. 
 
 LETTEE OF ACCEPTANCE— COL. FREMONT TO THE COM- 
 MITTEE OF THE people's CONVENTION. 
 
 New York, July 8, 1856. 
 
 Gentlemen : You call me to a high responsibility 
 by placing me in the van of a great movement of the 
 people of the United States, who, without regard to 
 past differences, are uniting in a common efibrt to 
 bring back tlie action of the Federal Government to 
 the principles of Washington and Jefferson. Com- 
 prehending the magnitude of the trust which they 
 have declared themselves willing to place in my 
 hands, and deeply sensible to the honor which their 
 unreserved confidence in this threatening position of 
 the public affairs implies, I feel that I cannot better 
 respond than by a sincere declaration that, in the 
 event of my election to the Presidency, I should 
 enter upon the execution of its duties with a single- 
 hearted determination to promote the good of the 
 whole country, and to direct solely to this end all 
 the power of the Government, irrespective of party 
 issues, and regardless of sectional strifes. The 
 declaration of principles embodied in the resolves of 
 your Convention expresses the sentiments in which 
 1 have been educated, and which have been ripened 
 into convictions by personal observation and expe- 
 rience. With this declaration and avowal, I think 
 it necessary to revert to only two of the subjects 
 embraced in the resolutions, and to those only be- 
 cause events have surrounded them with grave and 
 critical circumstances, and given to them especial 
 importance. 
 
 I concur in the views of the Convention depreca- 
 ting the foreign policy to which it adverts. The as- 
 sumption that we have the right to take from 
 another nation its domains because we want them, 
 is an abandonment of the honest character which 
 our country has acquired. To provoke hostilities 
 by unjust assumptions would be to sacrifice the 
 peace and character of the country, when all its 
 interests might be more certainly secured, and its 
 objects attained by just and healing counsels, in- 
 volving no loss of reputation. 
 
 International embarrassments are mainly the re- 
 sults of a secret diplomacy, which aims to keep from 
 the knowledge of the people the operations of the 
 Government. This system is inconsistent with the 
 
 character of our institutions, and is itself yielding 
 gradually to a more enlightened public opinion, and 
 to the power of a free Press, which, by its broad 
 dissemination of political intelligence, secures in 
 advance to the side of justice the judgment of the 
 civilized world. An honest, firm and open policy 
 in our foreign relations would command the united 
 support of the nation, whose deliberate opinions il 
 would necessarily reflect. 
 
 Nothing is clearer in the history of our institu 
 tions than the design of the nation in asserting it? 
 own independence and freedom, to avoid giving 
 countenance to the extension of Slavery. The 
 influence of the small but compact and powerful 
 class of men interested in Slavery, who command 
 one section of the country, and wield a vast po- 
 litical control as a consequence in the other, is now 
 directed to turn this impulse of the Revolution and 
 reverse its principles. The extension of Slavery 
 across the continent is the object of the power which 
 now rules the Government ; and from this spirit has 
 sprung those kindred wrongs in Kansas so truly por- 
 trayed in one of your resolutions, which prove that 
 the elements of the most arbitrarj- governments have 
 not been vanquished by the just theory of our own. 
 It would be out of place here to pledge myself to any 
 particular policy that has been suggested to termi- 
 nate the sectional controversy engendered by politi- 
 cal animosities, operating on a powerful class banded 
 together by a common interest. A practical remedy 
 is the admission of Kansas into the Union as a Free 
 State. The South should, in my judgment, earnestly 
 desire such consummation. It would vindicate the 
 good faith — it would correct the mistake of the 
 repeal ; and the North, having practically the bene- 
 fit of the agreement between the two sections, 
 would be satisfied, and good feeling be restored. 
 The measure is perfectly consistent with the honor 
 of the South, and vital to its interests. That fatal 
 act which gave birth to this purely sectional strife, 
 originating in the scheme to take from free labor the 
 country secured to it by a solemn covenant, cannot 
 be too soon disarmed of its pernicious force. The 
 only genial region of the middle latitudes left to the 
 emigrants of the Northern States for homes cannot 
 be conquered from the free laborers, who have long 
 considered it as set apart for them in our inheri- 
 tance, without provoldng a desperate struggle. 
 Whatever may be the persistence of the particular 
 class which seems ready to hazard everything for 
 the success of the unjust scheme it has partially 
 effected, I firmly believe that the great heart of the 
 nation, which throbs with the patriotism of the free 
 men of both sections, will have power to overcome 
 it. They will look to the rights secured to them by 
 the Constitution of the Union, as their best safeguard 
 from the oppression of the class which — by a mo- 
 nopoly of the soil and of slave labor to till it — might 
 in time reduce them to the extremity of laboring 
 upon the same terms with the slaves. The great 
 body of non-slaveholding free men, including those 
 of the South, upon whose welfare Slavery is an 
 oppression, will discover that the power of the Gene- 
 ral Government over the public lands may be benefi- 
 cially exerted to advance their interests and secure 
 their independence. Knowing this, their suffrages 
 will not be wanting to maintain that authority in 
 the Union which is absolutely essential to the main- 
 tenance of their own liberties, and which has more 
 than once indicated the purpose of disposing of the 
 public lands in such a way as would make every set- 
 tler upon them a freeholder. 
 
 If the people intrust to me the administration of 
 the Government, the laws of Congress in relation to 
 the Territories will be faithfully executed. All its 
 authority will be exerted in aid of the national will 
 to re-establish the peace of the country on the just 
 principles which have heretofore received the sane- 
 
$0 
 
 LIFE OF OQL. FREMONT. 
 
 tion of the Federal Government, of the States, and 
 oftn^ie people of both sections. Such a policy would 
 loave no aliment to that sectional party which seeks 
 Its aggrandizement by appropriating the new Ter- 
 ritories to capital in the form of Slavery, but wonld 
 inevitably result in the triumph of free labor — the 
 natural capital which constitutes the real wealth of 
 this great country, and creates that intelligent power 
 in the masses alone to be relied on as the bulwark of 
 free institutions. 
 
 Trusting that I have a heart capable of compre- 
 hending our whole country, with its varied interests, 
 and confident that patriotism exists in all parts of 
 the Union, I accept the nomination of the Conven- 
 tion, in the hope that I may be enabled to serve use- 
 fully its cause, which I consider the cause of consti- 
 tutional Freedom. 
 
 Very respectfully, your obedient servant, 
 
 J. C. FREMONT. 
 
 To Messrs. H. S. Lane, President of the Convention ; 
 Jahes M. Ashley, Anthony J. Bleecker, Joseph 
 C. HORNBLOWER, E. R. HoAK, Thaddeus Stevenk, 
 KiNGSLEY S. Bingham, John A. Wills, C. F. 
 Cleveland, Cyrus Aldrich, Committee, &c. 
 
 Among the very numerous testimonials in 
 favor of Col. Fremont, the following may not 
 be out of place here : 
 
 SWORD FROM SOUTH CAROLINA. 
 
 The citizens of Charleston, S. C, at a public meet- 
 ing, in 1846, after passing resolutions, highly eulogis- 
 tic of Col. Fremont's services in Oregon and CaU- 
 fornia, voted him a sword, limiting the subscription 
 for the same at one dollar to a person. The sword 
 is costly and elejrantly wrought, of gold, silver 
 mounted, in a scabbard of gold, and bears the follow- 
 ing inscription : 
 
 BY THE CITIZENS OF CHARLBSTON 
 TO LIEtPTENANT-CGLONEL 
 
 JOHN CHARLES FREMONT. 
 
 A MEMORIAL OF THEIR HIGH APPECIATION 
 
 OF THE GALLANTRY AND SCIENCE 
 
 HE HAS DISPLAYED IN HIS 
 
 SKKVICES IN OREGON AND CALIFOBNIA. 
 
 SWORD BELT FROM THE CHARLESTON WOMEN. 
 
 [From the Charleston, S. C, Mercury, Sept. 2T, 1847.] 
 
 We regret to learn that Col. Fremont, whose de- 
 parture for Aiken we noticed a few days since, did 
 not reach that place to see his mother alive. She 
 died but a few hours before his arrival. He accom- 
 panied her remains the next day to this city, and af- 
 ter witnessing the last sad rites, left here the evening 
 following for Washington. In this affliction, rendered 
 doubly poignant by nis deep disappointment in not 
 receiving her parting look of recognition after his 
 long and eventful absence, he has the sympathy of 
 our entire community. 
 
 " The marked and brilliant career of Col. Fremont 
 has arrested general attention and admiration, and 
 has been watched with a livelj' interest by his fellow 
 citizens of South Carolina. Charleston particularly is 
 proud of him, and the reputation which he has at so 
 early an age achieved for himself, she claims as 
 something in which she too has a share. But for the 
 melancholy circumstance attending his visit, our city 
 wonld have manifested by suitable demonstrations 
 tlieir respect for him, and their continued confidence 
 ia hie honor and integrity. It will require something 
 
 more than mere accusation to stilly them In thjB 
 minds of the people of Charleston. Some months 
 since a sword was voted to him by our citizens, the 
 individual subscriptions to which were limited to $1 ; 
 it now awaits his acceptance at a suitable opportti- 
 nity. We are happy to learn that the ladies of Charles- 
 ton propose, by a similar subscription, to furnisli 
 an appropriate belt to accompany the sword, au 
 evidence that they too can appreciate the gallantry 
 and heroism which have so signally marked his 
 career, and have thrown an air of romance over the 
 usually dry detail of scientific pursuit*." 
 
 LETTER FROM BARON HUMBOLDT. 
 
 To Col. Fremont, Senator : — It is very agreeable 
 to me, sir, to address you these lines by my excellent 
 friend, our Minister to the United States, N. de Ce- 
 roid. After having given you, in the new edition of 
 my "Aspects cf Nature," the public testimony of 
 the admiration which is due to your gigantic labors 
 between St. Louis, of Missouri, and the coasts of the 
 South Sea, I feel happy to offer you, in this little to- 
 ken of my existence (ian.s ce petit si^rie de vie), the 
 homage of my warm acknowledgment. You have 
 displayed a noble courage in distant expeditions, 
 braved all the dangers of cold and famine, enriched 
 all the branches of the natural sciences, illustrated a 
 vast country which was almost entirely unknown 
 to us. 
 
 A merit so rare has been acknowledged by a sove- 
 reign warmly^ interested in the progress of physical 
 geography ; the king orders me to oiler you the grand 
 golden medal destined to those who have labored at 
 scientific progress. I hope that this mark of the 
 Roj'al good will, will be agreeable to you at a time 
 when, upon the proposition of the illustrious geogra- 
 pher, Chas. Ritter, the Geographical Society at Ber- 
 lin has named you an honorary member. For myself, 
 I must thank you particularly also for the honor 
 which you have done in attaching my name and that 
 of my fellow-laborer and intimate friend, Mr. Bon- 
 pland, to countries neighboring to those which have 
 been the object of our labors. California, tvhich has 
 so nobly resisted the introduction of Slavery, will bs 
 ■worthily represented by a friend of libei-ty and of tht 
 pi'ogi'ess of intelligence. 
 
 Accept, I pray you, sir, the expression of my high 
 and affectionate consideration. 
 
 Your most humble and most obedient servant, 
 A. VON HUMBOLDT. 
 
 Saks Souci, Octoher 7, 1850. 
 
 On the envelope thus addressed : 
 
 To Colonel Fremont, Senator, 
 With the Great Golden Medal 
 For progress in the Sciences. 
 
 Baron Humboldt. 
 
 description op the grand golden medal. 
 
 Of fine gold, massive, more than double the size of 
 the American double eagle, and of exquisite work- 
 manship. On the face is the medallion head of the 
 King, Frederick-William the Fourth, surrounded by 
 figures emblematical of Religion, Jurisprudence, Me- 
 dicine and the Arts. On the reverse, Apollo, in tha 
 chariot of the Sun, drawn by four high-mettled, 
 plunging horses, traversing the zodiac, and darting 
 rays of light from his head. 
 
 FROM HtTMBOLT'S "ASPECTS OF NATCBE." 
 
 Fremont's map and geographical investigationa 
 comprehend the extensive region from the junction 
 of the Kansas River with the Missouri to the Falls of 
 the Columbia, and to the missions of Santa Barbara 
 
LIFE OF COL. FEEMONT. 
 
 ai 
 
 and Puebla de los Angeles, in New California ; or a 
 space of 28 degrees of longitude, and from the 34th 
 to the 35th parallel of latitude. Four hundred points 
 have been determined hyposometrically by barome- 
 tric observations, and, for the most part, geographi- 
 cally by astronomical observations; so tliat a dis- 
 trict wliich, with tlie windings of the route, amounts 
 to 3,600 geographical miles, from the mouth of the 
 Kansas to Fort Van Couver and the shores of the 
 Pacific (almost 720 miles more than the distance from 
 Madrid to Tobolsk), has been represented in profile, 
 showing the relative heights above the level of the 
 sea. 
 
 As I was, I believe, the first person who undertook 
 to represent, in geoguostic profile, the form of entire 
 countries— such as the Iberian Peninsula, the high 
 lands of Mexico, and the Cordilleras of South Ameri- 
 ca (the semi-perspective projections of a Siberian 
 traveller, the Abbe Chappe, were founded on mere 
 and generally ill-judged estimations of the fall of 
 rivers) — ^it has given me peculiar pleasure to see the 
 geographical method of representing the form of the 
 earth in a vertical direction, of the elevations of the 
 solid portion of our planet above its watery covering, 
 applied onso graup a scale as has been done in Fre- 
 mont's map. 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 Colonel Fremont's Religion — Mariposa Estate — Personal Appearance — Power of Endurance — Preface at the End- 
 Concluding Bemarks. 
 
 COLONEL FREMONT'S religion seems to 
 consist chiefly in trying to do as he would 
 be done by, rather than in external preten- 
 sions. He is a communicant of the Protestant 
 Episcopal Oliurch, in which he was confirmed 
 at the early age of seventeen. It was the 
 faith in which his motlier lived and died, and 
 reared her cliildred. Her remains, and those 
 of his dear sister and brother, now rest in 
 the grave-yard of Si,. Philip's Ohurch — Protest- 
 ant Episcopal — in Charleston, where he bu- 
 ried them. His children have all been bap- 
 tized in the Episcopal Cliurch, which liis wife 
 also, who was educated a Presbyterian, at- 
 tends. 
 
 These things are stated, because they are 
 facts. Can that be a sound and healthy state 
 of public feeling wliicli regards them as essen- 
 tial, either way, so far as concerns t!ie fitness 
 of Colonel Fremont for the Presidency? 
 Where, then, is our boasted freedom of con- 
 science? The theory of religious as well as 
 civil liberty lies at the very foundation of our 
 government. Can it be possible that in the 
 conduct of a political canvass in this free Re- 
 public, such certificates as the following — 
 which is perfectly authentic — are important? 
 
 " Washimqton CtTT, Ju,ly 12, 1S56. 
 " The following children of J. Charles and Jessie 
 Benton Fremont have been baptized in the Church 
 of the Parish of the Epiphany, Washington, D. C— 
 their baptisms being recorded in the register of said 
 parish : 
 
 " 1S48, Aug. 15, Elizabeth McDowell Benton Fre- 
 mont. 
 
 " 1848, Aug. 15, Benton Fremont. 
 " 1853, Dec. 23, John Charles Fremont 
 " 1855, Aug. 1, Francis Preston Fremont. 
 " As none were baptized in a house, hid all were 
 brought to the church, the order of the Protestant 
 Episcopal Church for ' the Ministration of Public 
 Baptism of Infants,' was that which was used. 
 "J. W. FRENCH, 
 ^ Rector of tha Parish of the Epiphany, 
 
 " Washington, D. C." 
 
 Colonel Fremont owns a large amount of 
 property in California, including the Mari- 
 
 posa estate, which, after protracted and ex- 
 pensive litigation, was confirmed to him by 
 the Supreme Court at Washington last win- 
 ter ; but all his property, at present, is un- 
 productive ; so tliat he is now, as far as 
 income is concerned, as he has been most of 
 his life, a poor man. At the time of his elec- 
 tion to the United States Senate, Colonel Fre- 
 mont was making money very rapidly, by the 
 gold digging on his estate. He had a great 
 number of men at work on shares. That 
 ended with his entrance upon public life, and 
 the pecuniary sacrifice to him was immense. 
 
 Colonel Fremont is about five feet nine 
 inches in height, slightly built, wiry, and 
 muscular. What his complexion was origi- 
 nally it is difficult to tell, but his strongly- 
 marked face has been pretty well bronzed by 
 sun and wind. Tiie Delaware Indians called 
 him "The Iron Man." His manners are quiet 
 and unpretending; his presence is impressive, 
 and command is written in his large, promi- 
 nent, piercing, hazel-gray eye. Mr. Selover, of 
 California, who saw him participating in the 
 encounter with a rough and turbulent opposi- 
 tion at the time of Jack Hays's election as 
 sheriff in San Francisco, says that he looked, 
 then, just about seven feet high. His heavy, 
 waving, dark hair, sprinkled slightly with 
 white, parts naturally in the middle, and he 
 wears a full beard, after the dictates of Na- 
 ture and the practice of the early Christians. 
 To this protection he attributes, in a great 
 degree, the preservation of his teeth, which 
 are perfect, amid the extremes of temperature 
 to which ho has been subjected, and of his 
 face from the frost. Some time before the 
 Philadelphia Convention, a number of wise- 
 acres recommended to Colonel Fremont that 
 he should shave off his beard and comb liis 
 hair differently, as he would thus remove one 
 objection to his nomination. His reply was 
 worthy of Jackson. " If tha support of the 
 whole New York delegation depended upon 
 my doing such a thing," said he, " the only 
 
32 
 
 LIFE OF COL. FEEMONT. 
 
 effect it could have upon me would be, that I 
 should wear my beard as it is, and part my 
 hair a little wider than I do now." 
 
 During his expeditions Ool. Fremont always 
 rode ou a wooden saddle tree, without leather 
 or other covering. He was considered a re- 
 markably line rider, even among the Mexicans 
 and Indians. He has met with many a h.ird 
 fall in his wild adventures; but never had a 
 liinb broken. Sometimes his horse would 
 tumble over the rocks; again, getting a foot 
 into some treacherous wolf-hole, he would 
 pitch headlong to the ground. But the rider, 
 agile as a cat, always struck safely. Alvarado, 
 ex-governor of California, said that no other 
 such feat as Fremont's ride of eight hundred 
 miles in less than eight days had ever been 
 performed in that country. 
 
 A man who was with Fremont in his 
 foarth expedition, says he never saw him with 
 an overcoat on, in tlie coldest weather upon 
 the Rocky Mountains. He has tramped 
 many a mile through the snow, with no bet- 
 ter covering for his feet than ragged and worn 
 out moccasins. On one occasion, he had a 
 leg and foot badly frozen. Tiie toe nails came 
 off; but, a thing unusual, it is said, in such 
 oases, they afterwards grew out again. 
 
 Ool. Fremont manifests a regard and con- 
 sideration for the feelings of others, and a del- 
 icacy about wounding them, which seem to 
 belong to the character of woman ; but withal 
 he possesses not only the courage but seem- 
 ingly the toughness and endurance of a griz- 
 zly bear. 
 
 Througliout his journeys Ool. Fre*nont')S 
 astronomical observations were made b^' him- 
 self, and were never omitted in consequence 
 of cold, fatigue, hunger, or danger. One I'xf 
 his men says that he has seen him sitting pa- 
 tiently on the snow three or four hours in the 
 night, with tiie thermometer twenty or thhcy 
 degrees below zero, waiting patiently for the 
 appearance of a star, and handling the brass 
 instrument without gloves. 
 
 The genuineness, simplicity, and strength 
 of his character inspire those around him with 
 regard and esteem. A recent traveller in 
 Kansas stopped at the house of Solomon, a 
 Delaware, v,-ho travelled for years witii Ool. 
 Fremont, and is now a prosperous farmer in 
 that territory. He was received with ordi- 
 nary hospitality, but when the visitor inform- 
 ed Solomon that he was a friend of Ool. Fre- 
 mont, the heart of the Indian as well as his 
 house seemed to open. He could not do too 
 much, and he rendered tlie stranger before he 
 parted with him a very important service. 
 Solomon had a child about a year old, named 
 Jolin 0. Fiemont. Saghuudai, the brawny 
 old Delaware chief, was recently at Washing- 
 ton. He could speak only a few words of 
 
 English, but among these were the following, 
 which he ofren repeated : " Fremont, brave 
 man — brave man — Ool. Fremont, brave man!" 
 
 People who read a preface at all, generally 
 read it after they have finished the body of 
 the work ; so, for convenience sake, as an 
 Irishman would say, it seems proper that the 
 beginning uf a book should be at the end. 
 
 It is quite customary for persons who write 
 the biographies of candidates to disclaim all 
 reference, in preparing their works, to the 
 pending election. 
 
 Supposing them to tell the truth, it must be 
 admitted that such books follow marvellously 
 quick in the wake of the nominating conven- 
 tions. In this instance, no disclaimer of the 
 kind can be put fortli. Almost the sole object 
 of this brief sketch of the life of Ool. Fremonfe 
 lias been to promote his election to the Presi* 
 dency. It lias been written in tlie conddent 
 belief that all that is requisite to secure his 
 choice to that office, is to make his character 
 and principles generally known and understood 
 by the voters of the Unitec' States. 
 
 An obscure boy, deprived at an early age, by 
 death, of the counsels of his fatlisr; friendlese, 
 save the hearts which his own sweet temper 
 and noble qualities won ; with the hard hand 
 of poverty laid heavily upon him ; we have seen 
 him rise to distinction by his own vigoroi> 
 and persevering exertions, till the earth is lilied 
 with the renown of his exploits. The path- 
 finder through trackless and desolate regions, 
 he has opened a vast empire to settlement and 
 , civilization. Oountless as the stars of heaven, 
 or the sands upon the sea shore, are the myri- 
 ads of human beings who, within tiie centuries 
 10 come, sliall follow in the way which, Avith 
 tlie aid of celestial light and the telescopic 
 glass, he first located and made plain. He haa 
 written his name in the clear sunbeams on the 
 summits of the everlasting hills; and rendered 
 his fame durable by linking it to star-eyed 
 science, lirave yet merciful ; as a ot)nqueror, 
 he sought not to devastate but to improve. 
 With the drawn sword in his right hand, the 
 proffer of peace he carried aiway* in his left. 
 
 In the similarity of occupa^fc> and other 
 circumstances ratlier of an accidental charac- 
 ter, a parallel has been traced between Fre- 
 mont and Washington. Afar more important 
 resemblance exists in that calm steadfastness 
 of purpose which long outlives the resolution 
 of ordinary men, and possesess in itself some- 
 thing of the nature of immortality ; and in 
 that strength of will which executes plans of 
 magnitude beyond the power of original con- 
 ception in the common mind, and rising with 
 comphcated difficvdties and trying emergen- 
 cies into gigantic pro])ortions, constitutes an 
 almost superhunaan power. '", 
 
 Price per doz., 40 cents ; per 100, $2 50 ; per 1,000, $20. Orders enclosing tlie cash must beaddressed to 
 
 GREELEY & M'ELRATH, TbibotHIO^*^ Net7 York. 
 

 
 
 
 
 
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