John C. Frémont

Included here are in-depth biographies of General John C. Frémont. Sources include Scribner’s Dictionary of American Biography, Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, the Federal Publishing Company’s The Union Army: A History of Military Affairs in the Loyal States 1861-65—Records of the Regiments in the Union Army—Cyclopedia of Battles—Memoirs of Commanders and Soldiers, Vol. VIII, Biographical, and Scribner’s Campaigns of the Civil War.

Scribner’s Dictionary of American Biography - SEE BELOW

Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography - SEE BELOW

Federal Publishing Company’s The Union Army

Scribner’s Campaigns of the Civil War, Supplementary Vol. - Statistical Record of the Armies of the United States, by Frederick Phisterer

Civil War Library website

Fremont and the founding of the Republican Party

John C. Frémont - Scribner’s Dictionary of American Biography

FREMONT, JOHN CHARLES (Jan. 21, 1813-July 13, 1890), explorer, politician, soldier, was the son of a French emigre school-teacher of Richmond, Va., Jean Charles Fremon, who eloped with Mrs. Anne Whiting Pryor of that city in 1811. They fled from Mrs. Pryor's aged husband to Savannah, Ga., where Fremont was born. While the father taught French and dancing in various p arts of the South, the mother sometimes took boarders. The family spent some years in Norfolk, Va., and after the death of Fremon in 1818 his widow (if we may so call her in the absence of any marriage) removed to Charleston, S. C., where she supported several children on a meager inherited income. Fremont was precocious, handsome, and daring, and quickly showed an aptitude for obtaining protectors. A lawyer, John W. Mitchell, saw that he was givein sufficient schooling to enter Charleston College in May 1829, and he remained there, with intervals of teaching in the country, till expelled for irregular attendance in 1831. Fortunately the college had grounded him in mathematics and the natural sciences. Fortunately also he had attracted the attention of Joel R. Poinsett, Jacksonian leader in the state, and shortly obtained through him an appointment as teacher of mathematics on the sloop of war Natchez. On this ship he cruised in South American waters in 1833.

Fremont's real career began when he resigned from the navy to become a second lieutenant in the United States Topographical Corps and to assist in surveying the route of a projected railway between Charleston and Cincinnati. In his work in the Carolina mountains he formed a strong taste for wilderness exploration. This was deepened when in 1837-38 he acted with another detachment of the Topographical Corps in a reconnaissance of the Cherokee country in Georgia, instituted by the government preparatory to the removal of the Indians. Ordered thence to Washington, Fremont obtained from Poinsett a place with the expedition of J. N. Nicollet [q.v.] for exploring the plateau between the upper Mississippi and Missouri Rivers. Nicollet; a scientist of high reputation in Paris and Washington, gave him an expert training in astronomical, topographical, and geological observation, for which Fremont's quick mind had a natural taste. He also received a thorough initiation into western frontier life, becoming intimate with such men as Henry Sibley of the American Fur Company, Joseph Renville, J. B. Faribault, and Etienne Provot, meeting large bodies of Sioux, and traversing much of the country between Fort Pierre on the Missouri and Fort Snelling on the Mississippi. Returning to Washington, he took bachelor quarters with Nicollet and collaborated with him upon a map and an elaborate scientific report.

The second turning-point in Fremont's life was his meeting with Senator Thomas Hart Benton, who was greatly interested in Nicollet's work, brought Fremont to his house, and gave him a new vision of the possibilities of western exploration and expansion to the Pacific. Fremont later wrote that his interviews with Benton were "pregnant with results and decisive of my life" (Memoirs of My Life, 1887, I, 65). He fell in love with the sixteen-year-old Jessie Benton. Alarmed by their obvious attachment, her father persuaded Poinsett, now secretary of war, to send the penniless lieutenant to explore the Des Moines River. Fremont, elated by his first independent commission, equipped an expedition in .St. Louis, hired the botanist Charles Geyer, and during the spring and summer of 1841 creditably mapped much of Iowa Territory. Neither he nor the strong-willed Jessie Benton had swerved, however, from what was to prove a lifelong devotion, and when the Benton family remained obdurate, they were secretly married in Washington, on Oct. 19, 1841, by a Catholic priest. When Benton learned the fact in November he angrily ordered Fremont from his door, but relented when Jessie quoted the words of Ruth, "Whither thou goest, I will go." Thereafter Fremont found an invaluable adviser, patron, and protector in his father-in-law.

Fremont's first important exploration, a summer expedition in 1842 to the Wind River chain of the Rockies, was planned by Benton, Senator Lewis Linn, and other Westerners .interested in the acquisition of Oregon, and marked him definitely as the successor of the now dying Nicollet. Its main object was to give a scientific examination to the Oregon Trail through South Pass and to report on the rivers, the fertility of the country, the best positions for forts; and the nature of the mountains beyond in Wyoming. Equipping a party of twenty-five in St. Louis with the aid of Cyprian Chouteau and obtaining by a lucky chance the services of Kit Carson as guide; Fremont left the Kansas River on June 15, 1842; followed the Platte toward the Rockies, crossed South Pass, and from the headwaters of the Green River explored the Wind River range, where he climbed what he mistakenly thought to be the highest peak of the Rockies, Fremont's Peak (13,730 feet). On his return he recklessly shot the rapids of the swollen Platte in a rubber boat and lost much of his equipment (F. S. Dellenbaugh, Fremont and '49, 1914, p. 65 ff.). He was back in Washington in October, and with Jessie Fremont's expert help, for she possessed high literary gifts, he composed . a report which gave him a wide popular reputation (Report of the Exploring Expedition to the Rocky Mountains, 1843). Modeled on Irving's Adventures of Captain Bonneville, it showed a zest for adventure and a descriptive sparkle which appealed to the fast-growing interest in Oregon settlement. It furnished a scientific map of much of the Oregon Trail prepared by the topographer Charles Preuss, emphasized the fertility of the plains, and offered much practical advice to emigrants. Government publication was followed by numerous reprints. Congress, prompted by Benton, at once authorized a second expedition under Fremont which was to reach the South Pass by a different route, push to the Columbia, and examine the Oregon country, connecting on the Pacific with the coastal surveys by Commander Wilkes.

Fremont's second expedition of almost forty well-equipped men left the Missouri River in May 1843, with Thomas Fitzpatrick as guide, Preuss as topographer, and a twelve-pound howitzer cannon which he rashly obtained from Col. S. W. Kearny in St. Louis. Its departure was hastened by an urgent message from Jessie Fremont, who suppressed a War Department order requiring Fremont to return to Washington to explain his howitzer; the government objected to giving the expedition the appearance of a military reconnaissance. Benton later successfully defended his daughter's action. On the Arkansas River Fremont was joined by Kit Carson. After an unavailing effort to blaze a new trail through northern Colorado, he struck the regular Oregon Trail, on which he passed the main body of the great emigration of 1843; stopped to explore the Great Salt Lake; and pushed on by way of Fort Hall and Fort Boise to Marcus Whitman's mission on the Columbia. His endurance, energy, and resourcefulness were remarkable. Reaching the Dalles on Nov. 5, Fremont left the main body of his expedition while he went down stream to Fort Vancouver for supplies. He might then have retraced his steps to St. Louis. But under the spell of Benton's dream of acquiring the whole West, he resolved to turn south and explore the Great Basin between the Rockies and Sierras. Moving through Oregon to Pyramid Lake, which he named, and into Nevada, he reached the Carson River on Jan. 18, 1844. From a point near the site of Virginia City he resolved to cross the Sierra into California, a feat daring to the point of foolhardiness, yet despite the perils of cold and snow he accomplished it. Early in March he reached the Sacramento Valley and was hospitably received by Capt. August Sutter at his fort, where he refitted his party. While here he talked with the American settlers, now growing numerous, and formed a clear impress ion of the feeble Mexican hold upon California. Moving south till he struck the "Spanish Trail" from Los Angeles to Santa Fe, he followed this for some distance, crossed parts of the present states of Nevada and Utah, explored Utah Lake, and by way of Pueblo reached Bent's Fort on the Arkansas. Not until August 1844 did he arrive in St. Louis. His return was one of the sensations of the day. Accompanied by Jessie, he traveled to Washington and devoted the winter with her aid to his second report. It appeared at a fortunate moment, when Polk's victory had given impetus to policies of expansion. As detailed, vivid, and readable as the first report, with much careful scientific observation, it showed that the Oregon Trail was not difficult and that the Northwest was fertile and desirable. Senator Buchanan moved the printing of 10,000 copies.

With war with Mexico now clearly imminent and all eyes fixed on the West, it was easy for Benton to carry an appropriation for a third expedition under Fremont. Under the War Department, it was to execute a survey of the central Rockies, the Great Salt Lake region, and part of the Sierra Nevada. In St. Louis Fremont equipped sixty men, fully armed; Kit Carson was again called to be his guide, and two other distinguished frontiersmen, Joseph Walker and Alexander Godey, were enlisted. Fremont in his Memoirs (I, 422 ff.) states that it was secretly intended by Benton and George Bancroft, secretary of the navy, that if he reached California and found war had begun, he should transform his scientific force into a military body. Unquestionably he desired to play a role in conquering California, which had captivated him by its beauty and wealth, and this desire furnishes the key to his very controversial conduct there. Moving west by way of Bent's Fort, the Great Salt Lake, and the "Hastings Cut-Off," he reached the Ogden River, which he renamed the Humboldt, and divided his party in order to double his geographical information. On Dec. 9, 1845, after blazing a useful new trail across Nevada, he was again at Sutter's Fort. Under the pretext of obtaining fuller supplies, he took his men to Monterey and established contact there with the American con~ sul, Thomas Larkin. In February 1846 he united with the other branch of his expedition near San Jose, thus giving the United States a formidable little force in the heart of California. The suspicious Mexican officials ordered him from the country but with headstrong audacity he promptly hoisted the American flag, defying them. Then, obviously playing for time, he moved north to Klamath Lake, where on May 8 he was overtaken by Lieut. A. H. Gillespie from Washington. Gillespie had brought dispatches to Larkin, of which he carried copies to Fremont, and according to the latter he also brought verbal instructions from Benton and Buchanan which justified aggressive action. There can be no question that he brought news that both Larkin and the commander of the American warship Portsmouth in San Francisco Bay expected war to begin in a few days (Larkin Manuscripts, State Department, letters of Apr. 17, 23, 1846). Fremont felt that his course was clear and turned back.

The result was that he played a prominent if at first hesitating role in the conquest of California. Hastening to Sutter's Fort, he made a display of force there which inspired the discontented American settlers in the Sacramento Valley to begin the Bear Flag revolt, and then (June 23) took up arms in their support. When news of actual war reached him on July 10 he actively cooperated with Sloat and Stockton in the conquest of California. His "California Battalion" of expedition- members and settlers marched to Monterey, took ship to San Diego, and with Stockton's force captured Los Angeles on Aug. 13. Fremont then went north to muster a larger force, was busy recruiting when a revolt wrested Los Angeles from the Americans, and returned only in time to assist Stockton and Gen. S. W. Kearny in the final capture of that town in January 1847. He accepted the Mexican surrender in the Capitulation of Couenga. Almost immediately he was involved in the bitter quarrel of Stockton and Kearny [qq.v.] over their respective authorities, caused by conflicting instructions from Washington. Taking Stockton's side, he was appointed by him civil governor of California, and exercised that authority for two months, until final orders from Washington established Kearny's supremacy. Kearny humiliated Fremont, detained him in defiance of Polk's orders that he was allowed to proceed to Mexico, and, taking him to Fort Leavenworth as a virtual prisoner, there arrested him upon charges of mutiny and insubordination. The quarrel was taken up with indiscreet energy by Benton. It resulted in a famous court martial in Washington (November 1847-January 1848) in which a panel of regular officers found Fremont guilty of mutiny, disobedience, and conduct prejudicial to order. Though President Polk remitted the penalty, Fremont, who found public sentiment on his side, indignantly resigned from the service.

This resignation was followed by a midwinter expedition (1848-49), at the expense of Benton and certain wealthy St. Louisans interested in a Pacific railroad, to find passes for such a line westward from the upper waters of the Rio Grande. It proved a disastrous venture. Eager to show that passage of the mountains was practicable in midwinter, Fremont ignored frontiersmen who warned him that the Sangre de Cristo and San Juan ranges were impassable. He was led astray by his guide "Old Bill" Williams, but he unwisely failed to turn back from the San Juan Mountains in time, and after intense suffering from cold, storms, and starvation, lost eleven men. Succored by Kit Carson and others in Taos, he proceeded to California, meeting on the Gila a troop of Sonora Mexicans who told him that gold had been discovered. Consul Larkin had recently purchased for him a tract of seventy square miles in the Sierra foothills, the Mariposa estate, and he hired the Mexicans to work there on shares. Within a few weeks his income from the diggings reached enormous sums-Jessie Fremont speaks of hundred-pound bags of gold dust-and he was able to acquire large realty interests in San Francisco, live on a generous scale in Monterey, and develop his Mariposa property. His election as United States senator in December 1850 gave him only the short term from Sept. 9, 1850, to Mar. 4, 1851.

Fremont remained essentially a Californian till the Civil War, but with restless energy spent much time outside the state. He served six weeks as senator in Washington, made a prolonged stay with his family in London and Paris (1852-53) , gathering capital to work the quartz deposits at Mariposa, and conducted another winter exploration in search of a southern railway route to the Pacific (1853-54). In this expedition he reached central Utah with a small body of men after a journey of great hardship, demonstrating that practicable passes through the mountains existed between north latitude 37° and 38°. But the most important event of these years was his nomination for the presidency. His explorations and court martial had made him a national hero, while his aloofness from the slavery contest rendered him available. First approached by Democratic leaders, including Ex-Gov. John B. Floyd of Virginia and members of the influential Preston family, he pronounce d himself vigorously for a free-soil Kansas and against enforcement of the Fugitive-Slave Law (Jessie Benton Fremont Manuscripts). Organizers of the new national Republican party, led by N. P. Banks, Henry Wilson, and John Bigelow, then took him up, and he was nominated at Philadelphia in June 1856. He had hoped that Simon Cameron would be named for vice-president, and always regarded the nomination of W. L. Dayton as one of the causes of his defeat. Possessing no taste or aptitude for politics, he played as passive a role as his opponent, Buchanan. In a campaign notable for abusiveness, much being made of his illegitimate birth and a mendacious report that he was a Catholic, he remained quietly at his Ninth St. home in New York. His defeat by Buchanan by an electoral vote of 174 to 114, and a popular vote of 1,838, 169 to 1,341,264, was clue partly to fear of Southern secession and partly to lack of campaign funds. Fremont shortly returned to California and devoted himself to his mining business, his title to Mariposa, then valued by some at ten million dollars, being confirmed by the federal Supreme Court in 1855.

The outbreak of the Civil War found Fremont in Europe raising more capital for Mariposa, and he attempted a bold service by hastening to England and on his own responsibility purchasing arms for the Federal cause (J. B. McMaster, History of the People of the United States, During Lincoln's Administration, 1927, p. 190). Lincoln wished to appoint him minister to France, but when Secretary Seward protested, appointed him major-general in charge of the department of the West, with headquarters at St. Louis, where he arrived July 25, 1861. The task before him was of tremendous difficulty; he had to organize an army in a slave state, largely disloyal, with few arms, few supplies, and limited numbers of raw volunteers for material, and with political and military enemies ready to make the most of every misstep. When he took charge guerrilla warfare was breaking out in Missouri, while his forces at Cairo, Ill., and Spring field, Mo., were menaced by superior armies. He accomplished much, reinforcing Cairo, fortifying St. Louis, organizing a squadron of river gunboats, arousing the enthusiasm of the German population, and training large bodies of men; but the defeats at Wilson's Creek, and Lexington were unfairly blamed upon him, he was justly accused of ostentation and reckless expenditures, and the attacks of Frank Blair cost him Lincoln's confidence. He blundered when on Aug. 30, 1861, he issued a rash proclamation declaring the property of Missourians in rebellion confiscated and their slaves emancipated; this act aroused the applause of radical Northerners, but Lincoln rightly regarded it as premature and when Fremont refused to retract issued an order modifying it. In response to growing complaints Lincoln sent first Montgomery Blair, and later Secretary Cameron and Lorenzo Thomas, to Missouri to investigate, and on the basis of their reports removed Fremont as he was leading an army in futile pursuit of Price's Confederate force (Nov. 2, 1861). The antagonisms aroused in the West by Fremont would alone have justified such action, but the removal was bitterly resented by radical anti-slavery men, and was indirectly censured by the congressional committee on the conduct of the war. Out of regard for this radical opinion, Lincoln in March 1862 appointed Fremont to command the mountain department in western Virginia. But he was given inadequate forces, his command was improperly divided by the government, Lincoln plainly distrusted him, and in May and June 1862 he was completely out generalled by "Stonewall" Jackson in the latter's brilliant Valley campaign. Lincoln then placed Fremont and his corps under the command of Pope, whom Fremont detested for. his alleged insubordination in Missouri, and Fremont asked to be relieved.

Thereafter Fremont's history was one of adversity. Still popular with the radical Republicans who disliked Lincoln, he was nominated for the presidency on May 31, 1864, in Cleveland, but a convention of radicals, western Germans, and war Democrats. His candidacy disturbed the administration, and by a bargain between it and Fremont's radical supporters, Fremont ungracefully withdrew on Sept. 22, 1864, and Lincoln the next day dismissed the ultra-conservative Montgomery Blair from his cabinet. Fremont played no further part in public life. Turning to business, he proved unable to rescue his Mariposa estate from the embarrassments into which it had fallen during his preoccupation with the war, and by the end of 1864 had lost control of that property. For finance, as for war, he lacked essential qualities of judgment. He became interested in western railroads, and after purchasing the Kansas Pacific franchise and a part-interest in the Memphis & Little Rock, he became president and promoter of the Memphis & El Paso, which he dreamed of extending from Norfolk, Va., to San Diego, Cal. Though hi, methods were merely those characteristic of promoters in the flush years preceding 1873, the bankruptcy of the line in 1870 not only cost him the remnants of his fortune, but left his reputation under a cloud. Misleading advertisements in French papers, for which he was indirectly responsible, caused his indictment in that country. He never reestablished himself, and was saved from poverty only by Jessie Benton Fremont's activities as an author, his appointment as territorial governor of Arizona (1878-83), and his restoration to the army as major-general, with pay on the retired list, early in 1890. In 1887 he made his home in California, but death came while he was temporarily staying in New York. He and his wife, who survived until 1902, are buried at Piermont on the Hudson. His whole later career had been a tragic anti-climax; but his fame as an explorer, in which his achievements were of very high rank, is commemorated by numerous place-names throughout the United States, and represents services which cannot be forgotten.

[The fullest Work on Fremont's life is Allan Nevins, Fremont, the West's Greatest Adventurer (2 vols., 1928); it is based in part on family documents, and contains an extensive bibliography. It is supplemented by Fremont's Memoirs of My Life (1887), of which but one volume was ever published;
by Mrs. Fremont's Souvenirs of My Time (1887), Far West Sketches (1890), and A Year of American Travel (1878), valuable in the order mentioned; and by F. S. Dellenbaugh's Fremont and '49 (1914).
Of less importance are S. N. Carvalho, Incidents of Travel and Adventure in the Far West with Fremont's Last Expedition (1857);
John R. Howard, Remembrance of Things Past (1925), by a member of Fremont's staff in Missouri;
the manuscript "Narrative of John C. Fremont's Expedition in Cal. 1845-46," by Thos. S. Martin, in the Bancroft Library Cal.;
and John Fowler's manuscript paper on "The Bear Flag Revolt in Cal." ( 1846), in the same collection.
The Recollections of Elizabeth Benton Fremont (1912), compiled by I. T. Martin, contains materials by his daughter. There is an obituary in the N. Y. Tribune, July 14, 1890.
Cardinal Goodwin, John Chas. Fremont: An Explanation of His Career (1930), is an able but excessively hostile treatment which centers attention upon the Bear Flag Revolt, the events of 1861, and the subsequent railroad transactions.
All of Fremont's papers which survive, many having been destroyed in a fire, are in the Bancroft Library.]

A. N.

Source: Dictionary of American Biography, Volume IV, Edited by Dumas Malone, New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1930, 19-23.

John C. Frémont - Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography

FRÉMONT, John Charles, explorer, born in Savannah, Georgia, 21 January, 1813; died in New York City, 13 July, 1890. His father, who was a Frenchman, had settled in Norfolk, Virginia, early married Anne Beverley Whiting, a Virginian lady, and supported himself by teaching his native language. After his death, which took place in 1818, his widow moved with her three infant children to Charleston, South Carolina. John Charles entered the junior class of Charleston College in 1828, and for some time stood high, especially in mathematics; but his inattention and frequent absences at length caused his expulsion. He then employed himself as a private teacher of mathematics, and at the same time taught an evening school. He became teacher of mathematics on the sloop-of-war “Natchez” in 1833, and after a cruise of two years returned, and was given his degree by the college that had expelled him. He then passed a rigorous examination at Baltimore for a professorship in the U. S. Navy, and was appointed to the frigate “Independence,” but declined, and became an assistant engineer under Captain William G. Williams, of the U. S. Topographical Corps, on surveys for a projected railroad between Charleston and Cincinnati, aiding particularly in the exploration of the mountain passes between North Carolina and Tennessee. This work was suspended in 1837, and Frémont accompanied Captain Williams in a military reconnaissance of the mountainous Cherokee country in Georgia, North Carolina, and Tennessee, made rapidly, in the depth of winter, in anticipation of hostilities with the Indians. On 7 July, 1838, while engaged with Jean Nicolas Nicollet in exploring, under government authority, the country between the Missouri and the northern frontier, he was commissioned by President Van Buren as 2d lieutenant of topographical engineers. He went to Washington in 1840 to prepare his report, and while there met Jessie, daughter of Thomas H. Benton, then senator from Missouri. An engagement was formed, but, as the lady was only fifteen years of age, her parents objected to the match; and suddenly, probably through the influence of Colonel Benton, the young officer received from the war department an order to make an examination of the River Des Moines on the western frontier. The survey was made rapidly, and shortly after his return from this duty the lovers were secretly married, 19 October, 1841. In 1842, Frémont was instructed by the War Department to take charge of an expedition for the exploration of the Rocky mountains, particularly the South pass. He left Washington on 2 May, and in four months had carefully examined the South pass and explored the Wind River mountains, ascending their highest point, since known as Frémont's peak (13,570 ft.). His report of the expedition was laid before Congress in the winter of 1842-'3, and attracted much attention both at home and abroad. Immediately afterward, Frémont determined to explore the unknown region between the Rocky mountains and the Pacific, and set out in May, 1843, with thirty-nine men. On 6 September, after travelling over 1,700 miles, he came in sight of Great Salt lake. His investigations corrected many vague and erroneous ideas about this region, of which no accurate account had ever been given, and had great influence in promoting the settlement of Utah and the Pacific states. It was his report of this expedition that gave to the Mormons their first idea of Utah as a place of residence. After leaving Great Salt Lake, he explored the upper tributaries of the Columbia, descended the valley of that River to Fort Vancouver, near its mouth, and on 10 November set out on his return. His route lay through an almost unknown region leading from the Lower Columbia to the Upper Colorado, and was crossed by high and rugged mountain-chains. Deep snow soon forced him to descend into the great basin, and he presently found himself, in the depth of winter, in a desert, with the prospect of death to his whole party from cold and hunger. By astronomical observation he found that he was in the latitude of the Bay of San Francisco; but between him and the valleys of California was a snow-clad range of mountains, which the Indians declared no man could cross, and over which no reward could induce them to attempt to guide him. Frémont undertook the passage without a guide, and accomplished it in forty days, reaching Sutter's Fort, on the Sacramento, early in March, with his men reduced almost to skeletons, and with only thirty-three out of sixty-seven horses and mules remaining. Resuming his journey on 24 March, he crossed the Sierra Nevada through a gap, and after another visit to Great Salt lake returned to Kansas through the South pass in July, 1844, having been absent fourteen months. The reports of this expedition occupied in their preparation the remainder of 1844. Frémont was given the double brevet of 1st lieutenant and captain in January, 1845, at the instance of General Scott, and in the spring of that year he set out on a third expedition to explore the great basin and the maritime region of Oregon and California. After spending the summer in exploring the watershed between the Pacific and the Mississippi, he encamped in October on the shore of the Great Salt Lake, and after crossing the Sierra Nevada with a few men, in the dead of winter, to obtain supplies, left his party in the valley of the San Joaquin while he went to Monterey, then the capital of California, to obtain from the Mexican authorities permission to proceed with his exploration. This was granted, but was almost immediately revoked, and Frémont was ordered to leave the country without delay. Compliance with this demand was impossible, on account of the exhaustion of Frémont's men and his lack of supplies, and it was therefore refused. The Mexican commander, General José Castro, then mustered the forces of the province and prepared to attack the Americans, who numbered only sixty-two. Frémont took up a strong position on the Hawk's peak, a mountain thirty miles from Monterey, built a rude fort of felled trees, hoisted the American flag, and, having plenty of ammunition, resolved to defend himself. The Mexican general, with a large force, encamped in the plain immediately below the Americans, whom he hourly threatened to attack. On the evening of the fourth day of the siege Frémont withdrew with his party and proceeded toward the San Joaquin. The fires were still burning in his deserted camp when a messenger arrived from General Castro to propose a cessation of hostilities. Frémont now made his way northward through the Sacramento valley into Oregon without further trouble, and near Klamath Lake, on 9 May, 1846, met a party in search of him with despatches from Washington, directing him to watch over the interests of the United States in California, there being reason to apprehend that the province would be transferred to Great Britain, and also that General Castro intended to destroy the American settlements on the Sacramento. He promptly returned to California, where he found that Castro was already marching against the settlements. The settlers flocked to Frémont's camp, and in less than a month he had freed northern California from Mexican authority. He received a lieutenant-colonel's commission on 27 May, and was elected governor of California by the American settlers on 4 July. On 10 July, learning that Commodore Sloat, commander of the United States Squadron on that coast, had seized Monterey, he marched to join him, and reached that place on 19 July, with 160 mounted riflemen. About this time Commodore Stockton arrived at Monterey with the frigate “Congress” and took command of the squadron, with authority from Washington to conquer California. At his request Frémont organized a force of mounted men, known as the “California battalion,” of which he was appointed major. He was also appointed by Commodore Stockton military commandant and civil governor of the territory, the project of making California independent having been relinquished on receipt of intelligence that war had begun between the United States and Mexico. On 13 January, 1847, Frémont concluded with the Mexicans articles of capitulation, which terminated the war in California and left that country permanently in the possession of the United States. Meantime General Stephen W. Kearny, with a small force of dragoons, had arrived in California. A quarrel soon broke out between him and Commodore Stockton as to who should command. Each had instructions from Washington to conquer and organize a government in the country. Frémont had accepted a commission from Commodore Stockton as commander of the battalion of volunteers, and had been appointed governor of the territory. General Kearny, as Frémont's superior officer in the regular army, required him to obey his orders, which conflicted with those of Commodore Stockton. In this dilemma Frémont concluded to obey Stockton's orders, considering that he had already fully recognized that officer as commander-in-chief, and that General Kearny had also for some time admitted his authority. In the spring of 1847 despatches from Washington assigned the command to Gen Kearny, and in June that officer set out overland for the United States, accompanied by Frémont, whom he treated with deliberate disrespect throughout the journey. On the arrival of the party at Fort Leavenworth, on 22 August, Frémont was put under arrest and ordered to report to the adjutant-general at Washington, where he arrived on 16 September, and demanded a speedy trial. Accordingly a court-martial was held, beginning 2 November, 1847, and ending 31 January, 1848, which found him guilty of “mutiny,” “disobedience of the lawful command of a superior officer,” and “conduct to the prejudice of good order and military discipline,” and sentenced him to be dismissed from the service. A majority of the members of the court recommended him to the clemency of President Polk. The president refused to confirm the verdict of mutiny, but approved the rest of the verdict and the sentence, of which, however, he remitted the penalty. Notwithstanding this, Frémont at once resigned his commission, and on 14 October, 1848, set out on a fourth expedition across the continent, at his own expense, with the object of finding a practicable passage to California by way of the upper waters of the Rio Grande. With thirty-three men and 120 mules he made his way through the country of the Utes, Apaches, Comanches, and other Indian tribes then at war with the United States. In attempting to cross the great Sierra, covered with snow, his guide lost his way, and Frémont's party encountered horrible suffering from cold and hunger, a portion of them being driven to cannibalism. All of his animals and one third of his men perished, and he was forced to retrace his steps to Santa Fé. Undaunted by this disaster, he gathered another band of thirty men, and after a long search discovered a secure route by which he reached the Sacramento in the spring of 1849. He now determined to settle in California, where, in 1847, he had bought the Mariposa estate, a large tract of land containing rich gold-mines. His title to this estate was contested, but after a long litigation it was decided in his favor in 1855 by the Supreme Court of the United States. He received from President Taylor in 1849 the appointment of commissioner to run the boundary-line between the United States and Mexico, but, having been elected by the legislature of California, in December of that year, to represent the new state in the U. S. Senate, he resigned his commissionership and departed for Washington by way of the isthmus. He took his seat in the Senate, 10 September, 1850, the day after the admission of California as a state. In drawing lots for the terms of the respective senators, Frémont drew the short term, ending 4 March, 1851. The Senate remained in session but three weeks after the admission of California, and during that period Frémont devoted himself almost exclusively to measures relating to the interests of the state he represented. For this purpose he introduced and advocated a comprehensive series of bills, embracing almost every object of legislation demanded by the peculiar circumstances of California. In the state election of 1851 in California the Anti-slavery Party, of which Frémont was one of the leaders, was defeated, and he consequently failed of re-election to the Senate, after 142 ballotings. After devoting two years to his private affairs, he visited Europe in 1852, and spent a year there, being received with distinction by many eminent men of letters and of science. He had already, in 1850, received a gold medal from the king of Prussia for his discoveries, had been awarded the “founder's medal” of the Royal geographical Society of London, and had been elected an honorary member of the Geographical Society of Berlin. His explorations had gained for him at home the name of the “Pathfinder.” While in Europe he learned that Congress had made an appropriation for the survey of three routes from the Mississippi valley to the Pacific, and immediately returned to the United States for the purpose of fitting out a fifth expedition on his own account to complete the survey of the route he had taken on his fourth expedition. He left Paris in June, 1853, and in September was on his march across the continent. He found passes through the mountains on the line of latitudes 38 and 39, and reached California in safety, after enduring great hardships. For fifty days his party lived on horse-flesh, and for forty-eight hours at a time were without food of any kind. In the spring of 1855 Frémont with his family took up his residence in New York, for the purpose of preparing for publication the narrative of his last expedition. He now began to be mentioned as an anti-slavery candidate for the presidency. In the first National Republican Convention, which met in Philadelphia on 17 June, 1856, he received 359 votes to 196 for John McLean, on an informal ballot, and on the first formal ballot Frémont was unanimously nominated. In his letter of acceptance, dated 8 July, 1856, he expressed himself strongly against the extension of slavery and in favor of free labor. A few days after the Philadelphia Convention adjourned, a National American Convention at New York also nominated him for the presidency. He accepted their support in a letter dated 30 June, in which he referred them for an exposition of his views to his forthcoming letter accepting the Republican nomination. After a spirited and exciting contest, the presidential election resulted in the choice of Mr. Buchanan by 174 electoral votes from nineteen states, while Frémont received 114 votes from eleven states, including the six New England states, New York, Ohio, Michigan, Iowa, and Wisconsin. Maryland gave her eight electoral votes for Mr. Fillmore. The popular vote for Frémont was 1,341,000; for Buchanan, 1,838,000; for Fillmore, 874,000. In 1858 Frémont went to California, where he resided for some time. In 1860 he visited Europe. Soon after the beginning of the Civil War he was made a major-general of the regular army and assigned to the command of the newly created Western Department. After purchasing arms for the U. S. government, in Europe, he returned; he arrived in St. Louis on 26 July, 1861, and made his headquarters there, fortifying the city, and placing Cairo in security by a demonstration with 4,000 troops. After the battle of Wilson's Creek, on 10 August, where General Nathaniel Lyon was slain, Frémont proclaimed martial law, arrested active secessionists, and suspended the publication of papers charged with disloyalty. On 31 August he issued a proclamation assuming the government of the state, and announcing that he would emancipate the slaves of those in arms against the United States. President Lincoln wrote to him, approving all of the proclamation except the emancipation clause, which he considered premature. He asked Frémont to withdraw it, which he declined, and the president annulled it himself in a public order. In the autumn Frémont moved his army from the Missouri River in pursuit of the enemy. Meanwhile many complaints had been made of his administration, it being alleged that it was inefficient, though arbitrary and extravagant, and after an investigation by the Secretary of War he was, on 2 November, 1861, relieved from his command just as he had overtaken the Confederates at Springfield. It is claimed by Frémont's friends that this was the result of a political intrigue against him. On leaving his army, he went to St. Louis, where he was enthusiastically received by the citizens. In March, 1862, he was given the command of the newly created “mountain district” of Virginia, Kentucky, and Tennessee. In the early part of June his army engaged a superior force under General Jackson for eight days, with constant sharp skirmishing, the enemy retreating slowly and destroying culverts and bridges to cause delay. The pursuit was terminated with a severe engagement on the evening of 6 June, in which Jackson's chief of cavalry, General Ashby, was killed, and by the battle of Cross-Keys on 8 June. It is claimed by General Frémont that if McDowell's force had joined him, as promised by the president, Jackson's retreat would have been cut off; as it was, the latter made good his escape, having accomplished his purpose of delaying re-enforcements to McClellan. On 26 June the president issued an order creating the “Army of Virginia,” to include Frémont's corps, and giving the command of it to General Pope. Thereupon Frémont asked to be relieved, on the ground that he could not serve under General Pope, for sufficient personal reasons. His request having been granted, he went to New York to await further orders, but received no other command during the war, though, as he says, one was constantly promised him. On 31 May, 1864, a convention of Republicans, dissatisfied with Mr. Lincoln, met at Cleveland and tendered to General Frémont a nomination for president, which, he accepted. In the following September a committee of Republicans representing the administration waited on him and urged his withdrawal, as “vital to the success of the party.” After considering the matter for a week, he acceded to their request, saying in his letter of withdrawal that he did so “not to aid in the triumph of Mr. Lincoln, but to do my part toward preventing the election of the Democratic candidate.”

Since 1864 General Frémont has taken little part in public affairs, but has been active in railway matters. He procured from the Texas legislature a grant of state land in the interest of the Memphis and El Paso Railway, which was to be part of a proposed trans-continental road from Norfolk to San Diego and San Francisco. The French agents employed to place the land-grant bonds of this road on the market made the false declaration that they were guaranteed by the United States. In 1869 the Senate passed a bill giving Frémont's road the right of way through the territories, an attempt to defeat it by fixing on him the onus of the misstatement in Paris having been unsuccessful. In 1873 he was prosecuted by the French government for fraud in connection with this misstatement. He did not appear in person, and was sentenced by default to fine and imprisonment, no judgment being given on the merits of the case. In 1878-'81 General Frémont was governor of Arizona. He has published “Report of the Exploring Expedition to the Rocky Mountains in 1842, and to Oregon and North California in 1843-'4” (Washington, 1845; New York, 1846; London, 1849); “Colonel J. C. Frémont's Explorations,” an account of all five of his expeditions (2 vols., Philadelphia, 1859); and “Memoirs of my Life” (New York, 1880). See also the campaign biographies by John Bigelow (New York, 1856), and Charles W. Upham (Boston, 1856). His wife, Jessie Benton, born in Virginia in 1824, has published “Story of the Guard; a Chronicle of the War,” with a German translation (Boston, 1863); a sketch of her father, Thomas H. Benton, prefixed to her husband's memoirs (1880); and “Souvenirs of my Time” (Boston, 1887). [Appleton’s 1900]

Source: Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V.