John Charles Fremont
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1813-1890
Born in Savannah, Georgia on January 21, 1813, Fremont was one four
major generals appointed by President Lincoln, he was easily the most
celebrated. As a Union general, Fremont's major Civil War
contribution was more political than military when he focused Union
attention on the role emancipation should play in the North's war
policy.
The magnetic and legendary "Pathfinder" became a national hero early
in life for his trailblazing exploits in the Far West. A leader in
wresting California from Mexico, he served as one of the state's
first senators and got rich in the Gold Rush. Fremont's popularity
and his antislavery position were equally instrumental in his being
chosen the Republican Party's first presidential nominee in 1856, the
youngest man yet to run for the office. With Southern states
threatening secession if he were elected, Fremont's loss to James
Buchanan forestalled disunion for another four years.
In Europe at the outbreak of the Civil War, he purchased a cache of
arms in England for the North on his own initiative and returned to
America. Abraham Lincoln, mostly for political reasons, appointed him
major general in May 1861, placing him in command of the precarious
Department of the West. Based in St. Louis, Fremont spent more energy
fortifying the city and developing flashy guard units than equipping
the troops in the field. His forces suffered several losses,
particularly a major defeat at Wilson's Creek that August.
Attempting to gain a political advantage in the absence of a military
one, Fremont, in an unprecedented and unauthorized move, issued a
startling proclamation at the end of the month declaring martial law
in Missouri and ordering that secessionists' property be confiscated
and their slaves emancipated. The action was cheered by antislavery
Republicans, but Lincoln, concerned that linking abolition to the war
effort would destroy Union support throughout the slave-holding
border states, asked Fremont at the very least to modify the order.
The Pathfinder refused, sending his wife, the politically influential
daughter of former Senate leader Thomas Hart Benton, to Washington to
talk to the president. Displeased with Fremont's effrontery, Lincoln
revoked the proclamation altogether and removed him from command.
Pressure from his fellow Republicans forced Lincoln to give the
popular Fr6mont another appointment, and in March 1862 he was named
head of the army's new Mountain Department, serving in Western
Virginia.
Over the following two months, he endured several crushing losses
against Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson during the Confederate general's
brilliantly successful Shenandoah Valley Campaign. After a military
reorganization placed him under the command of former subordinate
John Pope, Fremont angrily resigned his post, never to receive a new
Civil War appointment.
In 1864, however, he began another presidential bid with the backing
of a cadre of Radical Republicans, but withdrew from the race in
September and threw his support to Lincoln after a rapprochement in
the party. When he lost most of his fortune by the end of the war,
Fremont tried the railroad industry. His reputation damaged by an
1873 conviction for his role in a swindle, he nevertheless resumed
his political career, and later in the decade began serving as
territorial governor of Arizona but depended on his wife's income
from writing during most of his later years. He died in New York
City, July 13, 1890.
