Days on the Road: Crossing the Plains in 1865: The Diary of Sarah Raymond Herndon

I liked this book. Nice descriptions. Interesting how she viewed her travels throughout the west. You could really imagine the places. I like the map. I was able to refer to it as she traversed the Midwest on her journey.

This diary is well written and thoughtful. The detail is really vivid.

I found this diary charming and informative. Having always had a fascination with the time period and wagon trains, I couldn't put this book down. By the end of the book, I was saddened by the fact that Sarah didn't continue recording her life in Montana. I felt as if I had known her personally and was touched by the whole accounting of her travels.

Enhanced with a Foreword by Mary Barmeyer O'Brien, Days On The Road: Crossing The Plains In 1865 is the personal diary of Sarah Raymond Herndon, a young pioneer woman who, as the dust from the Civil War settled, left the battle-scarred state of Missouri with her family and traveled overland to the Rocky Mountains in search of a new place to live and a new life to build. Sarah's daily insights, her depictions of life on the trail, her descriptions of the hardships, the triumphs, and the evocations of her memories, combine to form a vivid and accurate image of pioneer life through the words of a pioneer who headed west to escape the ravages of the American Civil War to start her life anew. Days On The Road is a welcome and strongly recommended addition to 19th Century American Studies reading lists and history collections.