The Song of Hugh Glass

Excerpt: If the average student of Western American History in our schools were asked to recall those names which loom large for him during the four decades from the purchase of the Louisiana Territory to the coming of the settlers, he would doubtless think of Lewis and Clark, Lieutenant Pike, Major Long, and General Frémont, with perhaps one or two others. That is to say, the average student of Western History is familiar with the names of official explorers; and but for their exploits, those forty wonderful years would seem to him little more than a lapse of empty time in a vast region waiting for the westering white man. It is true that the deeds of those above named were important. The journey of Lewis and Clark from St. Louis to the mouth of the Columbia, and back again, has immense significance in the story of our national life, and it was truly a ?magnificent adventure,? to use the phrase of Emerson Hough. Pike holds and deserves a high place for his explorations in the Southwest. Long?s contribution to the early knowledge of the West was considerable; and Frémont?s expeditions served, at least, to awaken the xiipopular Eastern mind to the great possibilities of the Trans-Missouri region. Frémont?s reputation, however, is out of all proportion to his real accomplishment, for the trails he travelled were well known to white men long before he ventured into the wilderness. In this connection, Major Chittenden, one of the foremost authorities on the subject, tells us that ?there never has been a time until very recently when the geography of the West was so thoroughly understood as it was by the trader and trapper from 1830 to 1840.?