War With Mexico
"During the day [Polk] had signed the bill which recognized (not, as the Diary says, declared) a state of war, and had issued the necessary proclimation. So the United States…
Jim Clyman on Hastings’ Cutoff
"The wagon train grew quiet but this one fire was kept blazing – a carmine splash against the blue-velvet night, the desert stars near above it, the white bow of…
Francis Parkman’s Group
"[Parkman] could not suffer the Pukes or the Suckers. So he joined three Englishmen whom he had met at St. Louis, preparing for a summer on the plains, and who…
Independence, MO 1846
"It was still raining in early May, wagons bogged to the hubs, and one waded to Colonel Noland's tavern or Robert Weston's blacksmith shop through a knee-deep solution of red Missouri clay. Either…
The Great Migration of ’46
"The "Great Migration" of the histories is variously the first big push toward Oregon in 1843 or the more populous one of '45. The phrase is rightly used in that, as the…
California Rumors
Lansford Hastings' bright, deluded mind was a-boil. He was fresh from helping John Bidwell lay out a theoretical town called Sutterville, which could use buyers. He was the local representative…
Frémont on Gavilan
"At the beginning of March, Fremont was continuing his northward progress toward Oregon by moving west over the Santa Cruz Mountains and south toward Monterey. In violation of his agreement…
Brigham Young and Zion
Brigham Young was a realist. Texas was out of the question; it was square in the path of empire, and if the Saints could not survive among Illini and Missourians,…
Joseph Smith
"But it must not be forgotten that, during the last two years of his life, Joseph's paranoia had increased. He had always been drunk on glory, now he was drunk…
Alexander Doniphan
"One of [Boggs's] militia commanders in 1838 was Alexander Doniphan. He was a famous jury lawyer, probably the best in all Missouri, and it followed naturally that he commanded six…
Governor Lillburn Boggs
"A note on Missouri, to introduce two persons of our drama. It was Lillburn W. Boggs who, as governor of the state, had loosed six thousand militia on the Mormons…
Frémont’s Report
"Much more widely read [than Hastings' guide], Fremont's was a much better book. It knew what it was talking about, and when Bill Bowen read that, there was wood or…
Langford Hastings
"This Hastings was a Fremont in miniature. He is an elusive soul, not much can be said about him with certainty. A young man on the make, he was at…
Frémont
" He proved himself a first-rate wilderness commander, learning his new trade from two of its masters, Kit Carson and Tom Fitzpatrick. He traveled little country that his instructors had not had…
Expansionism in California
"It is not clear that Polk knew what he meant by it. Expansionism, North or South, included California, but this meant little more than a recognition of Monterey, where the…