Fremont

Explorer For A Restless Nation

Ferol Egan

• Publisher: University of Nevada Press
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9780874178982
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: World History
• Index: History

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.

I

The Nomad Strain

MOVING SLOWLY, a steady column of black smoke curling from its stack and rising upward to drift with the wind, the train looked like some extinct and unclassified animal as it climbed the grade slowly up toward the Continental Divide. Inside one of the sooty parlor cars, a handsome and distinguished looking white-haired man peered out the window at the passing landscape. The light covering of wind-blown snow made the sagebrush into frosted, miniature trees in a country dominated by broken ground and low hills that gave no indication the pass was over seven thousand feet. Years before, on his first expedition into the West, he had noted that South Pass did not give the feeling of crossing from the Atlantic to the Pacific watershed, nor did it give any more sense of height than the climb up Washington's Capitol Hill.

Even with the steady chugging of the locomotive, the memory of that first summer in the West stirred in his mind. He got out his writing pad and let his thoughts drift back to that earlier time. Then there had been no train tracks, no streamer of black smoke drifting with the wind. There had been the steady beat of hooves on the hard earth, the constant wind, and the glare of an endless sky. Now, only the land and sky remained the same. Slowly, he began to write a poem of what was etched in his memory of that first expedition and all the other adventures that were the final tally of his years of exploration. When he finished the poem and jotted down its title, he put it away. It was a recounting of that special knowledge that only a man who has known the thrill of an untouched wilderness carries with him, and he carries it with him for the rest of his life.

Yet the memories of hard roads won, of men who had traveled with him and shared the daily measures of excitement and hardship, must have been very near the surface of his inner thoughts. For the vision of a well-mapped trail, a cleared wagon road, and then a railroad to the West had been driving forces that had sent him forth to the wilderness. All those lonely days and nights, those moments of near death, those terrible times of disaster had been endured for the very thing he was now doing—riding westward in the comfort of a railroad car. This was Senator Thomas Hart Benton's “road to India.”¹ But Senator Benton was gone. And John Charles Frémont must have wondered what the great champion of Manifest Destiny would have thought of this westbound train. For that matter, what would all the other ghosts of the past have thought of this wagon train riding the ruts of steel rails? All this, and more, must have been in his mind as he wrote of hard traveling in hard places. And in back of it all, there was the memory of his initial taste of adventure in the first five years of his life as his father and mother moved by wagon from one southern town to another in search of a livelihood. On such trips, he may have heard his father speak of earlier travels among the Indian tribes of the South—the tales of an amateur anthropologist, tales to stir the boys imagination. Ghosts of his own past, ghosts of the American wilderness dream were all part of those first years for young Frémont—years of training, years of developing a feeling for the land, and years that kindled the lasting fires of curiosity and wonder.

2

A CHILD OF LOVE, a child who knew the meaning of discrimination before he knew the word, Frémont came from a background with all the trappings of a Charles Dickens novel. The boy entered the world without benefit of wedlock. This birthright gave him a choice of two roads to follow: accept the scorn and defeat accorded a child of illegal love and live a life of obscure failure; or accept the challenge of his inheritance, endure, and become a magnificent survivor. Thanks to the courage and love of his parents, Frémont chose the role of proving that the fixed ideas of a closed culture were open to question and change.

None of the beginning was easy for the boy as he carried the dual heritage of scandal and the blunt label of bastard. Family background, no matter how proper, made no difference. Even though one of his later biographers, John Bigelow, tried to present a background of legitimate parentage, the facts surrounding the boy's birth point in only one direction.

Though Frémont's mother, Anne Beverley Whiting, came from a family which proudly traced its roots to the Founding Fathers, this made no difference to Tidewater Virginians, who were properly shocked when she deserted her elderly, gouty husband and ran off with a mere teacher of French. No one bothered to consider why she had decided to go against the mores of her community. Yet there were reasons of terrible unhappiness—as well as her love for a younger man—that resulted in her decision to make such a move.

She was the youngest daughter of a family that had known much better days. But her father, Colonel Thomas Whiting, was dead and buried; and she had been forced into a marriage with a man old enough to be her grand father. She was simply a financial burden to the rest of her family. Worst of all, Major John Pryor was well past the point of being able to carry out the role of husband for such a young bride. All these emotional factors were overlooked by local rumor mongers. None of them bothered to mention that even Anne's husband had recognized the failure of their marriage and had unsuccessfully appealed to the Virginia legislature for a divorce.

All that mattered was local pride. After all, Major Pryor had fought under the command of George Washington, had acquired a respectable amount of money, slaves, and land, had become a fixture among the landed gentry of horse breeders and horse racers, had become well known for his wit, and had occupied a prominent position in Richmond society for many years. In short, young Anne was fortunate to be married to such a man. For even though Major Pryor was much too old to fulfill his role as husband, he was not some French dandy who had drifted in from God-knows-where with an empty purse and a roving eye for another man's wife.

But there was much more to Frémont's father-to-be than gossip indicated. A native of a small French village near Lyons, Jean Charles Frémon had the misfortune of being on the losing side during the French Revolution. To save his life, he fled his native land and took passage on a ship bound for Santo Domingo. Here, he knew he would have safe refuge with an aunt. But the ship carrying him to safety was stopped at sea by an English man-of-war, and all the French citizens aboard were taken as captives to the British West Indies.

Here Charles Frémon remained a prisoner for some time. During his internment, he was given the opportunity to add to the small allowance given prisoners by making use of his talents as a fresco painter, cabinetmaker, and basket weaver. But the days ran into weeks and months before a change in British policy played a key role in his future. Called before the officers in charge, Frémon was given the choice of remaining in captivity or sailing to the United States as an immigrant. Seeing this as a potential way of returning to France once the political climate had changed, he accepted the offer. Not long after, he arrived free but without means at Norfolk, Virginia.

A man of charm, the fine-featured, dark-haired Frémon obtained a position as a teacher of French at William and Mary College. After teaching there for a time, he left in the spring of 1808 for a better offer from Louis Girardin's outstanding private school in Richmond. Girardin was a brilliant man and a close friend of Thomas Jefferson, and he headed the academy that he owned in partnership with David Doyle. And it was while Frémon taught at this academy that he began his association with Anne Pryor.

At first, Girardin and Doyle heard only the rumor that Frémon was seeing some woman. This was easy to dismiss as the sort of gossip one was apt to hear about a young, single instructor who was both charming and handsome. Then word came to the owners of the academy that their new teacher not only was seeing some woman but was living with her, or at the very least having some affair. By itself, this was reason enough to dismiss him. The academy could not afford this sort of scandal.

Public talk about the love affair became much more dramatic as the details began to surface. Friends of Anne Pryor—including her niece, Kitty Cowne—became more and more open. They were much too obvious in their dislike of Major Pryor, the rather vulgar horse breeder, and they became careless with regard to their approval of what was taking place between Anne and Charles.

The inevitable day of reckoning occurred at Major Pryor's home during the first part of July 1811. In front of Kitty Cowne, the angry and hurt husband allowed all his suspicions, all his knowledge of town talk to come to a head. He lost his composure and openly accused the lovers of taking advantage of his trust, of carrying on behind his back, and of making him into an object for gossip and whispered conversations. Then, as his temper exploded from the many months of not knowing whether or not his wife was being unfaithful, the old man threatened to kill her for having dishonored his name and home.

This was the breaking point. In no uncertain terms, Anne made clear to the major that she would not allow Frémon to become involved in any violent action against him. Then she served Major Pryor the final blow. There was to be no reconciliation, and no begging for forgiveness. To the contrary, Anne told him she fully intended to elope with her lover the very next morning.

With everything out in the open, it was impossible for Anne and Charles to continue living in Richmond. Local society would not tolerate this open insult to traditional behavior. Knowing this, and knowing they were outcasts, the lovers departed from Richmond on a stage bound for Williamsburg. Anne took her personal belongings and two slaves, and Charles his limited amount of money and personal effects. But though they were free of Richmond and the censure of Major Pryor and his friends, they were not out of Virginia. They knew that the news of their deed would travel as fast as the horses that pulled their stagecoach.

The couple passed through Williamsburg and Norfolk, where they made brief stops to gather other property that belonged to Anne. Then they headed southward on what was to be a combination honeymoon and tour of the Indian tribes. Frémon was interested in studying and observing the cultures of these people. The small amount of money which Anne had inherited from her fathers estate gave them the means to indulge in this romantic interlude before the money ran short and Charles had to seek employment again.

The few months of summer passed very quickly, and as the frosty mornings of October arrived, Anne and Charles had already become residents of Savannah, Georgia. They lived in a house back of the mansion belonging to Charles Howard, a prominent man of Savannah. Money was running short. To add to their dwindling resources, Anne advertised for boarders, and Frémon took a position as a teacher and dancing master in the J. B. LeRoy academy. During the next two years, the couple made their home in Savannah, but moved from the Howard residence to a red brick, two-story house in the Yamacraw section. This home belonged to the Gibbons family and was located on a land grant from George II in 1760. It was in this setting that John Charles was born on January 21, 1813. From his first cries of life, the baby boy was the product of the Old and New worlds.

3

THE BOY was only a few months old when his parents left Savannah to seek better opportunities. At the City Hotel of Nashville, Tennessee, a moment of violence crossed his path with that of a man who would one day play a key role in his life.

Thomas Hart Benton had not yet moved to Missouri, where he was to begin his own career as a famous U.S. senator. At this time, he was a young frontier lawyer and legislator in Tennessee. A striking figure of a man, he was noted for his loyalty to friends, and for a disposition that allowed no room for any improper conduct by persons he considered to be dependable and trustworthy. But he was forced to face the apparent lack of these qualities in a man who had been his patron when he had been admitted to the bar, and who had been his commanding officer when he had served as a colonel in the early campaigns of the War of 1812. This was none other than General Andrew Jackson, who had just won a battle in his campaign against the Creeks and was reported to be marching from Natchez to Nashville in this first week of September 1813.

The difficulty between Thomas Hart Benton and “Old Hickory” was over a duel which had taken place between his younger brother Jesse Benton and William Carroll. Thomas had not been present at this affair of honor, but he knew two things about it: Jesse had received a slight flesh wound, and Jackson had acted as second for Carroll. To Thomas this was a betrayal of friendship. To compound the makings of a feud, Benton even went so far as to accuse Jackson of behaving in a savage, uncivilized manner. This remark was reported to Jackson, who took offense and said that the next time he caught sight of Benton he would horsewhip him.

News of the break in friendship between the Bentons and Jackson was among the key topics of daily conversation in Nashville, for the anticipation of violence at the next meeting of these men provided a vicarious excitement that broke the normal flow of day-to-day activities. There was no doubt in the mind of anyone who knew about the Bentons and Jackson that when they ran into each other there was bound to be a showdown.

Soon after the Bentons had stopped at the City Hotel, Jackson and his party arrived and took rooms at the Nashville Inn. Word of this spread quickly among the townsfolk, as Jackson was located within easy strolling distance from the man he had sworn to horsewhip. All that separated the former friends was the public square.

There are many variations in the accounts of how Jackson and the Benton brothers ran into each other. One story has Jackson and Thomas Benton meeting each other outside the post office. Another tale pictures Jackson striding over to the City Hotel with his pistol and horsewhip in hand. Rumors, fiction, and the passing of time make it impossible to know exactly how the men became involved in a common brawl. Jackson and a few of his companions did encounter the Bentons in the lobby of the City Hotel.

Words were exchanged. Tempers flared, and the fight began. Jackson and Jesse Benton drew their pistols, aimed, and fired. Jackson stumbled backward from the impact of a pistol ball and fell to the floor. His left shoulder was shattered, and he was losing a lot of blood. Seeing their leader sprawled out like a broken doll, Jackson's supporters joined in the fray. As they did, Thomas began to move into a position to aid his brother, stepped backward, and tumbled headlong down a full flight of stairs into the hotel basement. While he was picking himself up, the shooting continued in the lobby. The excited men were wild in their aim, and none of the shots hit any of the other combatants. Then, as Jackson's men realized the seriousness of his wound, the shouting and gunplay ceased. The fallen warrior was carried to a room and placed on a bed. For a time Jackson was close to death. His steady bleeding soaked two mattresses, but Old Hickory was too tough to kill.

Once the excitement ended, the participants and curious spectators discovered that stray shots had very nearly caused another casualty. To the horror of the men involved, wild shots had penetrated the thin walls of the room in which the Frémons were staying, shots which narrowly missed the sleeping baby, John Charles. Anne was so upset she fainted. When the father returned to the hotel and learned what had happened, he confronted the responsible men. Without tempering his language, he let them know that he considered the pursuit of a personal feud in a public place a mark of barbarism. Still shocked by what might have happened, the men took Frémon's criticism as something they deserved and offered their apologies. Yet apologies did not remove the fact that a frontier quarrel had almost killed the infant who was to become a key figure in Thomas Hart Benton's concept of America's destiny.

4

AFTER THE EPISODE OF VIOLENCE at the City Hotel, the Frémons remained in Nashville long enough for Anne to give birth to a daughter. When she was able to travel, the family moved back to Norfolk, Virginia. Sometime during this period of their lives, Major Pryor died, and his death made it possible for the lovers to be legally married.

The next few years of the family's life remain rather vague. It is known that another son was born, that they continued to move from one community to another, and that Charles Frémon's brother—Francis—appeared on the scene with his wife and children. About this time, the Frémon brothers decided it was safe to return to France. As they talked about this and made plans to end their exile, Charles became ill and within a short time died. Only seven years had passed since Anne and Charles had made the hard decision to go against the grain of Southern society. Now, in 1818, she was left without husband, without sufficient means, and with three children to support. While she could have gone to France with her brother-in-law, she could not imagine herself living anywhere but in the United States. She loved her native land and always would.

Grief-sticken and lonely, Anne decided that she and the children would remain in Norfolk. She felt comfortable in this city where she had so many friends. But after a short time, this feeling of comfort gave way to despair. There was no escaping her situation. She was a widow who was somewhat beyond the desirable age for marriage. She had no fortune to insulate her against the tightness of her budget. She was not in a financial position to return the hospitality she had received from others, and she must have known that behind her back there were always the whispered memories of the scandal that her love for Charles Frémon had caused. Caught in this web, Anne decided to move to Charleston. There, at least, she would not be reminded of her lot in life, nor would she have the feeling that she was a part of the past the community would rather forget.

The move to Charleston was a major turning point for the eldest of Anne's three children. Here John Charles came to know something of stability. Called Charley by friends and adults, the boy at last knew the feeling of belonging. True enough, his mother had to take in boarders in order to support the family, and she was a poor widow in an affluent community whose cultural and social life was for the wealthy. Yet, being without money or any real status did not bother Charley. He moved with equal grace among all classes of people—ranging from rich families to French Huguenots to slave families. Along with his mobility among the various classes, the boy also had a chance for an education and the training of his brilliant mind. Young John Charles was in the right place at the right time; and he learned the feeling of planting roots, of not moving from place to place, and of identifying with a single community and its people.

Handsome Charley made friends easily. He was a favorite among the young girls, and it was no wonder. He was a boy of fine features topped by a beautiful mass of curly, dark hair; and his light blue eyes and olive-colored skin made him stand out in any group of young people. His imagination, wit, and friendly nature made him popular among all his peers. But these days of youth were all too short. To a much older Frémont writing his Memoirs, these were days that “went by on wings.”²

At fourteen, young Frémont (the t was added about eleven years later) had to contribute to the family's limited income. To accomplish this and to continue his education seemed impossible. Yet, the door of hope opened when his mother accepted the offer of a clerkship for him in the law office of John W. Mitchell. This was another turning point in Frémont's life, a fork in the trail where he was guided in the right direction. For Mitchell recognized the young man's native ability to grasp difficult concepts, to reach out for knowledge, and to approach other people with a refinement and courtesy th...