The Daring Adventures of Kit Carson and John C. Frémont: (Annotated, Abridged)

Famed mountain man and scout, Kit Carson, and The Pathfinder, John C. Fremont made three incredible explorations together to the western United States. The first was in 1842 with the second in the following year. The last was in 1845.

Both were hugely successful and helped touch off a wave of emigration by pioneers. Fremont's scientific observations, geographic recordings, and appreciation for the beauty of the west filled his report to Congress. The parties endured extremely harsh extremes of weather, attacks by Native Americans (as well as help from them), and ventured into Mexico.

They even saw volcanic activity in the Cascades:

"...at this time, two of the great snowy cones, Mount Regnier [Rainier] and St. Helens, were in action. On the 23d of the preceding November, St. Helens had scattered its ashes, like a white fall of snow, over the Dalles of the Columbia, 50 miles distant."

Kit Carson's legend was really born on the second expedition based on the Mojave Desert incident. On more than one occasion, the men took the law into their own hands and executed others.

Both men became enormously famous and the report of the second expedition certainly helped foster that fame. This book details their amazing explorations and is an important document of the opening of the American west.

Fremont was later the first candidate of the anti-slavery Republican Party for the office of President of the United States and had a controversial but at times successful military career, including during the Civil War.

This book opens with an account of the career of Kit Carson and then includes Fremont's report to Congress.