Upham, Charles Wentworth. Life, Explorations and Public Service of John Charles Fremont. Boston: Ticknor and Fields, 1856. First Edition; Thirtieth Thousand. [9277]
Teal publisher's cloth, blindstamped, gilt to backstrip, some fading & soil yet intact with sharp ends and corners, 7 1/2 x 4 3/4 inches. Steel-engraved frontis of Fremont with tissue guard, the plate is foxed and smudged. 366 generally clean pages, some foxing. 12 pp. (August, 1856) publisher's catalogue tipped in between the rear end papers. Good. Hardcover.
Wagner-Camp 282. "Pages 273-399 comprise and account of Frémont's fourth expedition, mostly contained in letters from Frémont...Pages 326-332 contain a short account of the fifth expedition of 1853-4, including a letter from Frémont to Benton, dated Parowan (Utah), Feb. 9, 1854.
With these additional full-page wood engravings: Cheyenne Family - a Warrior, his Mother, Wife and Child; Fremont's Speech to the Indians at Fort Laramie; Hoisting the American Flag on the highest peak of the Rocky Mountains; Night Scene - Encampment in the Pine Woods; Tlamath Lake; Head Waters of the Sacramento; Snow-covered Mountains, with Pine and clothed Slopes; Gearing up - the Order to March - Soon after Sunrise; Kit Carson; Night Assault by the Indians; Charge upon the Indians at Redding's Rancho; Entrance to Monterey; One of the Delaware Body Guard.
Frémont was the first Republican candidate for President in 1856; several biographies of him were published that year. "The second and third chapters of this work, embracing the period covered by the first two expeditions, have substantially the value and authority of an autobiography. Fremont tells his own story, in passages extracted from his Reports." - Preface.
John Charles Frémont (1813-1890), b. Savannah, GA; d. New York City. His explorations of the American West were undertaken with the sanction of the US Congress, and he explored and mapped areas previously unknown to civilization. Joined by Kit Carson, Frémont led expeditions to the Rocky Mountains, Nevada, California and Oregon. In 1845 he led a revolt by American settlers in California against the Mexican government, culminating in the Bear Flag Revolt of 1846 and the establishment of the short-lived Republic of California. He was elected one of California's first U.S. Senators in 1850, and was nominated by the Republican Party as their presidential candidate in 1856. In command of the Western Department of the Union Army at the beginning of the civil war, he lost his position and incurred the wrath of Lincoln by declaring in 1861 that all slaves owned by Confederates in Missouri were free. His abolitionist views were appreciated by both radical Republicans who wanted immediate emancipation of all slaves, and he was nominated by the obscure Radical Democracy Party as their presidential candidate in 1864. He was appointed Governor of the Arizona Territory by President Hays, in 1878, serving three years. He was popularly known as the "Pathfinder of the Rocky Mountains."
Charles Wentworth Upham (1802-1875), an 1821 graduate of Harvard College, a Congregational minister of Unitarian views, pastor of a church in Salem for twenty years, which post he relinquished “for loss of voice.”. Upham began a political career, served in the 33rd Congress, and at other positions.