History loses touch with Sacagawea soon after the Lewis and Clark Expedition.
Some sources report that she traveled west and rejoined the Shoshone, living happily with them until her death in 1884. But scholars who have spent time looking for clues say it’s much more likely that she died in 1812 at a fort in what is now South Dakota. In December of that year, a clerk at the fort wrote in his diary that the “wife of Charbonneau” had just died of fever. “She was a good and the best woman in the fort, age about 25,” wrote the clerk. Sacagawea would have been about twenty-five by 1812. One other piece of evidence: in 1820 William Clark wrote a report with updates on the members of his expedition. For Sacagawea, he wrote “dead.”
We know more about Sacagawea’s son, Jean Baptiste, who crossed the West with Lewis and Clark as an infant. William Clark became his legal guardian and enrolled him in school in St. Louis. Jean Baptiste learned four languages and traveled the world before returning to the West and working as a fur trapper, mountain guide, and gold miner. He was on his way to search for gold in Montana when he died in 1866, age sixty-one.
After watching her parents die on the Oregon Trail, then witnessing the death of her adoptive parents in the Whitman massacre, life calmed down a bit for thirteen-year-old Catherine Sager. She spent her teen years with a new family in Oregon, then married a minister named Clark Pringle, settled in Spokane, Washington, and had eight children. In her spare time she wrote an account of her adventures as a girl, planning to use the profits from book sales to build an orphanage. Incredibly, no one wanted to publish her story (what, not dramatic enough?). Catherine died in 1910, at the age of seventy-five, but her children saved her writing, and today you can (and should) read her book—it’s called Across the Plains in 1844.
After losing Texas and the rest of the West to the Americans, Antonio López de Santa Anna spent a few years in exile, then returned to Mexico City and regained the presidency. Now calling himself dictator for life (also “Most Serene Highness”) he pocketed millions in government money before being booted out yet again in 1855. He then drifted from Cuba to Colombia to New York City. Searching for a get-rich-quick scheme (to fund another attempt to take power in Mexico), he imported a shipment of chicle—a natural gum from Central American trees. His plan: find a way to turn chicle into rubber for carriage tires. This failed, but an American friend, Thomas Adams, mixed Santa Anna’s chicle with sugar and flavor, shaped it into balls, and sold it in drugstores as “chewing gum.” A new industry was born, though Santa Anna never saw a penny. He died broke and nearly forgotten in 1876.
After retiring from the army in 1884, William Tecumseh Sherman was so popular that Republican leaders started talking about nominating him for president. The general was not interested. “If nominated I will not run,” he grunted. “If elected I will not serve.” After years of harsh and merciless war, Sherman retired to New York City, took up painting, and spent his time going to dinner parties and the theater. The major danger facing him now was that crowds of excited admirers followed him everywhere. In 1886 he shook so many hands that he broke a bone in his right hand. The next year he lost two fingernails. Sherman survived the mobs (and admitted privately that he loved the fame). He died in New York in 1891, at age seventy-one.
At the age of seventy, Benjamin Singleton could have slowed down a bit. But the man who helped spark the Exoduster movement kept urging black families to move west, encouraging them to combine their resources to start black-owned factories and schools. He spent so much money traveling and printing posters that he was always broke. On his seventy-third birthday, friends threw him a huge party in a park in Topeka, Kansas, asking everyone to donate a little something to the guest of honor. “Anything in the way of eatables will be kindly received,” Singleton added. He lived another nine years, always proud of his work, and especially proud of his nickname: “Father of the Exodus.”
Soon after the discovery of gold near John Sutter’s mill in California in 1848, all Sutter’s workers abandoned their jobs and raced off for the diggings. Then, as gold fever attracted miners from around the world, thousands swarmed onto Sutter’s land, trampling his crops and eating his cows. By 1852 Sutter’s vast empire was gone. “Without having discovered the gold, I would have become the richest man on the Pacific shore,” moaned Sutter. He moved east and spent the last fifteen years of his life pleading with Congress to compensate him for his stolen land. It never happened—Sutter died in a cheap Washington, D.C., hotel in 1880.
His victories in the U.S.-Mexican War made General Zachary Taylor a national hero. Affectionately nicknamed “Old Rough and Ready” (based on his sloppy appearance, plus the fact he always seemed ready to fight), Taylor was elected president in 1848. After spending the long, hot day of July 4, 1850, attending Independence Day celebrations, a terribly thirsty Taylor downed enormous amounts of cold milk and cherries. He was up all night with intense stomach pains—and died just five days later. Doctors suspected heatstroke or severe diarrhea. But stories spread that his cherries had been poisoned with arsenic. The rumors never died, and in 1991 Taylor’s remains were dug up and scientists tested his hair and fingernails. They did find some traces of arsenic (most people have a tiny bit in their bodies), but not nearly enough to have killed him.
As a Mexican leader in California, Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo had always welcomed American immigrants. When the Americans took over, Vallejo was tossed in prison for two months (though he was never charged with having done anything illegal). When he got out, Vallejo helped write California’s new state constitution and was elected to the state senate. But he was powerless to stop the flood of settlers onto his land. According to the treaty made with Mexico at the end of the U.S.-Mexican War, Mexicans who owned land in California would still own their land under U.S. law. Vallejo spent years in court trying to protect his rights, but he never got his land back. Once the owner of 250,000 acres, Vallejo moved into a small house on his last 300 acres. “What a difference between then and now,” he said. “Then, youth, strength, riches; now age, weakness, and poverty.”
The young Nez Perce warrior Yellow Wolf was not captured along with Chief Joseph. He slipped out of camp, raced toward Canada, and caught up with other escaping Nez Perce—including his mother and Joseph’s twelve-year-old daughter. Yellow Wolf lived in Canada until the following spring, when he got homesick and returned to the Wallowa Valley. “The places through which I was riding came to my heart,” he said. “My friends, my brothers, my sisters! All were gone! No tepees anywhere along the river. I was all alone.” Considered a fugitive from the law, Yellow Wolf was chased by soldiers and decided to turn himself in. He was eventually sent to the Colville Reservation in Washington, along with Chief Joseph. He lived there nearly fifty years, dying in 1935, at the age of seventy-nine.
The government rewarded all the members of the Lewis and Clark Expedition with land and money—all except York. York was still enslaved, which meant he was legally entitled to nothing. Given his valuable services to Clark and to the country, York had the nerve to ask for his freedom. Clark refused. York asked at least to be sent, as a slave, to Louisville, Kentucky, where his wife was enslaved. Clark refused (agreeing only to allow York to visit his wife for three weeks). What happened next? Some believe York died in slavery. Others say York worked for Clark another ten years, was finally freed, and settled in Kentucky. Still others believe he escaped and headed west—in 1834 one witness claimed to have seen him living with the Crow Indians in Wyoming. The real fate of York is a mystery still to be solved. That seems like a good way to end the book, doesn’t it?
Confessions of a Textbook Writer
If you promise not to get too mad, I’ll tell you a secret. I used to write textbooks.
Yes, it’s true. I helped write those big books that break your back when you carry them and put you to sleep when you read them. But let me say one thing in my own defense: I never meant for the books to be boring!
I used to spend long days in the lib
rary, searching for stories to make my history textbooks fun to read. And I filled up notebooks with stories—funny, amazing, inspiring, surprising, and disgusting stories. But as you’ve probably noticed, textbooks are filled with charts, tables, lists, names, dates, review questions … there isn’t any room left for the good stuff. In fact, every time I tried to sneak in a cool story, my bosses used to drag me to this dark room in the basement of our building and take turns dropping filing cabinets on my head.
Okay, that’s a lie. But they could have fired me, right? And I’ve got a wife and baby to think about.
So here’s what I did: Over the years, I secretly stashed away all the stories I wasn’t allowed to use in textbooks. I kept telling myself, “One of these days I’m going to write my own history books! And I’ll pack them with all the true stories and real quotes that textbooks never tell you!”
Well, now those books finally exist. If you can find it in your heart to forgive my previous crimes, I hope you’ll give this one a chance. Thanks for hearing me out.
Source Notes
When I started researching this book on the West, the problem wasn’t finding sources—it was finding too many sources. A history nerd like myself (actually I prefer to think of myself as a “story detective”) can get so excited about exploring all the amazing stories that he never actually writes a book. Or gets paid. What I’m trying to say is that I went through a lot of books. Below is a list of the books and others sources in which I found all the great stuff you read in this book (you did read it, right?). I hope it’s helpful.
Books about the West
As always, I started by reading books that give an overview of all the action and major players. These books cover America’s westward expansion, Indians, mountain men, miners, cowboys, pioneers, railroads, and lots more. They also introduced me to tons of great characters—people I made sure to find out more about in other books.
Barnard, Edward S. Reader’s Digest: Story of the Great American West. Pleasantville, N.Y.: Reader’s Digest Association, 1977.
Lavender, David. The Great West. New York: American Heritage, 1985.
Stegner, Page. Winning the Wild West: The Epic Saga of the American Frontier, 1800–1899. New York: Free Press, 2002.
Utley, Robert M., ed. The Story of the West: A History of the American West and Its People. New York: DK Pub., 2003.
Ward, Geoffrey C. The West: An Illustrated History. Boston: Little, Brown, 1996.
Wexler, Alan. Atlas of Westward Expansion. New York: Facts on File, 1995.
Books and articles about territorial expansion and trails west
The sources here cover a lot of ground (literally). They’re all about the rapid expansion of United States, along with stories about early American traders, travelers, and settlers. Speaking of expansion of the United States, how come no one’s ever made a movie (a comedy, I mean) about Livingston and Monroe in Paris, trying to figure out if they should buy half a continent from France? Hey, I’d see it.
Ambrose, Stephen. Undaunted Courage: Meriwether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson, and the Opening of the American West. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996.
Brands, H. W. Lone Star Nation: How a Ragged Army of Volunteers Won the Battle for Texas Independence—and Changed America. New York: Doubleday, 2004.
Cerami, Charles. Jefferson’s Great Gamble: The Remarkable Story of Jefferson, Napoleon, and the Men Behind the Louisiana Purchase. Naperville, Ill.: Sourcebooks, 2003.
Christensen, Carol and Thomas. The U.S.-Mexican War: Companion to the Public Television Series, The U.S.-Mexican War, 1846–1848. San Francisco: Bay Books, 1998.
Corbett, Christopher. Orphans Preferred: The Twisted Truth and Lasting Legend of the Pony Express. New York: Broadway Books, 2003.
Dary, David. The Oregon Trail: An American Saga. New York: Knopf, 2004.
———. The Santa Fe Trail: Its History, Legends, and Lore. New York: Knopf, 2000.
Eisenhower, John S. D. So Far from God: The U.S. War with Mexico, 1846–1848. New York: Random House, 1989.
Golay, Michael. The Tide of Empire: America’s March to the Pacific. Hoboken, N.J.: Wiley, 2003.
Hansen, Todd, ed. The Alamo Reader: A Study in History. Mechanicsburg, Penn.: Stackpole Books, 2003.
Hyslop, Stephen. Bound for Santa Fe: The Road to New Mexico and the American Conquest, 1806–1848. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2002.
Kukla, Jon. A Wilderness So Immense: The Louisiana Purchase and the Destiny of America. New York: Knopf, 2003.
Leckie, Robert. From Sea to Shining Sea: From the War of 1812 to the Mexican War, the Saga of America’s Expansion. New York: HarperCollins, 1993.
Lyon, E. Wilson. The Man Who Sold Louisiana: The Career of Francois Barbé-Marbois . Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1942.
Matovina, Timothy, ed. The Alamo Remembered: Tejano Accounts and Perspectives. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1995.
McLynn, Frank. Wagons West: The Epic Story of America’s Overland Trails. London: Jonathan Cape, 2002.
Morris, Larry E. The Fate of the Corps: What Became of the Lewis and Clark Explorers After the Expedition. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004.
O’Sullivan, John. “Annexation.” United States Magazine and Democratic Review 17, no. 1 (July–August 1845): PP NOs.
Ronda, James P. Lewis & Clark Among the Indians. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1984.
Schlissel, Lillian. Women’s Diaries of the Westward Journey. New York: Schocken Books, 1982.
Stewart, George R. Ordeal by Hunger: The Story of the Donner Party. New York: H. Holt and Co., 1936.
Tucker, Robert W., and William C. Henderson. Empire of Liberty: The Statecraft of Thomas Jefferson. New York: Oxford University Press, 1992.
Utley, Robert M. A Life Wild and Perilous: Mountain Men and the Paths to the Pacific . New York: Henry Holt, 1997.
Webb, Walter Prescott. The Handbook of Texas. Austin: Texas State Historical Society, 1952.
Books and sources on the gold rush and miners
If you were an American in 1849, do you think you’d have joined the gold rush? I’m betting most miners would probably have stayed home if they’d known how hard it was going to be to strike it rich. Too bad for them that they couldn’t read the books below—all about how hard it was to strike it rich. These sources also show us how different the gold rush experience was for men and women, and for people from different parts of the world.
Andrist, Ralph K. American Heritage: The California Gold Rush. New York: American Heritage Publishing, 1961.
Egenhoff, Elisabeth L. The Elephant as They Saw It: A Collection of Contemporary Pictures and Statements on Gold Mining in California. California Division of Mines, 1949.
Holliday, J. S. Rush for Riches: Gold Fever and the Making of California. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999.
———. The World Rushed In: The California Gold Rush Experience. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1981.
Johnson, Susan Lee. Roaring Camp: The Social World of the California Gold Rush. New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 2000.
Ketchum, Liza. The Gold Rush. Boston: Little, Brown, 1996.
Lapp, Rudolph M. Blacks in Gold Rush California. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1977.
Lavender, David. The Rockies. New York: Harper & Row, 1975.
Lavoie, Steven. “Wimmer’s Nugget.” Online article at Oakland Museum of California website, www.museumca.org/goldrush/ar08.html.
Levy, Jo Ann. They Saw the Elephant: Women in the California Gold Rush. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1992.
Perl, Lila. To the Golden Mountain. Tarrytown, N.Y.: Benchmark Books, 2003.
Ridge, John Rollin. The Life and Adventures of Joaquin Murieta, the Celebrated California Bandit. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1955.
Walker, Dale L. Eldorado: The California Gold Rush. New York: Tom Doherty Associates, 2003.
Wallace, Robert. The Old West: The Miners. New York: Time Life Books, 1976.
Yung,
Judy, Gordon H. Chang, and Him Mark Lai, eds. Chinese American Voices: From the Gold Rush to the Present. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006.
Books about railroad building
Way back when I started this project, my idea was to make the whole book about the building of the transcontinental railroad. So, maybe it wasn’t a great idea. But you have to admit, the railroad race was exciting stuff, and actually getting the thing built was one of the great engineering feats of all time. These books tell all about the people who pulled it off.
Ambrose, Stephen E. Nothing Like It in the World: The Men Who Built the Transcontinental Railroad. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2000.
Bain, David Howard. Empire Express: Building the First Transcontinental Railroad. New York: Viking, 1999.
Blumberg, Rhoda. Full Steam Ahead: The Race to Build a Transcontinental Railroad. Washington, D.C.: National Geographic Society, 1996.
Brown, Dee. Hear That Lonesome Whistle Blow: Railroads in the West. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1977.
Coolidge, Susan. “A few hints on the California Journey.” Scribner’s, vol. 6, May 1873.
Earl, Phillip. This Was Nevada. Reno: Nevada Historical Society, 1986.
Grenville, Dodge. How We Built the Union Pacific Railway. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1910.
Jenson, Oliver Ormerod. The American Heritage History of Railroads in America. New York: Random House, 1994.
Klein, Maury. Union Pacific: Volume I, 1862–1893. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2006.
Mayer, Lynne Rhodes, and Ken Vose. Makin’ Tracks: The Saga of the Transcontinental Railroad. New York: Barnes & Noble Books, 1975.
Which Way to the Wild West? Page 16
