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Les diagrarnmes suivants illustrent la m6thode. rrata o pelure, 1 d □ 32X 1 2 3 1 2 3 4 S 6 ^^. /^l^tU^-^^s^^.-^^- ICS OF UFE, ( :.u;Lr.s nmm. V9 ^1, ;.-,VijJj t:Stl,0!iAlIOK, 5"<-'l. •■i-4. ,'v^- -T" <».n!H ■■■ 'K I (hk »r ^>1 "^ TOLt fU'.NTON, '^ THr 'Ulh;. ^^KCT ul^' FIFTY YEA f^s, g„,.,;,.^,^.,^ J'l.ATKS, - V|. Ha, . t ,K iAfi;;; MajiK ■'. nA*-:)i,To-^ u.!>f Ast) ttrnf-ns V ;). r ClfU JiBLFOKl... ■'^■'■••s^ ^^ '« ,^' y 'y / #>- ^ ^^t^f^-^^^-g^-rw^^iC^ MEMOIRS OF MY LIFE, BY JOHN CIIABLES FlilMOJJT. iNCLlDKVd IX THK NAKUATrVE FiVE JofRXEYS OF AVeSTEKX E DUItrNO THK YEAliS 1842, l,S43-4, 1845-0-7, 1S4S-!), 1853-4. XPLOUATIOX, SENATOR BENTON, tooetheh with a sketch of the life of ^ATOR BENT IN CONNECTION WITH WESTEHX EXPANSION 11 V JESSIE I^ENTOX FREMONT. A RETROSPECT OF FIFTY YEARS COVERl^'G THE MOST EVENTFUL PFi>[ops OF MODERN AMERICAN HISTORY. SUPEKBLY ILLUSTUATEH nv OlUO > w foKTHAITS. DESCRIPTIVE PlaTFS AXn, FROM THE MlSSOL-RI RiVEU TO THE PACIFIC, RY A SERIES OF Sketches and DAorERREOTYPEs Made Dlrixu the Jouuxe^s. THE ILLUSTllATIONS AHE MASTERPIECES OK DARLEY. HAMILTON, SCIIUSSELE. DALLAS, KERN. WALLIN AND OTHERS. KNCIHAVED VNDEU THE SfPEHVlSlON OF J. M. BUTLER, iriTir MAPS AXD COUmEU PLATES. Vol. I. CHICAGO AND NEW YORK: BELFORD, CLAIJKE & COMPANY. 1887. 7 7 '■-7 COrTRIOIIT, BELFOIU), CLARKE vt CO. 1886. 1^ CONTENTS. I 'I t*am Slope of the Work ,,, Some Account of the Plates xv. HlOGRAFHICAL SkETCH OF SENATOR BeNTON, IN CONNECTION WITH WESTERN EXPAN- SION J CHAPTER I. ''^-^'^-33. School Days— 1833-36, Cruise on U. S. S. Natchez— 1836-37, Appointed Professor of Mathematics in the Navy— Assistant Engineer under Captain Williams— Worli in Mountains of North and South Carolina— 1837-38. Threat- ened Hostilities with Cherokee Indians— Indian Civilization— Results of the Mission-Work of the Protestant and Catholic Churches 18-29 CHAPTER II. 1S38, Appointed, by President Van Buren, Second Lieutenant of Topographical Engineers— Expedition under Nicollet— 1839, Second Expedition, under Nicol- let north of the Missouri River— 1840, In Washington 30-54 CHAPTER III. 1S40-41, At Work in Washington— Companionship with Mr. Nicollet and Mr. Hass- ler— Interest of Western Senators in our work— Mr. Poinsett— Survey of the Des Moines River— Connected by Marriage with Senator Benton-^Oregon Question— Charles Prcuss— Planning First Expedition to the Rocky Moun- '^'"^ SS-72 CHAPTER IV. MV FIRSr KXPEDITION, 1842. My First Expedition— Personnel of Party— Meet Kit Carson— Kansas— Indian Country— False Alarm— Platte Valley— Enormous Herds of Buffalo— Wild Horses— An Indian Charge— Arapaho Indians— Near Pike's Peak— Lady Pole Creek— White River— Mr. Preuss' Journey— American Fur Company— Dan- gerous Country— Part with Brant and Benton— Detained by Indians— The Black Hills y^_j2^ 4ii*:.3 Iv CO.\J'J:.\TS. CHAPTEF^ V. , FIRST KXTKnmoN, 1S42. — Continued, PAQI. Arteniisias — Indian Alaim — Scattered Indians— Deer Creek— Nature of the Lara- mie Road — Discoiiraginj^ liiforniatiun — A Cache — Sweet Water River — Goat Island — Devil's (iale— First Grizzly and Magpie— South Pass— The Little and Hig Sandy — Repairing Barometer — Scarcity of Food — An Impressive Spot— A DifTicult and Dangerous Ascent — Excessive Fatigue, \'(j Food, and 111 - Fremont's Peak — Good Humor, Laugliter.and Song— A Canon — An Ugly Pass — I!ot Spring CJate — Mr. Pierre Sarpy — Home Again— Preparing for Sec- ond Expedition — Mrs. Fremont Intercepts a Government Order 125-168 CHAPTER VI. SECOND EXI'KDITION, 1843-44. Personnel of Party — Osages Make a Charge- Ceremonious Arapahoes — Prairie- dog Village — Kit Joins us Again— Seller's Spring— Godey Engaged — Yampah River — An Attack by Arapahoes— Valley of Hear River— Smith's Fork— Pnuiss Objects to Kooyah — Root-Diggers' Country— Abimdanceof Buffalo — Our Rub- ber Boat 169-224 CHAPIER VII. SECOND EXPEDITION, 1 843-44. — Continued. Near Salt Lake — Weber's Fork — Living on Roots — The Unknown Sea— Dried Worms for Food— Disappointment Island— Analysis of Salt Lake — Meet Mr. Fitzpatrick — Three Buttes — \'olcanic Rock Formation — Riviere aux Cajeaux — A Melancholy and Strange-looking Country — A Picturesque Fall- Reid's River— Mr. Payette's Hospitality— Cayuse Indians -A Perilous Search for Water— Big Trees— Nez Perce Fort— Fort Vancouver— The Devil's Hole— Luder's Bay — Submerged Forests — Mount Rcgiiier, St. Helen's, and Mount Hood — Tlainath Lake — Remarkable Infusoria 225-292 CHAPTER VIII. SECOND EXPEDITION, 1843-44. — Continued. Fall River — TIamath Lake — Thermometer at Zero — A Beautiful Country — Lake Abert — Christmas — Almost the Missing Link — Hot Springs — An Unknown Lake — Pyramid Lake — The Nut Pine — Brandy a Good Medicine — Majesty of the Mountains 293-323 CHAPTER IX. SECOND EXPEDITU)N, 1 843-44. — Continued. Exhausted by Snow and Cold — The Sierra Nevada — Cutting our way through Snow — 3° Below Zero on top of the Sierra Nevada — Menu: — Pea Soup, Mule, cchYTiuyrs. and Dog— An unlooked-for icy Haih— M Preuss lost— Mr. Preussfoiinrl— ri,.,i-t,. i> \- ■ ^ Fort and Farm . . " '^^■''^^f^^'"" '^X Captain Sutter-Sutter's iih; Soup— Severe Suffering— Mr. rAOK 324-354 CHAPTER X SECOND KXPEDiTroN-, iH^-AA—Contiuucd. r:>l-?,'>^2 CliAPTKR xi. KEco.vn F.xPF.nrnoN, i^^7,~^^.-ConHnued. CHAPTER XH. THIRO IXl'DDliin.v, 1845. Reach St. Lo.iis August, 1844-Meet my mother airain-Mr Ronfon- • , cupied-Why the Mormons chose Salt Lake-Siden ' PoT l "'•'"'^ ^'■'°'- croft to Buchanan-Bancroft's foresi'antc(l California — What Governor Pickens says — Interesting Speculations — Embark on the Cyane for San Diego — On the road to Los Angele.s — Castro flis]ierscs his Force — Carson starts for Washington with Desi^atches — Leave Los Angeles for Sacramento — A lively fight with Bears — General Heale's humorous Account — Commander Montgom- ery's great Loss — Captain Mervint'> Fight — General Kearny reaches Califor- nia — General Kearny worsted at San Harnardo — Creneral Kearny forced Carson to return — Carson's Honest Statement of Kearny's Actions — Kearny refuses being made Commander-in-Chief — Kearny wants to be Governor — h'iores' well- considered Plan — Captain IJurroughs Shot — Severe March injui San Juan to Los Angeles — Don Jesus' Wife and Children Plead — The Treaty of Couenga — Hostilities ended 543-60 j CHAPTER ,V RESULTS. Reasons for tliis Chapter — Humboldt: Extracts from " Cosmos " on \'aluc of Sur- veys, and on Volcanic Disturbances in Oregon, etc.— Aid rendered by Profes- sors Torrey and Hall in Analysis of Collections, Botanical and Geological — Notes on Astronomical Observations by Professor Hubbard — Capitulation of Couenga — Completing Govenunent Policy to Conquer and Conciliate . . . .603-655 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. John C. Frd-mont, Jessie Benton P'remont Xupuluon lior.apartc 'I'humiis l\. I . nton Tliomus .'.eff rson Ik-nton's v; (iMimciit, St. Louis, Mo Olicyemic liclle Among the Buffalo J.ost on tlie Prairie Colorado Valley Kit Carson Cheyenne Brave Moving Camp T'ort Laramie L^himney Rock Sunset, Upper Waters Colorado Buffalo Escaping from Piairic I'irc Wind River Chain Central Chain, Wind River Mountain— Fremont Peak. Fremont Rticky Mountain Flag . Frontispiece FACING I'ACK XIV xvni I 12 '4 40 42 44 57 72 84 88 106 no 121 146 '5° 196 200 Jessie Benton Fremont ,' View of Pike's I'eak ■■'■■■■ ^ ' ^ ^ '''' ^ ^ ' ^^ ^' '''' ^'^. 'so The Spanish Peaks „ ,, . , „ .. 182 Upper Arkansas Prairies near River Flills ^^ West Rocky Mountains bordering Great Colorado Valley ' . . . ,«(, Utah Indian ' ,.. , , ,. 188 I tall Indian Utah Indian "!!!!!!!!!!!"!!!!!!!!!!!'" '^? Uncr.nipagre River, West Slope Rocky Mountains I 'tah Bov '*''* •■•», , ^ ^ 2T2 Standing Ruck Utah Indian ■^^^'^'^^^^^'^'^'''^^''''''. Utah Indian ~ Big Timber, Arkansas River Camp, October 14th, Snake River !.!.....! ^r^ Getting Water— Deep Ravine, Sierra Nevada !!!!!!!. •'° Hill of Columnar Basalt on the Columbia River Crossing the Ford at Fall River ' !!° " Used a Child for a Fig Leaf " '......".!......' Shooting Rapids of Lower ColuiViCj'a !!.!.!..!! Night on the Lower Columbia ...'....... Pass in the Sierra Mojada _ ' _ _ ^L Pyramid Lake ■ 310 272 274 276 viii LIST OF ILLUSTRA TIONS. FACINO PAGE Sierra Mojada 313 Talk with Indians — Eastern Slope Sierra Nevada 326 Pass in the Sierra Nevada of California 338 Captain Sutter 350 Slitter's Fort 352 Old Building adjoining Sutter's Fort 356 Carson and Godey returning from Indian Fight 374 Forest Camp — Shastl Peak 377 A Digger Indian , 386 Upper Arkansas River below Bent's Fort 406 Upper Arkansas River 408 Geoige Bancroft 414 Upper Sacramento Valley 422 The Claimant 430 Old Digger Woman abandoned by her People 436 Tlamath J.ako 441 JSicdicine Man 442 Fhick of Wild Ceese 444 Scene of Fremont Camp, 1845 446 Saj^iiiidai 490 Tlamath River — Attack by Tlamaths 496 Upper Sacramento Hills 505 Tlie Hutics -Sacramento Valley 508 England and the United States at Monterey 532 Point of Pines , 534 (Governor Rodman M. Price 538 Old Custom House — Monterey, Cal 542 Carmel Mission Church 544 Interior of Carmel Mission — Ruins 546 False Bay, near Carmel 548 The Huerfano Butte 569 Midshipman Beale 580 View of Monterey and Remains of old Fort 584 Distant View of Carmel Mission 58G Fossil Fresh-water Infusoria from Oregon 620 Fossil Ferns 622 Fossil Shells 626 Botanv Plates, 3 anc: 4 640 Botany Plates, ^ and 2 642 MAPS. Map Shoving Acquisition of Territory 16 Country Explored by John C. Fremont 1 20 Portion of Bear River of the Great Salt Lake 202 Beer Springs 208 The Great Salt Lake 232 Rio de Los Americanos 354 Map of United States showing Area, Acquisition, and Transfer of Territory 603 ••• 3^3 ... 326 ••• 338 ••• 35° ••• 352 ■•• 356 ••• 374 ••• 377 ... 386 . . . 4o6 . . . 408 . .. 414 . . . 422 • • • 430 • • . 436 ••• 441 . . . 442 ••• 444 . .. 446 . . . 490 . . . 496 ••• 505 ... 508 ••• 532 ••• 534 •■• 538 . .. 542 ••• 544 ... 546 ... 548 . .. 569 . .. 580 ... 584 ... s8G . . . 620 . . . 622 . .. 626 . . 640 . . . 642 16 120 202 208 232 354 603 I SCOPE OF THE WORK. The narrative contained in these volumes is personal. It is intended to draw together the more important and interesting parts in the journals of various expeditions made by me in the course of Western exploration, and to give my knowledge of political and military events in which I have myself had part. The principal subjects of which the book will consist, and Avhich, with me, make its rai'sou d'etre, are three : the geographical explorations, made in the interest of Western expansion ; the presidential campaign of 1856, made in the interest of an undivided country; and the civil war, made in the same interest. Connecting these, and naturally growing out of them, will be given enough of the threads of ordinary life to jusdfy the claim of the work to its title of memoirs : purporting to be the history of one life, but being in realty that of three, because in sub- stance the course of my own life was chiefly determined by its contact with the other two— the events recorded having in this way been created, or directly inspired and influenced, by three different minds, each having the same objects for a principal aim. The published histories of the various explorations have now passed out of date, and are new to the present generation, to which the region between the Mississippi and the Pacific Ocean presents a different face from that to which these accounts relate. In the present narrative the descriptions of the regions travelled over will be simply of what would then have met a traveller's eye. The prevail- ing impression on his mind would have been one of constant surprist? that so large a portion of the earth's surface should have so long remained unoccupied and unused. Millions of people now occupy the ground where then he encountered only wild animals and wild men. But nothing of this present condition will be given here. The Slight knowledge which a traveller could glean in journeys that were impelled forward by hunger, and thirst, and miminency of dangers, has in this day been perfected and made thoroughly available. The scant ^^ IV SCOPE OF rilK WORK. i scientific information which was gathered in these travels, and which, as indications or suggestions, had its value at the time, will therefore not have any place in the present narrative. The striking features and general character of the regions traversed, the incidents which made their local coloring, a:;', the hardships belonging to remote and solitary jour- neys, will be retained, so far as can well be done within the limit of the pages which are intended to embrace narratives covering broad regions of country and half a century of American time. But the emigrants who have since then traversed and changed the face of these regions will doubtless find enough to remind them, and have pleasure in being reminded, of the scenes with which they were once so familiar, and of hardships which they themselves were compelled to face. Out of these expeditions came the seizure of California in 1846. The third exploring party was merged in a battalion which did its part in wresting that rich territory from Mexico, and the conquest of California will consequently have a prominent place in the narrative of these expe- ditions. Concerning the presidential campaign of 1856, in which I was engaged, statements have been made which I v/ish to correct ; and in that of 1864 there were governing facts which have not been made public. These I propose to set out. Some events of the civil war in which I was directly concerned have been incorrectly stated, and I am not willing to leave the resulting erro- neous impressions to crystallize and harden into the semblance of facts. These subjects, as I have said, make the chief reason for this work. The general record is being made up. This is being done from different points of view ; and, as this view is sometimes distorted by imperfect or prejudiced knowledge, I naturally wish to use the fitting occasion which offers to make my own record. It is not the written but the published fact which stands, and it stands to hold its ground as fact when it can meet every challenge by the testimony of documentary and recorded evidence. John C. Fremont. V.'aihiH^tOH, IK L',, M>iy, 1886. icli, as re not s and ; their y jour- of the onsof s who IS will being ind of The )art in ifornia ; expe- I was in that public. 1 have I erro- cts. )rk. : from ed by fitting en but IS fact •y and 3NT. 1 SOME ACCOUNT OF THE PLATES. IIY JESSIE BENTON FREMONT. In 1853 we were living in Paris, where Mr. Fremont was having his first leisure and rest, and his plan was repose and congenial study for a year or more longer, when there came from my father the informa- tion that Congress had ordered three lines to be surveyed with a view to select the best for overland travel and ultimately a railway • that it had been intended that he, Mr. Fremont, should lead one, but as Con- gress had not inserted any name in the bill, the then Secretary of War Mr. Jefferson Davis, had not named Mr. Fremont to any of the thre<'. Captain Gunnison, who had been given the command of the line of sur- veys intended for Mr. Fremont, was killed by the Indians in the earlier part of his work. Of the four journeys of exploration already made by Mr. Fremont, three had been under orders of the Government, and one, that of 1848-49 was at his own cost. Finding himself omitted from this culminating work which was based on his own labors, Mr. Fremont organized and made a hfth journey at hi;- own expense. The instruments were selected in Paris, and on the way throu^di London to his steamer at Liverpool, he found the just published volume of Cosmos, in which Mumboldt, speaking of photography, hopes it will be applied in travel, as securing " the truth in Nature." In New ^'ork the daguerre apparatus was bought, and a good artist secured, Mr. Carvalbo And though new conditions and difficulties made many embarrassments yet almost all the plates were beautifully clear, and realized the wish of Humboldt for " truth in representing nature." These plates were after- ward made into photographs by Brady in New York. Their long journeying by mule through storms and snows across the Sierras, then % .W 1 MEMOIRS OF MY I. IFF. -JOHN CHARLES FREMONT. the searching tropical damp of the sea voyage back across the Isthmus, left them unharmed and surprisingly clear, and, so far as is known, give the first connected series of views by daguerre of an unknown coun- try, in pictures as truthful as they are beautiful. During the winter of '55-'56 Mr. Fremont worked constantly at Mr. Brady's studio aiding to fix these daguerre pictures in their more per- manent form of photographs. Then at our own house I made a studio of the north drawing-room, where a large bayed window gave the proper light. Here for some months Hamilton worked on these views, repro- ducing many in oil ; he was a pupil of Turner and had great joy in the true cloud effects as well as in the stern mountains and castellated rock formations. The ens/ravinsjfs on wood were also made under our home supervision ; by an artist young then, a namesake and grandson of Frank Key, the author of " The Star-Spangled Banner." From these artists their work was passed to artist-engravers of the best school of their art. Darley also contributed his talent. Some pictures he enlarged into india- ink sketches, and from his hand came the figures in many of the plates. This work progressed through the busy year to us of 1856. Mr. George Childs, of Philadelphia, was to bring out the journals of the various expeditions as a companion book of American travel to the Arctic journeys of Dr. Kane, then being published by the same house. The year of '56 gave no leisure however for writing ; what could be done without too much demand on Mr. Fremont was carried forward, but he alone could write and that was no time for looking back. Private affairs had been so much interfered with and necessarily deranged by the Presidential campaign, that the work proposed to be written and published was unavoidably delayed, and the contract finally cancelled ; Mr. Fremont reimbursing Mr. Childs for all the expenditures made in preparation. The lime for v/riting tlid not seem to come. Private affairs in California, then our war, and again private business until now. During these thirty years the boxes containing the material for this book were so carefully guarded by me, that all understood the)- must be saved first in case of fire. When we were leaving for Arizona in '78 the boxes containing the steel plates and wood blocks were placed in Morrell's " Fire- Proof " warehouse, which was destroyed by fire in October of '81. We lost much that was stored in tiiat warehouse, choice books, pictures, and other treasured thmgs, but these materials for the book we had had placed for greater security in the safes below the pavement, where the great fire passed over them and left them completely unharmed. My father's portrait is another of the illustrations which have gone through the ordeal by fire. When his house here was burned in February of '55, the day chanced to be so cold that the water froze in the hose. "% MEMOIRS OF MY LIFE— JOHN CHARLES FRMIONT. Xsll There was no adequate water supply, or good appliances for fire here then, and the firemen could only look on, powerless. Both Houses of Congress had adjourned immediately on hearing of the fire, and a vast throng surrounded the doomed house. My father felt their sympathy, but the volumes of suffocating smoke drove Ijack all who tried to er.ter, when there came a young friend, our neighbor, and son of an old friend and neighbor, Mr. Frank Key (of " The Star-Spangled Banner"), and in spite of warning cries he plunged into the smoke and fire to save for my father the portrait of my mother, which he thought was in her former room. When he was seen at a front window a great shout of relief rose. Drop- ping the picture to outstretched arms he climbed to the lintel of the hospita- ble door no one was ever to pass again and helping hands and roaring shouts greeted him — singed, scorched, but his eyes alight with joy to have saved the home face to my father. It was a mistake, for the portrait was that of my father in his younger day. Il was the one only thing saved from all that house so full of accumulated household treasures from both my mother's and my father's lives and belongings. The library, his own, and his father's, with the great folios of Knglish state trials from which he began to read law and history with his mother, was the keenest felt loss. Many precious private papers were burned, and nearly half the manuscript of the second volume of the Thirty Years' \'iew. My house was near and my father came to me. Neither of us had slept but he made me lie down and we had talked together as only those who love one another can talk after a calamity. This portrait stood on a dress- ing table, and we spoke of Barton Key's tender thought and brave effort to save for him what he would most value, and the pity of the mistake. " It is well," my father said, " there is less to leave now - this has made death more easy. }\m will have this picture of me." I felt the undertone; but never knew until his life was ended that e\en then he was observing and recording for the guidance of his physician, symptoms which from the first he thought foretold cancer. So wonderful was his calm endurance that Dr. Hall and Dr. May each thought if might be another cause cUid that an operation might restore his health. For a time it did give relief. Then the disease re-asserted itself With the c( r- tainty now, with the fierce pain eating away his life, my father rewrote the burned manuscript and completed his work, lie had exacted silence from his physicians because " my daughters are all young mothers, and must not be subject to the prolonged distress of knowing my condition hopeless." The last likeness, taken by Brady forme in New York in '57, shows the same energy, will, and directness, but all softened by time and the influence W HI .\,'/:mo/ks ()/•■ .]/]■ /.//■■/':— /o//y charles frkmont. of a mind constantly enlarging and therefore constantly freeing itself from pcrscinal views. And the constant exercise of kindness and protection, so marked in my father's nature and habits, have left a stamp of benignity which proves the tender inner nature lying deeper and stronger than that more commonly known which made his public record of defiant and aggres- sive leadership, and gives the complete man who was so loved by his fricmls antl family. The portrait of Mr. Jefferson is from an excellent copy of the original l)\- .Stuart, belonging to Mrs. John W. Burke, of Alexandria, Virginia; the grcal-granddaughter of Jefferson, and daughter of Mr. Nicholas Trist, the intimate friend of Jackson. Through another of Jefferson's immeiliate ile- .•^'-'endants, Miss .Sarali Randolph, who wrote the beautiful " Domestic Life of Jefferson," I am indebted for knowledge of this portrait and the intro- duction to Mrs. Burke who has so kindly let me use it. The head of Napoleon is troni a collection of authentic Bonaparte sou- \enirs. a part of which was becjueailied to me by the Count de la Garde, a I'rench gentleman who had made his collection in Paris from the days of the first Consulate. He was already a man of advanced age when we first knew him there in '52. His father was a member of the last Cabinet of Louis the 1 6th, and, as a boy often, he had seen the opening of the great revolution. In 1804 Bonaparte restored to him the remainder of their fam- i!\- estates, and gratitude was added to the sincere admiration he felt for the master-mind that had brought France to order from anarchy. There was also a previous link of intermarriage which connected his family w^ith that of the Beauharnais, and brought friendly intimacy between Prince Lugene, Queen Hortense, and himself From among his rich collection he made \\\) for me an Album of Souvenirs of this historical family, with many autograph letters and various portraits at different epochs of Napoleon. Josephine', Mortens*', and her brother Eugene and others. The portrait here given is of Napoleon as First Consul, date 1804. The Count de la Garde died in 1861, and it shows how little the most cultivated continental foreigners comprehended our people, when even this charmingly intelligent man provided in his will "that, should the unhappy ciinditions of the country and disorders arising from revolution make it in^.ljossible to trace the Fremont family within a year," then my Album was to go to the Em|)eror (Napoleon IIL), to whom he left all the rest of his r.i'na|)arte collection. Of course I received at once at my home in New York the letter of the Fxecutor, and there should have been no delay in the bequest being sent to me there after my answer reached Paris. In place of the Album however came a letter from the Executor, saying the Emperor wished to keep unbroken all souvenirs of his mother, and would I It I MEAfOlRS OF MY LIFE— JOHN CHARLES FREMONT. XIX like to have also what the Count de la Garde had intended for me. That naturally they were of less interest to me, and that in any matter of personal interest to myself "auprl's de votre gouvcrnemenl " the Emperor would lend his aid. Although I repeated my request for the Album it did not come. The silence made me uneasy. I thought of the simple business American plan of asking at Wells and Fargo's Express if they could not get it on my order as a parcel ; explaining the matter and showing them the correspondence. They agreed with me that a quick, silent move which was a business trans- action could not be interfered with. And in that way my Album was at once secured, and brought to me. But the year of delay which was to make it lapse to the Emperor was nearly complete. Other portraits, belonging with events, and given us for tnis use, will be further spoken of in the book. w. ! I -i I BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF SENATOR BENTON, IN CONNECTION- WITH WKSTKRN EXPANSION. Bv JESSIE BENTON FREMONT. Whe.v, in the opening of the war oi 1812, hiy Father, under General Jackson, marched from Nashville to defend the lower Mississippi, he made two discoveries which .gave new form to his own life and larjrely moulded the fate ot our Western country to its ocean boundary. The first, on which depcnd.'d the other, was, that it lay within the power of his own will to rc-ain hralth and live ; the other, that until then his mind had been one-sided, and that there was a West as well as an East to our country. This march revealed to him the immense possibili- ties and future power of the then recent " Louisiana purchase; " and his mind gained the needed balance aoainst the exclusivelv English and sea- board influences to which he had been born and in which 'he had been trained. Quick to see and to foresee, and (njually steadfast in living up to his convictions, his decision was made then ; to leave inherited lands, family friends, and an already brilliant position in the law, and devote himself to the new West. To its imperial river- the Father of Floods-^he became captive, and to it and the lands it drained he gave life-long, foithful, and accumulating service and homage. My father was so proudly and thor- oughly American that his departure from all the influences that had created and until then governed his thoughts shows the power of innate force against inherited and educated influence. Born of English parentage on the English seaboard ; brought up in English and intensely colonial-royalist surroundings ; trained by a scholarly Fin I ■ ill; a MEMOIRS OF MY LIFK—JOHX CHARLES FREMONT. Englishman to English thought and aims ; and with his profession of the law keeping his mind down to a habit of deference to precedent and safe usage, my father had reached his thirtieth year before he discovered him- self. With the great river and his instinct of what the West must become, came to him the resolve which governed all his after life ; and, by the happy chance which made me the connecting link, this resolve was con- tinued and expanded through that of JNIr. Fremont. And so the two lives became one in the work of opening out our Western country to emigration and secure settlement, and in the further acquisition of Pacific territory which " gives us from sea to sea the whole temperate zone," and brings to our Pacific ports, across our continent, that long-contested-for India trade. In the Park at Saint Louis stands a bronze statue of my father, and upon its pedestal, below the hand which points West, are his prophetic words : " I'HEKl, I> 1 IIK K.\>1 ; TlIKKK I.IKS Till: KO\l) I'O INDIA;" words which, when spoken by him, had made men smile significantly to one another ; too much dwelling on this idea had — they thouglit — warped his miud. "They who listened said. This man is mad; now they asked. Math he a God ? " Anyone can grasp prepared results. The mind that can see, prepare, and concentrate chaotic and antagonistic contlitions, so that a great result becomes inevitable, is rarely the one to wear the laurels of completed suc- cess. Moses led the children of Israel to the Promised land, but he did not enter there and rest. The heat and burden of the d?.y were for him ; the fruit was for those wliose tloubts aiul discords had made his heaviest burden. It is the formation phase of this western expansion of our country, of much that shaped (^\\\■ present national greatness, of which 1 am able to tell from my own home knowledge- w hat one might name the lireside history of the great West. It is onlj- in connection with this side of his long useful public life that 1 here speak of my father ; Init to appreciate his departure from all that had governed his thought and action before he gave in his adhesion to the West, it is needed to know wh.it were those restraining influences from which his own far-sightetl mind, and his own will, liftetl him into the higher and broader outlook for our future as a completed nation. His father, English and of reserved and scholarly nature, was out of his element in the new Republic, having come to it from his student-life as pri- vate secretary to Governor Tryon, the last of the royal governors of North Carolina. His natural preference was for settled usages and a life confined BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF SENATOR BENTON. 3 to his family and his cherished library. This was in five languages, and he was at home in all five, Greek and Latin and French and Spanish ; while the English portion was rich in fine editions of the best works. Shakspere, Don Quixote, and Madame de Sevigne we read in the origi- nals as my grandfather and father had, from this treasure for a new country. Governor Tryon had also brought over in his suite a chaplain, a man ol hifh character and of the same cultivated mind as my grandfather. In the increasing and angry agitation of the coming separation from the mother-country, these two men, already close friends, found in each other increasing harmony of feeling and mutual support. It soon came to be the strongest earthly support to my grandfather. He luul married into another English family of colonial governors, as my grandmother, Anne Gooch, was the only child of a younger brother of Sir William Gooch, who replaced Lord Dunmore as deputy- gover- nor in his absence from his post in Virginia. New York had a more "loyal" atmosphere than Richmond, and both Lord Dunmore and Gov- f^rnor Tryon were chiefly there during the closing period of English rule. Their official families bore for them the brunt of the rising storm, and, like true men, became only the more de\oted to their country, for which they suffered. With the end of colonial rule came the end of scholarly rest and se- clusion for my grandfather. The need for larger provision for many viiiinii- children turned him westward, and leavinsf them in their North Carolina home, he led a surveying party of sixteen men, the first to make surveys in Kentucky. Already his health was giving way under the inroads of pulmonary disease, which at that date was accepted as a death-sentence, and sub- mitted to as inevitable. Doubtless the survej'-work in the open air, the change of thoughts, and a new aim in life gained for him a reprieve, and h<' ])crsevered until he had secured large landed property, but soon after his return to North Carolina died there, asking of his faithful friend, the chaplain, that overlooking care for his family which he could no longer give them. And faithfully was this charge kept. It is from my father himself that I know what followed. He was but eight years of age th