A favorite of President Andrew Jackson and the daughter of Senator Thomas Hart Benton of Missouri, Jessie Benton was acquainted with the famous from childhood. When the vivacious belle met John C. Frémont, "the handsomest young man who ever walked the streets of Washington," love bloomed.
Always passionately devoted to the controversial explorer, soldier, and politician, Jessie bore John five children, maintained a family life, charmed and campaigned on his behalf, and helped him write the popular reports of his western trailblazing. These pages, filled with public figures such as Kit Carson and Abraham Lincoln, present a lively and fearless woman.
Catherine Coffin Phillips, whose family knew Jessie Frémont during her last years in Los Angeles, had access to private letters. Introducing this Bison Book edition is Christine Bold, an assistant professor of English at the University of Guelph, and the author of Selling the Wild West: Popular Western Fiction, 1860 to 1960.
