OF

THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES

OF

JOHN CHARLES FREMONT,

INCLUDING AN ACCOUNT OF HIS EXPLORATIONS, DISCOVERIES AND ADVENTURES ON FIVE
SUCCESSIVE EXPEDITIONS ACROSS THE NORTH AMERICAN CONTINENT; VOLUMINOUS

SELECTIONS FROM HIS PRIVATE AND PUBLIC CORRESPONDENCE; HIS

DEFENCE BEFORE THE COURT MARTIAL, AND FULL REPORTS

OF HIS PRINCIPAL SPEECHES IN THE SENATE

of the UNITED STATES.

BY JOHN BIGELOW.

WITH SPIRITED ILLUSTRATIONS, AND AN ACCURATE PORTRAIT ON STEEL.

NEW YORK:

DERBY & JACKSON, 119 NASSAU ST.

H. W. DERBY & CO., CINCINNATI.

ENTERED According to Act of Congress, in the year 1856, by

DERBY & JACKSON

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States, for the Southern District of New York.

W. H. TINSON, Stereotyper.

To

ALEXANDER VON

HUMBOLDT,

THIS MEMOIR OF ONE WHOSE

GENIUS HE WAS AMONG THE FIRST TO DISCOVER AND ACKNOWLEDGE,

IS RESPECTFULLY INSCRIBED BY

THE AUTHOR.

PREFACE.

THE engrossing and universal interest recently awakened, in the subject of this memoir, by the presentation of his name as a candidate for the Presidency, is the author's apology for the faults of hasty preparation, which appear in the following pages. He felt, however, that the public were more concerned with the matter than the manner of his work, and would pardon almost anything in its execution more readily than delay. Under this impression he has aimed at but two results-fullness and accuracy. He has endeavored to lay before the reader every event in the life of Col. Fremont, and the substance of every letter, report, or speech of a public character that he has written or made, having a tendency to enlighten the country in regard to his qualifications for the highest honors of the Republic. The author is not conscious of having suppressed anything that ought to have been revealed, or of having stated a single fact which he did not believe to be susceptible of proof. To escape the suspicions, however, to which a biography of a presidential candidate is necessarily exposed, he has uniformly given official documents and contemporary evidence of the events he records, whenever it was practicable, that his readers may have as little trouble as possible in adjusting the measure of allowance to be