John Bicknell – författare

In 1856 the fledgling Republican party nominated as its first candidate for president John C. Frémont, the dashing explorer of the American West known as the Pathfinder and a radical opponent of slavery. He lost, but when the Civil War broke out, Lincoln tapped him for high command, setting the two on a collision course over how to deal with slavery during the conflict. The Pathfinder and the President explores their volatile relationship in all its political and military dimensions as well as its effects on the Civil War and the battle for emancipation.Lincoln had not supported Frémont’s nomination in 1856, favoring a more moderate Republican, but when the war came, the president recognized his importance – his morale-boosting value as a national celebrity and his political value as an ally of Radical Republicans – and gave Frémont command of the Department of the West, with the task of defending the vital border state of Missouri. There Frémont lived extravagantly, commanded like a tyrant, oversaw a fraud scandal, feuded with the state’s political leaders, and struggled with seesawing guerrilla warfare. Desperate to break the stalemate, Frémont in August 1861 proclaimed the emancipation of all rebel slaves. Lincoln reacted swiftly, fearing that such a move would drive Missouri and other border states to secede, and revoked the order, firing the recalcitrant Frémont shortly thereafter, at some political cost amongst Radical Republicans, who launched an investigation while continuing to lobby for Frémont and swift emancipation. Within four months, the Pathfinder was back, this time to command in the Appalachians, where he proved no match for Stonewall Jackson in the Shenandoah Valley. He never commanded again. Lincoln soon issued the Emancipation Proclamation, his thinking on the subject having been shaped by the Frémont affair. In the 1864 election, Frémont ran on the anti-Lincoln Radical Democracy Party, withdrawing before the election in a compromise that also removed a hated rival from Lincoln’s cabinet, ending his involvement in the Civil War.Frémont had lost two commands, every battle in which he fought, a presidential campaign, a good portion of his personal fortune, and much of his reputation, yet Lincoln still compared him to Moses and praised him as a pioneer—a pathfinder—for emancipation. Frémont’s is an important—and never dull—story, and in telling it, John Bicknell gives us a better understanding of not only Frémont, but also Lincoln, emancipation, and the Civil War.

The year 1844 saw a momentous presidential election, religious turmoil, westward expansion, and numerous other interwoven events that profoundly affected the U.S. as a nation. Author and journalist John Bicknell details these compelling events in this unusual history book. He explains how the election of James K. Polk assured the expansion that brought Texas, California, and Oregon into the union. This took place amidst anti-Mormon and anti-Catholic violence, the belief in the imminent second coming of Christ, the murder of Joseph Smith, Charles Goodyear's patenting of vulcanized rubber, the near-death of President John Tyler in a freak naval explosion, and much more. All of these elements illustrate the competing visions of the American future and how Polk's victory cemented the vision of a continental nation.

The election of 1856 was the most violent peacetime election in American history. Amid all the violence, the campaign of the new Republican Party, headed by famed explorer John C. Fremont, offered a ray of hope that had never before been seen in the politics of the nation-a major party dedicated to limiting the spread of slavery. For the first time, women and African Americans became actively engaged in a presidential contest, and the candidate's wife, Jessie Benton Fremont, played a central role in both planning and executing strategy while being a public face of the campaign. The 1856 campaign was also run against the backdrop of a country on the move, with settlers continuing to spread westward facing unimagined horrors, a terrible natural disaster that took hundreds of lives in the South, and one of the most famous Supreme Court cases in history, which set the stage for the Civil War. Fremont lost, but his strong showing in the North proved that a sectional party could win a national election, blazing the trail for Abraham Lincoln's victory four years later.

The 1856 presidential race was the most violent peacetime election in American history. War between proslavery and antislavery settlers raged in Kansas; a congressman shot an Irish immigrant at a Washington hotel; and another congressman beat a US senator senseless on the floor of the Senate. But amid all the violence, the campaign of the new Republican Party, headed by famed explorer John C. FrÉmont, offered a ray of hope: a major party dedicated to limiting the spread of slavery. For the first time, women and African Americans actively engaged in a presidential contest, and the candidate''s wife, Jessie Benton FrÉmont, played a central role in both planning and executing strategy, and was a public face of the campaign. Even enslaved blacks in the South took hope from FrÉmont''s crusade.The 1856 campaign was also run against the backdrop of a country on the move, with settlers continuing to spread westward facing unimagined horrors, a terrible natural disaster that took hundreds of lives in the South, and one of the most famous Supreme Court cases in history, which set the stage for the Civil War. FrÉmont lost, but his strong showing in the North proved that a sectional party could win a national election, blazing the trail for Abraham Lincoln''s victory four years later.