Customer Reviews

Memoirs of My Life and Times

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California's 150th anniversary as a state has come and gone with very little fanfare. The reasons for the lack of celebration were vague and sinister. Were the early settlers guilty of such atrocities as to be censored from public record? Were the northern Mexican territories prized for greedy land expansion by the United States? What were the intentions of the other world powers: the English, the French, and the Russians? Or, was discovering and mapping the mythical Buenaventura River the singular goal of Fremont's pathfinder expeditions? Historians cloud over these issues with terms like "Manifest Destiny", "Greed for Land", and "Gold Rush".

The Mexican-American War was fought on four fronts: Texas, Gulf of Mexico, Pacific, and in California. Although hostilities didn't officially begin until June 1846, President Polk laid the foundation for expansion to the Pacific in his inaugural address in 1845, and implemented his plan in November. In today's era of instant communications, it must be remembered that communications with the coast of California took up to six months 160 years ago. Ship Captains and Army Commanders were given secret orders well in advance of any planned campaign. Lieutenant Fremont had secret orders in the event of hostilities and many historians have tried to interpret Fremont's previous writings to ascertain these orders during his expeditions in California.

John Charles Fremont was a major figure in the history of the United States. He was the first Republican candidate for the President of the United States. He was a Major General in the Union Army and the first to proclaim the abolition of slavery. He was a wealthy California gold mine owner. And he served public office as Senator for California and Governor for Arizona. This book does not delve on these aspects of his life. These were to be the subjects included in volume two, which was never written. This book does include all of his official explorations as a topographical engineer from his journeys with Nicollet until the cessation of hostilities in California. It leaves out much of the technical information on plants and fossils, which was included in his earlier works. And it adds letters and other public documents to support the decisions he made in California during the Mexican-American War.

California became the 31st state of the United States. Only a handful of men were major contributors to this outcome. John Charles Fremont was one of these men and this is his own record of events.

I highly recommend this well written book(650+ pgs.)to anyone that wants to know how it was and what was witnessed (in great detail) by the explorers who walked/road across america's west before it was developed.

I recommend you first read Undaunted Courage(Lewis and Clark Expedition) by Stephen Ambrose, Astoria and The Adventures of Captain Bonneville by Washington Irving.