Imperfect Union

by Steve Inskeep

  Mrs. Fremont . . . informed me that Mr. Carson had been waiting several days to see me, for the purpose of conversing with me and tendering his services to bear dispatches to California, if any were to be sent.

  Of course that was only part of the reason for the visit. Carson handed over John’s letter. Jessie did much of the talking, while Polk said little.

  Mrs. Fremont seemed anxious to elicit from me some expression of approbation of her husband’s conduct, but I evaded. In truth, I consider that Col. Fremont was greatly in the wrong when he refused to obey the orders issued to him by Gen’l Kearney. I think Gen’l Kearney was right also in his controversy with Com. Stockton. It was unnecessary, however, that I should say so to Col. Fremont’s wife, and I evaded giving her an answer.

  Polk knew that John had finally submitted to Kearny’s authority, and “the error being corrected,” Polk was hoping the matter would “pass over quietly” without “a Court Martial.” Jessie escorted Kit Carson away from the presidential mansion with a feeling of disappointment and foreboding. After nightfall, Polk summoned Carson to talk alone, and without the colonel’s wife present, Polk said, they “had a full conversation . . . concerning the State of affairs in California, and especially in relation to the collision between our land & naval commanders in that distant region.”

  Carson departed Washington June 15, heading toward California. Jessie accompanied him, intending to travel as far as St. Louis in hopes of encountering her husband returning home. When her boat reached the St. Louis waterfront, she stepped ashore in a boomtown; the settlement of barely 5,000 that she remembered as a girl was approaching 75,000 as it supplied wagon trains to Oregon and California and some of the volunteer army forces occupying Mexico. She moved through the crowded streets to her father’s house, but it could not contain her. Leaving Lily with a caregiver, she started westward by steamboat up the Missouri River, thinking John must be out there somewhere. The boat let her off at Westport Landing, one of the settlements near the point where the Kansas River meets the Missouri. At a “a cluster of frame and log buildings on the bluff,” she found a place to stay in a “log-cabin, hot and stifling in the late summer heat,” where she spent several “weary days of suspense.” And then one evening, she said, “the rapid trampling of many horses announced the long waiting was over.” He was riding with about twenty men, the core of the expedition that had departed from that spot in 1845.

  The years and the experiences of those years of great events had made their telling mark on Mr. Frémont and he was still further changed by his dress, the unfamiliar Spanish riding dress of Californians. But the great change was in the stern set look of endurance and self control which the few past months had forced upon him, and with it a silent repressed storm of feeling which entirely dominated his own light hearted courtesy and thought for others.

  He appeared stunned to see Jessie there, and “could not recover himself.” Something was wrong, but “he could not put it into speech,” and though they had been apart so achingly long, he needed to be alone. He went to care for his horses and “escaped from notice into the coming night.” Only then did one of the men, Alex Godey, inform Jessie what had happened. Kearny had departed California for home and ordered John to return eastward with him. When they reached Fort Leavenworth, an army post near Missouri’s border, Kearny told John to consider himself under arrest for mutiny. The general ordered him to return to Washington and report to the authorities for a court-martial. Jessie understood that his career—their career—was in peril.

  * * *

  WHEN PIERRE L’ENFANT LAID OUT A PLAN for Washington, D.C., in the 1790s he included a space for fortifications. At the southern end of the city, about two miles from the Capitol, the Anacostia River flows into the Potomac, and L’Enfant thought that on the point between the two rivers, artillery might command the waterways and defend against invaders. Cannons were placed there but never served their purpose; the only time Washington was attacked, in the War of 1812, British invaders came by land from a different direction, burning the Capitol and the presidential mansion. The military reservation on the southern point of the city continued to be used as an arsenal—long brick buildings in which workmen cast rifles and cannons and arranged them in long rows for the next war. Then, in the fall of 1847, the army assigned a room in the arsenal to be used as a courtroom for the trial of Lieutenant Colonel John Charles Frémont.

  Jessie became a full partner in preparing her dispirited husband’s defense. He needed her to be; he was distracted. He learned that his mother was ill in South Carolina and hurried southward to be at her side. Anne Pryor died before he could reach her; he buried her in Charleston. It was characteristic of John that he left no record of what he thought as he passed alone through the rituals of farewell, in the city where he once had strolled the Battery and looked out on the water and fallen in love with Cecilia and dreamed; but there could be no doubt that he was out of touch with his court case. Jessie carried his load. Learning that an officer who supported John’s version of events had come home from California but expected soon to return to the Pacific, Jessie wrote him. “For a selfish reason I wish your stay a little longer in the country,” she told naval officer Edward F. Beale, who at age twenty-five was just two years older than Jessie. “Mr. Frémont . . . wishes you” to testify. She learned of a newspaper article suggesting that key witnesses against John—possibly even General Kearny himself—were about to be ordered to duty in Mexico, making a court-martial impossible. She appealed to President Polk. “You will see,” she declared, “the manifest injustice to Mr. Frémont of letting his accusers escape from the investigation of the charges they have made against him.”

  You have the power to do justice & I ask it of you that Mr. Frémont be permitted to make his accusers stand the trial as well as himself. Do not suppose, Sir, that I lightly interfere in a matter properly belonging to men, but in the absence of Mr. Frémont I attend to his affairs at his request. . . . Very respectfully yours,

  Jessie Benton Frémont

  Jessie got her wish, although it would have been better if she had not. An entirely different scenario had once been within reach—President Polk’s desire that a court-martial be avoided. John, like the witnesses, likely would have gone south to the war in Mexico and joined the regiment to which he had already been assigned. Instead the trial was proceeding, and Senator Benton exulted that improving communications were making it possible to recall witnesses to Washington from across the continent: “Thanks to Morse! The lightning streaked after them. Thanks to Fulton! The invincible steam pursued them.”

  On November 2 the Benton family rode out of central Washington city and down to the arsenal’s improvised court amid the cannons. It was said that the wine-red dress Jessie wore that day had been chosen to show her optimism. She watched as her husband stood to face a dozen officers who would judge him. The gold braid on the shoulders of his uniform hung on a body weathered and toughened by years in the saddle, and his face was maturing: he was thirty-four, in the prime of his life.

  Jessie was not alone in the gallery. Reporters attended (“We thank the court and the parties in this case, for the facilities extended to the press thus far,” wrote the correspondent for the New York Herald) and found that most perfect of political news stories, a clash of personalities seemingly without any larger meaning to complicate the telling. Spectators from the army and navy watched, as did eleven men from John’s expedition, including Alex Godey and Richard Owens, two of the men John admired most. “The most interesting group to us,” said the Herald correspondent, “was a detachment of Col. Fremont’s California desert rangers and mountain scalers. . . . These men were with Fremont through all his explorations in California, and know the exact relish of a dish of grasshoppers, or the entrails of a mule, to a hungry man, after two or three days journeying over the desert plains of the Great Basin.” The men told stories of their time in California—like when John, with Jacob Dods
on and a Californian, rode four hundred miles in four days from Los Angeles to Monterey. They sent spare horses racing in front of them, which Jacob lassoed when it was time to change. Reprinted in many papers, the mind-boggling feat became another element of John’s public persona.

  The charges against Lieutenant Colonel Frémont were revealing. He was not accused of riding an armed force into the territory of another nation. He was not accused of massacring Indians. He was not accused of provoking conflict against Mexico, or having noncombatants put to death, or imprisoning men without charge. All these acts had been wiped away by victory in California. The charges related only to his disobedience of General Kearny, which had cost neither blood nor treasure but had challenged the order and the culture of the army. It turned out there was a larger meaning to the trial: the army was less concerned with John’s record in California than with safeguarding the institution of the army itself. And because the army was defending its own authority, it would be especially hard for the organization to let John off, as the defendant seemed to realize.

  He presented a paper stating his view of the case. “It is no part of my intention or desire to make defence on any legal or technical point,” he wrote; he simply wanted the facts known and his trial quickly concluded. By a reading of “legal and technical points” there could be little doubt that he was guilty, so he planned a broader and more political defense with the help of his lawyers, one of whom was a leading politician. “I name as the counsel . . . the two friends who accompany me, Thomas H. Benton and William Carey Jones, esquires.” The presence of Jones, his brother-in-law, meant that the entire defense was a family enterprise. And the head of the family admitted to no doubt about the outcome. Senator Benton told his son-in-law, “You will be justified, and exalted: your persecutors will be covered with shame & confusion. The process through which you have gone is bitter: but it will have its Sweet.” Benton even suggested that being “the subject of an outrage” would, in the long run, enlarge John’s reputation and help his public career. It was said that a man who represented himself in a court had a fool for a lawyer; it remained an open question what to call a man whose lawyer was his prideful father-in-law.

  General Kearny was in the courtroom, and John had an opportunity to cross-examine his accuser. John thought he was doing well (“we have carried the points which command the issues of the case,” he assured a friend on November 5), but his efforts to show Kearny to be deceptive or vindictive fell flat. The army expected John to follow his superior officers and he had not. Commodore Stockton testified but did little good. Senator Benton, too, was of little help, once provoking debate in the court about whether he had violated rules of decorum by staring at General Kearny.

  On January 31, 1848, the court found Lieutenant Colonel Frémont guilty and sentenced him “to be dismissed from the service.” A majority of officers added, however, that Frémont had been placed in “circumstances . . . calculated to embarrass the mind, and excite the doubts of officers of greater experience than the accused.” Because the defendant had rendered “important professional services” throughout his career, the officers “beg[ged] leave to recommend him to the clemency of the President of the United States.” And clemency came. Aside from his relationship to an important senator, John was a national hero who had accomplished a central goal of James K. Polk’s presidency. In a letter dated February 16, the president affirmed the sentence against John, but added that “in consideration of the peculiar circumstances of the case” and the “previous meritorious and valuable services of Lieutenant Colonel Frémont,” he should “accordingly be released from arrest, will resume his sword, and report for duty.” John had escaped all consequences; his career was saved. And then, after brief reflection, he threw it away. Because Polk had not overturned the verdict of the court-martial, instead approving it before granting clemency, John found it intolerable. In the house at C Street, no doubt with Jessie by his side, he wrote the adjutant general of the army.

  I . . . hereby send in my resignation of Lieutenant Colonel in the Army of the United States.

  In doing this I take the occasion to say that my reason for resigning is, that I do not feel conscious of having done any thing to merit the finding of the court; and this being the case, I cannot, by accepting the clemency of the President, admit the justice of the decision against me. Very respectfully, Sir, your obedt. servt.

  J.C. Frémont

  His adventures in the military had brought him everything. The navy had taken him out of Charleston and into the Southern Hemisphere. The army had introduced him to Joseph Nicollet and taken him out on the Great Plains. His service had brought him into contact with Senator Benton, and through him to his marriage with Jessie. On the army payroll he had climbed the Rocky Mountains, crossed them to the Great Salt Lake and to Oregon, and continued to the surf of Monterey Bay, achieving fame rivaled by few in his lifetime. Now his military career was over, a self-inflicted wound.

  * * *

  SENATOR BENTON WAS RIGHT ABOUT ONE THING: being “the subject of an outrage” did not diminish John’s fame. It was after John’s guilty verdict and resignation that a town called Lower Sandusky, Ohio, changed its name to Fremont. Citizens signed a petition for the new name, which was presented to local authorities in 1849 by Rutherford B. Hayes, a young lawyer, who said the town was “substantially unanimous” in favor. A newspaper there became the Fremont Weekly Freeman. There was soon a Fremont, New Hampshire, and a Fremont, New York.

  Benton willingly prolonged the controversy. Seeking compensation for his family’s wounded honor, the sixty-six-year-old used his power to try to block a promotion for General Kearny, and spent much of the summer relitigating the court-martial before the Senate in a massive speech that required portions of thirteen days to deliver. He also blocked the promotion of an army major who had judged John as a member of the court-martial, accusing the man of “malice and envy” until the major requested his own court-martial to clear his name.

  Nothing came of Benton’s tirades, although the Frémonts enjoyed some benefit from their protector. The Senate commissioned John, at a rate of eight dollars per day, to make a map of California and deliver a report of his most recent adventures, which he wrote in collaboration with Jessie. They decided against a full-blown book, even though it would have been their most newsworthy work—suggesting that John understood his greatest triumph might seem less impressive if examined at length. Instead the Frémonts produced only a “geographical memoir” describing the landscape. While it lacked the narrative drama of previous reports, its designation of the harbor mouth as the Golden Gate made it a historic document, and its brevity meant the Frémonts could quickly finish and clear the way for other work.

  Speed was necessary, for Jessie was pregnant. She likely had known since the court-martial—possibly even before she showed up that first day in the red dress. There was no reason to think that she was eager for a second child (“you know children are not necessary to happiness”), but she wanted to give John a son, and undoubtedly faced social pressure to produce a larger family. Her mother, who had borne five children, would have been considered ordinary; Jessie, who had turned twenty-four that spring and still had only one child, was opening herself to questions. She’d had few opportunities because her husband was away more often than he was present. But in the crushing days after his arrest in August 1847, he had needed her.

  It was a difficult pregnancy, though she kept working. On May 29, weeks from giving birth, she was sending John’s botanist plant samples he had brought from California. In the same letter she reported, “For some months I have been unwell & since the last of April I have not left my room, but have had a battle with a violent bilious fever, which like Bunyan’s fight with Apollyon was the dreadfullest fight I ever had.” This was a reference to a Christian man’s battle with a monster in the popular book The Pilgrim’s Progress. “However,” Jessie added, “I have gained the victory & am more t
han willing not even to remember it.” She gave birth in July 1848—and it was a boy. They called him Benton, and had him christened August 15, at a ceremony attended by Kit Carson, who had just returned with another packet of dispatches from California. Jessie was overjoyed to see the unassuming mountain man, who was as courteous around her as he was ruthless around others; he counted as a dear friend of Jessie’s as well as John’s, and he was named the baby’s godfather. But Benton was a sickly infant, and Carson could not bring himself to sound hopeful about the child’s prospects. He told Jessie he doubted Benton would survive. Having seen many deaths, having caused many deaths, having been married and seen the death of his first wife, and having fathered many children, not all of whom lived, he spoke with authority.

  The baby’s illness did not deter the Frémonts from trying to plan the next stage of their lives. John wanted out of Washington to make a new life in California; Jessie wanted to go with him. But how would they get there and what would they do for a living? A remarkable plan began to take shape, under which John would return to government service: a bill was introduced in the Senate to pay seven hundred thousand dollars in war claims made by Californians—people who had sold horses and supplies to John or to Commodore Stockton on a promise of later payment, or who said their property had been damaged. Senator Benton spoke in favor of the measure, which was no surprise. “It is understood,” reported the New York Herald, “that on the passage of the bill, Mr. Frémont, (for he has assumed that title since the acceptance of his resignation of his commission as Lieut. Colonel . . .) will proceed at once to San Francisco” to settle with his creditors. Suddenly John faced the prospect of returning to the place he had been forced to leave in disgrace and bringing a fortune that he could distribute to everyone on the Pacific slope who had ever helped him. Nor was that all: defeated Mexico was about to formally cede California to the United States, and the Herald reported that John would “go to California with a view to a fixed residence there, under the idea that a new [territorial] Governor may soon be appointed, in the person of the gallant desert explorer himself.” He would reclaim the very governorship that had been snatched from him. On his way to California, John would conduct another expedition, this time finding a route for a transcontinental railroad from St. Louis to San Francisco.