John C. Fremont (b. 1813 – d. 1890) in 1852, just after his fourth and last expedition to the west, which cost ten lives. He left the military and went into politics, running as a presidential candidate in 1856, and until the outbreak of the Civil War. He again retired, this time as Major General, to private life and politics. He was even nominated again for President in 1864 by the Radical Republicans (against Lincoln), but he withdrew before the election. He was appointed the fifth Arizona Territorial Governor from 1878 to 1881, living part-time in Prescott. He was forced to resign by President Chester Arthur due to his long and many absences from duty as the Arizona Territorial Governor and was replaced by Frederick Tritle (Public Domain Image – Fremont by William Smith Jewett).

At home in St. Louis, Fremont paced the floor. Who else might supply detail and color to these hard travels? Certainly not his chosen band of explorers who were mostly illiterate. But what about the learned Karl Preuss?

George Karl Ludwig Preuss was born in Prussia in 1803 (ten years Fremont’s senior). After coming to America as a surveyor and map maker, he was known as Charles Preuss. In 1842, he was out of work and Fremont hired him.

The success of the government financed expeditions from 1842 until 1849, including four major expeditions, kept Fremont “in the field” five of the first eight years that he was married to Jessie, young daughter of the powerful U. S. Senator from Missouri, Thomas Hart Benton. Resulting maps and guidebooks from the expeditions were best sellers and helped our country expand from the Atlantic to the Pacific. As well, they brought wide fame and good income to the Fremonts.

Preuss accompanied Fremont on three of the four expeditions and produced magnificent maps and sketches, though he seemed wrong for the job. Preuss and Fremont were opposites, to say the least. Science writer John Noble Wilford calls Fremont the archetypical Western hero-explorer and Preuss the grumbling tenderfoot. If Fremont saw the poetry in the unfolding landscapes about him, Preuss saw precise longitudes and latitudes.

George Karl Ludwig (Charles) Preuss, c.1840s, was born in Prussia in 1803, came to America as a surveyor and cartographer in 1834 working for the Coast Survey. He found himself out of a job when funding for the Survey ceased, but was hired by John C. Fremont as his cartographer for three of his four expeditions to the west: 1842, 1843-44 and 1848 (Photo Courtesy of Author – Reuse only by permission).

Preuss was known for his personal diary notes intended for his wife, Gertrude, and their German relatives. These were notes and observations as they happened. He was often pessimistic and contemptible with young Fremont. Most irritants were about how food was prepared! He railed about long hours in the saddle. Even so, he was basically supportive of Fremont’s leadership and results gained. Diary comments include: “Fremont changes his mind every day as usual.” “Small troubles and annoyances worked on Fremont’s nerves, not at all surprising with a childishly passionate man like him.” “So far I can’t say that I have formed a very high opinion of Fremont’s astronomical observations.” “I wish I had a drink.” “That foolish young lieutenant.” “I want to go home.” And on and on….writing his thoughts in his journal.

Biographers had to rely for years on Fremont’s field notes that were remembered and enhanced months after the fact. The diaries of Preuss might be a bonanza for history. But, where were the diaries? Who had them? Were they destroyed?

Years passed and in the 1920s, Erwin G. Gudde and his wife, Elizabeth, published memoirs of a northern California pioneer and a relative of the pioneer who lived in Hamburg, Germany informed them that a Preuss family member had the diaries in Germany! Efforts to retrieve them were halted when Hitler came to power in 1933. In the 1950s, the Guddes continued the search and found the diaries at the American Memorial Library in Berlin. They were transferred to the US Library of Congress with a copy to Bancroft Library at the University of California. The Guddes translated and edited them in 1958. One wonders: How could the diaries survive nearly 100 years in an attic including WWII allied bombings and fires in Hamburg?

Congress published Fremont’s “Report and Map” which guided many overland immigrants to Oregon and California. More than a travelers’ guide, it provided scientific and economic information about the route. The exquisite maps were sketched by Charles Preuss in a series of seven large sections, 1846 (Library of Congress – Public Domain Image).

What the diaries of Preuss actually did was expose his own morose, melancholy personality that did not fit in with his travel mates. He was bored and uncomfortable and had no desire to become Americanized. He dreamed of returning to Germany. His greatest problem was months with few literate people with whom to converse.

Fremont went into politics after the 1840′s expeditions, representing California as governor and senator, became a candidate for president in 1856 and, in 1878 was appointed the 5th Arizona Territorial Governor. He has cities, schools, counties, many plants (including the cottonwood tree – populus fremontii), mountains, rivers, bridges, etc. named for him.

In 1853, Preuss reached the age of 50 and he simply could not continue. He had to quit the adventures. A year later he committed suicide. What did history do for him? There is a small misspelled “Pruess Lake” in Utah.

Together, Fremont’s dreams and Preuss’s technical ability gave us the first real view of Western America and helped fulfill the philosophy of “Manifest Destiny,” the 19th century American belief that the U. S. was destined to expand across the North American continent, from the Atlantic to the Pacific.