author

John Charles Frémont

1813–1890

Best known as the "Pathfinder," this restless explorer helped map the American West and turned firsthand adventure into national fame. His life later carried him into war, politics, and the first presidential campaign of the new Republican Party.

1 Audiobook

The Exploring Expedition to the Rocky Mountains, Oregon and California To which is Added a Description of the Physical Geography of California, with Recent Notices of the Gold Region from the Latest and Most Authentic Sources

The Exploring Expedition to the Rocky Mountains, Oregon and California To which is Added a Description of the Physical Geography of California, with Recent Notices of the Gold Region from the Latest and Most Authentic Sources

by John Charles Frémont

About the author

Born in Savannah, Georgia, in 1813, he built an early career in surveying and exploration. His government expeditions across the Rocky Mountains, Oregon, and California made him one of the best-known American figures of westward expansion, and his published reports brought those journeys to a wide reading public.

His life moved far beyond exploration. He played a prominent part in the U.S. conquest of California during the Mexican-American War, became one of California's first U.S. senators, and in 1856 was chosen as the first presidential candidate of the Republican Party. During the Civil War, he served as a Union general, though his command was controversial.

Remembered as a bold and complicated public figure, he combined genuine skill as a surveyor and mapmaker with a taste for risk, ambition, and dramatic turns of fortune. That mix of exploration, politics, and personal legend has kept him central to the story of nineteenth-century America.