The Starving Winter

In the winter of 1848, John C. Frémont was the most famous explorer in America, and a man in disgrace.

Freshly convicted of mutiny, the celebrated Pathfinder set out to win back his name by proving that a railroad could cross the Rocky Mountains in the dead of winter. Trappers warned him. His first guide quit. The snow in the high country was the deepest anyone could remember.

He went anyway.

Within weeks, the expedition’s mules were dying by the dozen and more than thirty men were trapped and starving in Colorado’s San Juan Mountains. A relief party disappeared down the frozen Rio Grande. Frémont walked out of camp to find help, leaving his men a message telling them to hurry. What followed was a desperate struggle in which the strong abandoned the weak, a Philadelphia doctor survived on a scrap of rope soaked in oil, and starving men talked quietly about eating the dead.

Ten never came home.

Built on the letters, diaries, and eyewitness accounts of the men who were there, The Starving Winter is a gripping true story of ambition, survival, and betrayal, and of a blame war that followed Frémont all the way to his run for President.

Inside, you will also find original maps of the route and the rescue, a full cast of characters, a day-by-day timeline, and discussion questions for book clubs.

Who led these men to their deaths: the famous explorer, the legendary mountain man he hired, or the mountain itself?