requested Col. Babbitt to hand to Col. Benton as soon as possible. "PARAWAN, IRON COUNTY, "UTAH TERRITORY, Feb. 9, 1854. "DEAR SIR: I have had the good fortune to meet here our friend Mr. Babbitt, the Secretary of the Territory, who is on his way to Wash ington, in charge of the mail and other very interesting dispatches, the importance of which is urging him forward with extreme rapidity. He passes directly on this morning, and I have barely a few moments to give you intelligence of our safe arrival and of our general good health and reasonable success in the object of our expedition. "This winter has happened to be one of extreme and unusual cold. Here, the citizens inform me, it has been altogether the severest since the settlement of this valley. Consequently, so far as the snows are con cerned, the main condition of our exploration has been fulfilled. We entered the mountain regions on the Huerfano River on the 3rd of December, and issued from it here on the 7th of this month, arriving here yesterday afternoon. We went through the Cochatope Pass on the 14th December, with four inches-not feet, take notice, but inchesof snow on the level, among the pines and in the shade on the summit of the Pass. "This decides what you consider the great question, and fulfills the leading condition of my explorations; and therefore I go no further into details in this letter. "I congratulate you on this verification of your judgment, and the good prospect it holds out of final success in carrying the road by this central line. Nature has been bountiful to this region, in accu mulating here, within a few miles of where I am writing, vast deposits of iron, and coal, and timber, all of the most excellent quality; and a great and powerful interior State will spring up immediately in the steps of the Congressional action which should decide to carry the road through this region. In making my expedition to this point I save nearly a parallel of latitude, shortening the usual distance from Green River to this point by over a hundred miles. In crossing to the Sierra Nevada I shall go direct by an unexplored route, aiming to strike directly the Tejon Passes at the head of the San Joaquin valley, through which in 1850, I drove from two to three thousand head of cattle that I delivered *Valley of the Parawan, about 60 miles east of the meadows of Santa Clara, between 37 and 38 degrees of north latitude, and between 113 and 114 degrees of west longitude: elevation above the sea about 5,000 feet. to the Indian Commissioners. I shall make what speed I possibly can, going light, and abandoning the more elaborated survey of my previous line, to gain speed. "Until within about a hundred miles of this place we had daguerreotyped the country over which we passed, but were forced to abandon all our heavy baggage to save the men, and I shall not stop to send back for it. The Delawares all came in sound, but the whites of my party were all exhausted and broken up, and more or less frost-bitten. I lost one, Mr. Fuller, of St. Louis, Missouri, who died on entering this valley. He died like a man, on horseback, in his saddle, and will be buried like a soldier on the spot where he fell.* "I hope soon to see you in Washington. Mr. Babbitt expects to see you before the end of March. Among other documents which he carries with him are the maps and report of Captain Gunnison's party. "Col. BENTON, Washington. "Sincerely and affectionately, "JOHN C. FREMONT. "P. S.-This is the Little Salt Lake settlement, and was commenced three years since. Population now four hundred, and one death by sickness since the settlement was made. We have been most hospitably received. Mr. Babbitt has been particularly kind, and has rendered me very valuable assistance." Col. Babbitt reported in San Francisco that the chances were against the party ever coming through, they were so enfeebled. In this, however, he had miscalculated the energy and resources of the man who conducted it, though he did not exaggerate the difficulties which were to be met and overcome. Col. Fremont did arrive about the first of May, worn and enfeebled it is true, by his journey, but with the evidences for which he had encountered all its perils in his hand. Col. Fremont was tendered a public dinner by the citizens of San Francisco soon after his arrival; he declined the compliment however, as he did every engagement having a tendency to delay his departure * See journal of Mr. Carvlho. for Washington, whither he desired to carry the results of his explorations with all practicable dispatch, in order that Congress, then occupied with the subject of a transcontinental road, might have the benefit of his observations. No official report of this expedition has yet been prepared, but immediately upon reaching Washington he summed out its results and the conclusions to which it had brought him, in a very instructive and interesting letter communicated to a Washington paper. * * See Appendix. CHAPTER XVIII. COL. FREMONT COMES TO RESIDE IN NEW YORK-IS TALKED KANSAS-LETTER REPUBLICAN YORK UPON THE SUBJECT OF TROUBLES IN KANSASIS NOMINATED FOR THE PRESIDENCY RY THE NATIONAL OF ACCEPTANCELETTER ACCEPTING THE NOMINATION OF THE NATIONAL AMERICANS." CONVENTION-LETTER In the spring of 1855, Col. Fremont, with his family, took up his residence in the city of New York for a few months, that he might avail himself of the facilities which that metropolis would afford him in bringing out an elaborate report of his last expedition. While thus employed and living in the most absolute seclusion, his name began to be discussed in political circles as a suitable candidate of the parties opposed to extending slavery and slave representation in the country, for the next Presidency. Wherever the suggestion was made it was favorably received, and before the meeting of Congress, in December, the feeling of the Northern States was ascertained to be not unfriendly to his nomination, though his name, up to that time, we believe had not been mentioned in connection with the Presidency by a single leading journal. The election to the speakership of the thirty-fourth Congress, of N. P. Banks, of Massachusetts, who had been one of the first to discern the fitness and expediency of nominating Col. Fremont for the Presidency, and the publication of a friendly letter from an old California friend, Governor Charles Robinson, who had then recently become involved in a perilous struggle for freedom in Kansas, removed whatever doubts had existed among Col. Fremont's friends about the propriety of publicly presenting his name. Gov. Robinson had shared with Col. Fremont some of the penalties of too great devotion to the cause of freedom when they were together in California, and the letter to which we have referred, was written to give the governor assurance of his cordial sympathy with him in the important contest which he was waging so bravely against fearful odds in Kansas. It ran as follows: LETTER FROM COL. FREMONT TO GOV. ROBINSON. NEW YORK, March 17, 1856. "MY DEAR SIR: Your letter of February reached me in Washington some time since. I read it with much satisfaction. It was a great pleasure to find you retained so lively a recollection of our intercourse in California. But my own experience is, that permanent and valuable friendships are most often formed in contests and struggles. If a man has good points, then they become salient, and we know each other suddenly. "I had both been thinking and speaking of you latterly. The Banks balloting in the House, and your movements in Kansas, have naturally carried my mind back to our hundred odd ballots in California and your letter came seasonably and fitly to complete the connection. We were defeated then; but that contest was only an incident in a great struggle, and the victory was deferred, not lost. You have carried to another field the same principle, with courage |