John C. Fremont

John Charles Frémont
John C. Frémont, 1852 portrait, by William S. Jewett
3rd Military Governor of California
In office 1847 – 1847
Preceded by	Robert F. Stockton
Succeeded by	Stephen W. Kearny
United States Senator from California
In office September 9, 1850 – March 3, 1851
Succeeded by	John B. Weller
5th Territorial Governor of Arizona
In office 1878 – 1881
Preceded by	John Philo Hoyt
Succeeded by	Frederick Augustus Tritle
Born	January 21, 1813(1813-01-21) Savannah, Georgia, U.S.
Died	July 13, 1890 (aged 77) New York City, New York, U.S.
Political party	Democrat, Republican
Spouse	Jessie Benton Frémont
Alma mater	College of Charleston
Profession	Politician
Religion	Episcopalian
Military service
Service/branch	United States Army
Years of service	1838–1848 1861-1862
Rank	Major General

John Charles Frémont (January 21, 1813 – July 13, 1890), was an American military officer, explorer, the first candidate of the Republican Party for the office of President of the United States, and the first presidential candidate of a major party to run on a platform in opposition to slavery. During the 1840s, that era's penny press accorded Frémont the sobriquet The Pathfinder, which remains in use, sometimes as "The Great Pathfinder".^[1][2]

Biography

Frémont's mother, Anne Beverley Whiting, was the youngest daughter of a socially prominent Virginia planter Colonel Thomas Whiting. The colonel died while Anne was less than a year old and her mother married Samuel Cary who soon exhausted most of her father’s estate. To escape the family’s financial problems, Anne was raised by an older married sister who in 1796 arranged for the seventeen year old Anne to marry local Revolutionary War veteran Major John Pryor, a wealthy Richmonder in his early sixties. In 1810 Pryor hired Charles Fremon, a French immigrant who had fought with the Royalists during the French Revolution, to tutor his wife. In July 1811, Pryor learned that Anne and Fremon were having an affair. Confronted by Pryor, the couple left Richmond together on July 10, 1811, creating a scandal that shook Richmond society.^[3]

Pryor published a divorce petition in the Virginia Patriot charging that his wife had “for some time past indulged in criminal intercourse.” Anne and Fremon escaped first to Norfolk and later settled in Savannah, Georgia. Anne had recently inherited slaves valued at $1,900 and the trip and purchase of a house were financed by the sale of these slaves. Pryor’s divorce petition was denied by the Virginia House of Delegates, making it impossible for the couple to marry. In Savannah, Anne took in boarders while Fremon taught French and dancing. On January 21, 1813 their first child, John Charles Fremon, was born.^[4]

Frémont added the accented "e" and the "t" to his name later in life.^[5] Andre Rolle, however, in John Charles Frémont: Character as Destiny, states that Louis-René Frémont changed his name to Charles Fremon or Frémon upon emigrating to Virginia, where he met and eloped with Anne.^[6] Many confirm he was in fact illegitimate, a social handicap he overcame by marrying Jessie Benton in 1841, the favorite daughter of the very influential senator from Missouri, Thomas Hart Benton (1782–1858).

Benton, Democratic Party leader for over 30 years in the Senate, championed the expansionist movement, a political cause that became known as "Manifest Destiny." The expansionists believed that the North American continent, from one end to the other, north and south, east and west, should belong to the citizens of the United States, and that getting those lands was the country’s destiny. This movement became a crusade for politicians like Benton and his new son-in-law. Benton pushed appropriations through Congress for surveys of the Oregon Trail (1842), the Oregon Territory (1844), the Great Basin, and Sierra Mountains to California (1845). Through his power and influence, Benton got Frémont the leadership of these expeditions.

Frémont's great-grandfather, Henry Whiting, was a half-brother of Catherine Whiting who married John Washington, uncle of George Washington.^[7][8][9]

Expeditions

Col. Frémont

After attending the College of Charleston from 1829 to 1831,^[10] Frémont was appointed a teacher of Mathematics aboard the sloop USS Natchez. In July 1838 he was appointed a Second Lieutenant in the Corps of Topographical Engineers and assisted and led multiple surveying expeditions through the western territory of the United States and beyond. In 1838 and 1839 he assisted Joseph Nicollet in exploring the lands between the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers, and in 1841, with training from Nicollet, he mapped portions of the Des Moines River.

Frémont first met American frontiersman Kit Carson on a Missouri River steamboat in St. Louis, Missouri during the summer of 1842. Frémont was preparing to lead his first expedition and was looking for a guide to take him to South Pass. Carson offered his services, as he had spent much time in the area. The five-month journey, made with 25 men, was a success, and Frémont's report was published by the U.S. Congress. The Frémont report "touched off a wave of wagon caravans filled with hopeful emigrants" heading west.

From 1842 to 1846, Frémont and his guide Carson led expedition parties on the Oregon Trail and into the Sierra Nevada. During his expeditions in the Sierra Nevada, it is generally acknowledged that Frémont became the first European American to view Lake Tahoe. He is also credited with determining the Great Basin as endorheic, that is, having no outlet to the sea. He also mapped volcanoes such as Mount St. Helens.

Third expedition

On June 1, 1845 John Frémont and 55 men left St. Louis, with Carson as guide, on the third expedition. The stated goal was to "map the source of the Arkansas River," on the east side of the Rocky Mountains. But upon reaching the Arkansas, Frémont suddenly made a hasty trail straight to California, without explanation. Arriving in the Sacramento Valley in early winter 1846, he promptly sought to stir up patriotic enthusiasm among the American settlers there. He promised that if war with Mexico started, his military force would "be there to protect them." Frémont nearly provoked a battle with General José Castro near Monterey, camped at the summit of what is now named Fremont Peak, which would have likely resulted in the annihilation of Frémont's group, due to the superior numbers of the Mexican troops. Frémont then fled Mexican-controlled California, and went north to Oregon, making camp at Klamath Lake.

Following a May 9, 1846, Modoc Indian attack on his expedition party, Frémont chose to attack a Klamath Indian fishing village named Dokdokwas, at the junction of the Williamson River and Klamath Lake, which took place May 10, 1846. The action completely destroyed the village, and involved the massacre of women and children. After the burning of the village, Carson was nearly killed by a Klamath warrior later that day: his gun misfired, and the warrior drew to fire a poison arrow; but Frémont, seeing Carson's predicament, trampled the warrior with his horse. Carson stated he felt that he owed Frémont his life.

On June 28, 1846, Frémont's men intercepted three Mexican men crossing the San Francisco Bay near San Quentin. There are conflicting reports of what happened; but the result was that Jose R. Berreyesa and his nephews, Ramon and Fransciso De Haro, the 19-year-old twin sons of Francisco de Haro, the first Alcalde of San Francisco were killed.^[11] (see Notes)

Mexican-American War

In 1846, Frémont was appointed Lieutenant Colonel of the California Battalion – also called U.S. Mounted Rifles and other names – which he had helped form with his survey crew and volunteers from the Bear Flag Republic. In late 1846 Frémont, acting under orders from Commodore Robert F. Stockton, led a military expedition of 300 men to capture Santa Barbara, California, during the Mexican-American War. Frémont led his unit over the Santa Ynez Mountains at San Marcos Pass, in a rainstorm on the night of December 24, 1846. In spite of losing many of his horses, mules, and cannon, which slid down the muddy slopes during the rainy night, his men regrouped in the foothills the next morning, and captured the Presidio without bloodshed, thereby capturing the town. A few days later he led his men southeast towards Los Angeles, accepting the surrender of the leader Andres Pico and signing the Treaty of Cahuenga on January 13, 1847 which terminated the war in upper California.^[12]

On January 16, 1847, Commodore Stockton appointed Frémont military governor of California following the Treaty of Cahuenga, which ended the Mexican-American War in California. However, U.S. Army Brigadier General Stephen Watts Kearny, who outranked Frémont (and who arguably had the same rank as Stockton, one star) and said he had orders from the President and Secretary of War to serve as governor, asked Frémont to give up the governorship, which he stubbornly refused to do for a time. Kearny gave Frémont several opportunities to retract his position. When they arrived at Fort Leavenworth in August 1847, Kearny arrested Frémont and brought him to Washington, D.C. for court martial, where he was convicted of mutiny. President James K. Polk approved of the decision of the court, but quickly commuted his sentence of dishonorable discharge in light of his service in the war. Frémont, however, considered his conviction an injustice and a dishonor, and wrote to Polk in February 1848 that he would resign from the army unless the President overturned his conviction. One month later, having received no reply from Polk, Frémont resigned his commission and settled in California.^[13]

Fourth expedition

In 1848, Frémont and his father-in-law developed a plan that, they hoped, would not only advance their vision of the nation's "Manifest Destiny" but also restore Frémont's honor after his court martial. Senator Benton had developed a keen interest in the potential of railroads and had sought support from the Senate for his vision of a railroad connecting St. Louis to San Francisco along the 38th parallel, the latitude which both cities approximately share. Failing to secure federal funding, Frémont secured private funding and, in October 1848, embarked up the Missouri, Kansas, and Arkansas Rivers with 35 men.

On reaching Bent's Fort most of the trappers strongly advised him against continuing. There was already a foot of snow on the ground at Bent's Fort, and it was shaping up to be an especially snowy winter in the mountains. Part of Frémont's purpose, however, was to demonstrate that a 38th parallel railroad would be practical year-round. At Bent's Fort he secured "Uncle Dick" Wootton as guide, and at what is now Pueblo, Colorado, he gained the eccentric "Old Bill" Williams, and moved on.

Had Frémont continued up the Arkansas, he might have succeeded, but on November 25, at what is now Florence, Colorado, he turned sharply south. By the time they crossed the Sangre De Cristo range via Mocha Pass, they had already experienced days of bitter cold, blinding snow, and difficult travel. Some of the party, including guide Wootton, had already turned back, concluding further travel would be impossible. Even though the passes through the Sangre de Cristo had proven to be too steep for a railroad, Frémont pressed on. From this point they still might have succeeded had they gone up the Rio Grande to its source or gone by a more northerly route, but the route they took brought them to the very top of Mesa Mountain.^[14] It was not until December 22 that Frémont acknowledged they would need at least to regroup and be resupplied, and the group began to make its way to Taos, New Mexico. By the time the last surviving member of the expedition made it to Taos on February 12, 1849, ten of the party were dead. But for the efforts of Alexis Godey another 15 would have been lost.^[15] After recuperating in Taos, Frémont and only a few of the men left for California via an established southern trade route.

U.S. Senator and presidential candidate

This caricature tries to link Frémont to other "strange" movements like temperance, feminists, socialism, free love, Catholicism and abolitionism.

Frémont was one of the first two Senators from California, serving from 1850 to 1851.

John C. Frémont

Frémont was also the first presidential candidate of the new Republican Party in 1856. At the time of his campaign he lived in Staten Island, New York. The campaign was headquartered near his home in St. George.^[16] He placed second to James Buchanan in a three-way election, but was unable to carry the state of California.

Civil War

Frémont later served as a major general in the American Civil War, including a controversial term as commander of the Army's Department of the West from May to November 1861. Frémont replaced William S. Harney, who had negotiated the Harney-Price Truce, which permitted Missouri to remain neutral in the conflict as long as it did not send men or supplies to either side.

Frémont ordered his General Nathaniel Lyon to formally bring Missouri into the Union cause. Lyon had been named the temporary commander of the Department of the West, before Frémont ultimately replaced Lyon. Lyon, in a series of battles, evicted Governor Claiborne Jackson and installed a pro-Union government. After Lyon was killed in the Battle of Wilson's Creek in August, Frémont imposed martial law in the state, confiscating secessionists' private property, and emancipating slaves.

President Abraham Lincoln, fearing the order would tip Missouri (and other slave states in Union control) to the southern cause, asked Frémont to revise the order. Frémont refused to do so, and sent his wife to plead the case. Lincoln responded by publicly revoking the proclamation and relieving Frémont of command on November 2, 1861, simultaneous to a War Department report detailing Frémont's iniquities as a major general. In March 1862, he was placed in command of the Mountain Department of Virginia, Tennessee, and Kentucky.

Early in June 1862, Frémont pursued the Confederate General Stonewall Jackson for eight days, finally engaging him at Battle of Cross Keys on June 8, but Jackson slipped away after the battle, saving his army.

When the Army of Virginia was created June 26, to include Gen. Frémont's corps, with John Pope in command, Frémont declined to serve on the grounds that he was senior to Pope, and for personal reasons. He then went to New York where he remained throughout the war, expecting a command, but none was given to him.^[17][18]

Radical Republican presidential candidacy

In 1860 the Republicans nominated Abraham Lincoln for president, who won the presidency and then ran for reelection in 1864. The Radical Republicans, a group of hard-line abolitionists, were upset with Lincoln's positions on the issues of slavery and post-war reconciliation with the southern states, and on May 31, 1864 they nominated Frémont for president. This frisson in the Republican Party divided the party into two factions: the anti-Lincoln Radical Republicans, who nominated Frémont, and the pro-Lincoln Republicans. Frémont abandoned his political campaign in September 1864, after he brokered a political deal in which Lincoln removed Postmaster General Montgomery Blair from office.

Later life

John C. Frémont

The state of Missouri took possession of the Pacific Railroad in February 1866, when the company defaulted in its interest payment, and in June 1866, the state, at private sale, sold the road to Frémont. Frémont reorganized the assets of the Pacific Railroad as the Southwest Pacific Railroad in August 1866. However, in less than a year (June 1867), the railroad was repossessed by the state of Missouri after Frémont was unable to pay the second installment on his purchase.^[19]

From 1878 to 1881, Frémont was governor of the Arizona Territory. Destitute, the family depended on the publication earnings of wife, Jessie. Frémont lived in retirement on Staten Island. He died in 1890 a forgotten man, of peritonitis in New York City, and was buried in Rockland Cemetery, Sparkill, New York.^[20][21]

Legacy

Frémont collected a number of plants on his expeditions, including the first recorded discovery of the Single-leaf Pinyon by a European American. The standard botanical author abbreviation Frém. is applied to plants he described. The California Flannelbush, Fremontodendron californicum, is named for him.

Many places are named for Frémont. Four U.S. states named counties in his honor: Colorado, Idaho, Iowa, and Wyoming. Several states also named cities after him, such as California, Michigan, Nebraska, New Hampshire, and Ohio. Likewise, Fremont Peak in the Wind River Mountains and Fremont Peak in Monterey County, California are also named for the explorer. The Fremont River, a tributary of the Colorado River in southern Utah, was named after Frémont, and in turn, the prehistoric Fremont culture was named after the river—the first archaeological sites of this culture were discovered near its course.

The "largest and most expensive 'trophy'" in college football is a replica of a cannon "that accompanied Captain John C. Frémont on his expedition through Oregon, Nevada and California in 1843-44". The annual rivalry game between the University of Nevada and UNLV is over the Fremont Cannon.^[23][24]

A barbershop chorus in Fremont, Nebraska is named The Fremont Pathfinders in homage to the explorer,^[25] as is the Fremont Pathfinders Artillery Battery,^[26] an American Civil War reenactment group from the same community.

Fremont Street in Las Vegas, Nevada is named in his honor, as are streets in Minneapolis, Minnesota, Kiel, Wisconsin, Manhattan, Kansas, Portland, Oregon, Tucson, Arizona; the California cities of Fremont, Monterey, Seaside, Stockton, San Mateo, and San Francisco, and the Grant City section of Staten Island, New York. Portland also has several other locations named after Frémont, such as Fremont Bridge. Other places named for him include John C. Fremont Senior High School in Los Angeles and Oakland, California, the John C. Fremont Branch Library located on Melrose Avenue in Los Angeles, and the John C. Fremont Branch Library in Tucson, Arizona. John C. Fremont Elementary School in Glendale, California, and a John C. Fremont Junior High School in Mesa, Arizona, Pomona, California, Roseburg, Oregon and one in Oxnard, California bear his name. Fremont High School in Sunnyvale, California is named for the explorer and its annual yearbook is called The Pathfinder. In addition, the Fremont Hospital in Yuba City, CA. and the John C. Fremont Hospital, in Mariposa, California—where Frémont and his wife lived and prospered during the Gold Rush—is named for him.

The 1983 historical novel Dream West, written by western writer David Nevin, covers the life, loves and times of Frémont.

The U.S. Army's (now inactive) 8th Infantry Division (Mechanized) is called the Pathfinder Division, after John Frémont. The gold arrow on the 8th ID crest is called the "Arrow of General Frémont."

Notes

There are several varying accounts of the death of three Californians on June 28, 1846. One version is:

Frémont ordered Carson to execute the three men in revenge for the deaths of two Americans. Carson supposedly questioned the orders. At first he asked Frémont if he should take the men prisoner. Frémont's plan was otherwise: "I have no use for prisoners, do your duty." When Carson hesitated Frémont yelled, "Mr. Carson, your duty," to which Carson then complied by executing Jose R. Berreyesa and his nephews, Ramon and Fransciso De Haro, the 19-year-old twin sons of Francisco de Haro, the first Alcalde of San Francisco, near present-day San Rafael.

This is understood to be the statement of Jasper O'Farrell, given 10 years after the incident to a newspaper reporter for the Los Angeles Star when Fremont was running for President. ^[27]

In an article on the genealogical history of San Francisco, O'Farrell's account is included along with one by José S. Berreyesa.^[28]

Writing about the executions a half-century later, the historian Robert A. Thompsen noted, "Californians cannot speak of it down to this day without intense feeling."^[29]

Harlow says at this late date it is impossible to know whether O'Farrell was telling the truth or even if he made the reported statement. Politics back then was pretty ugly. ^[30]

References

Publications

Further reading

• Harvey, Miles, The Island of Lost Maps: A True Story of Cartographic Crime, Random House, 2000, ISBN 0375501517, ISBN 0767908260.
• Brandon, William, The Men and the Mountain (1955) ISBN 0-8371-5873-7. An account of Frémont's failed fourth expedition.
• David H. Miller and Mark J. Stegmaier, James F. Milligan: His Journal of Fremont's Fifth Expedition, 1853-1854; His Adventurous Life on Land and Sea, Arthur H. Clark Co., 1988. 300 pp.
• NY Times, Harper's Weekly political cartoon, "That's What's the Trouble with John C."; Fremont's 1864 challenge to Lincoln's re-nomination. [2]
• Chaffin, Tom, "Pathfinder: John Charles Frémont and the Course of American Empire," New York: Hill and Wang, 2002 ISBN 0809075571 ISBN 978-0809075577
• Nevins, Allan, Fremont: Pathmarker of the West, Volume 1: Fremont the Explorer; Volume 2: Fremont in the Civil War (1939, rev ed. 1955)
• Roberts, David (2001), A newer world: Kit Carson, John C. Fremont and the claiming of the American west, New York: Touchstone ISBN 0-684-83482-0
• Tompkins, Walker A. Santa Barbara, Past and Present. Tecolote Books, Santa Barbara, CA, 1975.

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: John C. Frémont

United States Army portal

• Mr. Lincoln and Freedom: John C. Frémont
• John C. Frémont at the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress Retrieved on 2009-05-01
• The Generals of the American Civil War - Pictures of John Charles Frémont
• Memoirs of my life : including in the narrative five journeys of western explorations during the years 1842, 1843-4, 1845-6-7, 1848-9, 1853-4 by John c. Fremont
• Address of welcome to General John C. Fremont, governor of Arizona territory, upon the occasion of his reception by his associates of the Association Pioneers of the Territorial Days of California, at their headquarters, Sturtevant House, New York, on ... August 1, 1878
• Works by or about John C. Frémont in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
• Works by John C. Frémont at Project Gutenberg

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