THE LIFE OF COL. JOHN CHARLES FREMONT, AND HIS NARRATIVE OF EXPLORATIONS AND ADVENTURES, IN KANSAS, NEBRASKA, OREGON AND CALIFORNIA. THE MEMOIR BY SAMUEL M. SMUCKER, A. M., AUTHOR OF "THE LIFE AND REIGN OF CATHERINE IL," "NICHOLAS I. OF RUSSIA," ETC. NEW YORK AND AUBURN: MILLER, ORTON & MULLIGAN. New York: 25 Park Row-Auburn: 107 Genesee-st. 1856. 210. d. 45. Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year one thousand eight hundred and fifty-six, BY MILLER, ORTON & MULLIGAN, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the Northern District of New York. AUBURN: MILLER, ORTON & MULLIGAN, STEREOTYPERS AND PRINTERS. PREFACE. JOHN CHARLES FREMONT was the heir of poverty. His inheritance, however, was the richest of all legacies "a sound mind in a sound body." The love and care of a widowed mother, and the responsibility, as the eldest of the group, attendant upon the protection and maintenance of an orphaned brother and sister, were the chief means of his early discipline. Though destitute of the adventitious aids of wealth or influential connections, his own sterling qualities were more than a compensation. He possessed, in an eminent degree, what alone constitute the basis of true greatness, and of certain and continuous success-vigorous powers of mind and body, entire self-reliance, and persevering application to wisely-hosen pursuits. That he should have risen from a position so humble, by the unaided influence of his own powers, to one so conspicuous as that which he now occupies, is at once a gratifying tribute to his genius and worth, and an example full of encouragement to American youth. In the first great civil contest between freedom and slavery, he has been selected as the standard-bearer of the former. From among the scores of experienced, talented, and noble men, he, the youngest, and in some respects the least experienced of them all, has been selected, not rashly and in haste, not by excited and inconsiderate men, but by one of the largest, most talent ed, august, and deliberate political bodies that ever convened in this country. Nor was he the choice of a majority only. With a unanimity as general as it was marked and hearty, was he selected; and the selection is responded to with a zeal and enthusiasm scarcely paralleled in our political annals. Why is this so? It is believed the following pages will furnish the solution. His MEMOIR, exhibiting his personal characteristics, will show the remarkable vigor of his mind-the astonishing rapidity with which he mastered any subject to which his attention was directed, the resolute and unyielding perseverance with which he pursued every enterprise, and the unvarying success which has thus far attended his career. His NARRATIVE OF ADVENTURES AND EXPLORATIONS, written in the discharge of a professional trust, and before he had any political aspirations, will be found to corroborate and strengthen the impressions made by the Memoir. It will show him brave, resolute, watchful, patient of toil, securing obedience and order under the most trying circumstances-persevering, like a second Columbus, in the face of dangers, difficulties, and privations, to the glorious consummation of every trust committed to him. May his past be the true augury of his future. As with his own hand he planted our national banner on the summit of the Rocky Mountains, that it might wave over the millions of freemen soon to inhabit their eastern and western slopes, so may the same hand unfurl the same banner from the flag-staff of our national capital, to wave a signal of protection over every acre of our national domain. |