As an explorer, John Charles Frémont led five expeditions into the American West--two of them disastrous. He was also one of California’s first two senators (1850), America’s first Republican candidate for president (1856), a Civil War general, and the territorial governor of Arizona (1878-83). But his life was one of rash and rebellious conduct against authority. During the Mexican War he claimed to be the military governor of California, which resulted in a court-martial in 1848. At the outbreak of the Civil War he reentered the army as one of four major generals, outranking even Ulysses S. Grant. However, when he antagonized President Abraham Lincoln by issuing his own emancipation proclamation in advance of the president’s, Lincoln relieved him of command. In this comprehensive biography, Andrew Rolle carefully examines the historical record with a psychobiographical approach that explores and explains the many irrationalities of Frémont’s character.

Foreword by Richard Dillon. Between 1842 and 1853, John C. Fremont led five expeditions across the trans-Mississippi West. While the success of his early journeys gained him acclaim as a national hero, his later missions ended in tragedy and ultimately a court-martial. Historian Ferol Egan focuses on Fremont’s explorations, providing a vivid portrait of a courageous man in an emerging young nation.

For forty years, A Colorado History has provided a comprehensive and accessible panoramic history of the Centennial State. From the arrival of the Paleo-Indians to contemporary times, this enlarged edition leads readers on an extraordinary exploration of a remarkable place.

“The most eloquent, understanding, and yet very candid biography of Frémont that has appeared to date”—Howard R. Lamar, Yale University The career of John Charles Frémont (1813–90) ties together the full breadth of American expansionism from its eighteenth-century origins through its culmination in the Gilded Age. Tom Chaffin's biography demonstrates Frémont's vital importance to the history of American empire, and illuminates his role in shattering long-held myths about the ecology and habitability of the American West. As the most celebrated American explorer and mapper of his time, Frémont stood at the center of the vast federal project of western exploration and conquest. His expeditions between 1838 and 1854 captured the public's imagination, inspired Americans to accept their nation's destiny as a vast continental empire, and earned him his enduring sobriquet, the Pathfinder. But Frémont was more than an explorer. Chaffin's dramatic narrative includes Frémont's varied experiences as an entrepreneur, abolitionist, Civil War general, husband to the remarkable Jessie Benton Frémont, two-time Republican presidential candidate, and Gilded Age aristocrat. This new paperback edition of Pathfinder features a new, additional, updated introduction by the author.