The Plains: Being No Less than a Collection of Veracious Memoranda Taken During the Expedition of Exploration in the Year 1845, from the Western Settlements of Missouri to the Mexican Boarder, and from Bent's Fort on the Arkansas to Fort Gibson, Via Sout…

xxv, 182 pp. "In 1845 a young man named Isaac Cooper set out in search of adventure. He found it with John C. Fremont's third expedition en route to California across the southern Great Plains. Fremont demanded secrecy about the details of his western forays and forbade his men to keep diaries or journals, a fact that gives credence to claims that the Pathfinder was little more than a filibusterer for Manifest Destiny. But Cooper made notes and later wrote "The Plains" under the nom de plume of Francouis des Montaignes, perhaps still fearing Fremont's wrath." "In the backdrop of an impending war with Mexico, after James K. Polk had been elected president, Benton quickly organized a third expedition for Frémont.[24] The plan for Frémont under the War Department was to survey the central Rockies, the Great Salt Lake region, and part of the Sierra Nevada.[24] Back in St. Louis Frémont organized an armed surveying expedition of 60 men, with Carson as guide, and two distinguished men, Joseph Walker and Alexander Godey.[24] Working with Benton and Secretary of Navy George Bancroft, Frémont was secretly told that if war started with Mexico he was to turn his scientific expedition into a military army.[24] President Polk, who had met with Frémont at a cabinet meeting, was set on taking California.[28] Frémont desired to conquer California for its beauty and wealth, and would later explain his very controversial conduct there.[24] On June 1, 1845, Frémont and his armed expedition party left St. Louis having the immediate goal to locate the source of the Arkansas River, on the east side of the Rocky Mountains.[29][24] Frémont and his party struck west by way of Bent's Fort, The Great Salt Lake, and the "Hastings Cut-Off".[24] When Frémont reached the Ogden River, that he renamed the Humboldt, he divided his party in two to double his geographic information.[24] Upon reaching the Arkansas River, Frémont suddenly made a blazing trail through Nevada straight to California, having a rendezvous with his men from the split party at Walker Lake near Yosemite Valley.[30][e]"