Across the Great Divide - Hardcover

McCartney, Laton

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0750937408 ISBN 13: 9780750937405

Publisher: The History Press, 2004

Synopsis

Across the Great Divide Across the Great Divide Full description

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Review

Page Stegner Author of "Winning the Wild West: The Epic Saga of the American Frontier, 1800-1899" How fitting that in the bicentennial year of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, Robert Stuart, the man who first pioneered the Oregon Trail that 300,000 emigrants would cross on their way to the Pacific Coast, would finally get his due. Laton McCartney's "Across the Great Divide" is a superb narrative of that historic adventure.

Howard R. Lamar Sterling Professor Emeritus of History, Yale University A splendidly written biography of Robert Stuart, a key but long-neglected transcontinental explorer who discovered the most famous gateway to the American West in the nineteenth century. His entire life was a fascinating, action-packed adventure story. Laton McCartney's "Across the Great Divide" deserves high praise.

Douglas Brinkley Director, The Eisenhower Center for American Studies, and Professor of History, University of New Orleans What a truly wonderful book. Historian Laton McCartney brings to life the extraordinary -- and largely neglected -- story of how fur trader Robert Stuart discovered the trail that would lead 300,000 immigrants over the Rocky Mountains to the fertile valleys of Oregon. Brimming with lively anecdotes, fresh insights, and clear prose, this landmark study is a major new contribution to our understanding of the phenomenon known as "Western Expansionism." "Across the Great Divide" belongs next to "Undaunted Courage" on everybody's bookshelf.

Ted Morgan Author of "Wilderness at Dawn: The Settling of the American Continent" This thrilling account of the discovery of the Oregon Trail, which made possible the settling of the American West, ranks with the finest books on the continent's explorers.

Synopsis

This book, drawing on unpublished family letters and journals, tells the story of Robert Stuart's 1812-1813 expedition for the first time. His discovery of the Oregon Trail opened up the West to settlers and ranks as one of the great, untold adventure odysseys of the nineteenth century. In the early 1800s the fur trade was perhaps the largest business in North America with fur trade companies vying for monopoly of the trade in the wilds of America. Stuart, a Scottish immigrant in his late twenties, was a junior partner in John Jacob Astor's Pacific Fur Company (PFC) who set off to establish the first American trading colony on the Pacific coast. A year later, Stuart led a seven-man party overland to obtain desperately needed supplies and support from Astor, who had seemingly forgotten them. Travelling from west to east, Stuart and his rag-tag expedition journeyed through uncharted country, enduring near starvation (Stuart had to prevent one man from devouring his weakened companion), illness, Indian attacks, blinding blizzards and weeks of sub-zero temperatures. Nevertheless, due largely to Stuart's courage, restraint and extraordinary endurance, all of the men made it safely back

Edition details

• Publisher: The History Press
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 0750937408
• ISBN 13: 9780750937405
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 320