Wagons West: The Epic Story of America's Overland Trails

I have read quite a few prairie/pioneer/westward expansion histories this summer, and Frank McLynn has done the best job assembling and synthesizing information. His chapters go year-by-year through the 1840 migrations. Each chapter could stand alone as a long essay in human nature. The impressive feats of persistence and grit demonstrated in these early years of wagon trains are detailed and punctuated with quoted journals and memoirs. Excellent work. The chapter on the Donner party is... grisly in the extreme. It is told in such a matter-of-fact way that it gave me a nightmare. I'm not a squeamish person, but I found myself looking away from the page several times during that chapter, just to get a hold on myself. The understated nature of McLynn's writing almost makes it more appalling. Liked the whole thing, but I thought his choice of an ending poem was poor. I don't think the excerpt of Walt Whitman's "Pioneers! O Pioneers!" can be read as particularly pro-pioneers, which is out of tune with the rest of the book.

This is a great book but I was disappointed by the fact that the author seemed a little prejudiced against Englishmen. Whenever someone from my home country does something stupid he's called an 'Englishman' - whenever he does something good he's called 'British'. Few other immigrants are referred to by their former nationality - Germans, Swedes, Danes, etc. - just the 'stupid' English. Otherwise, as I say, a great book which I would have given five stars, but - you know.

Wagons West: The Epic Story Of America's Overland Trails compiles original diaries and memoirs of pioneers along with other resources to paint a vivid picture of an era in United States history, from 1840 to 1849, between the time of the fur trappers and the gold rush when pioneers dared to brave the elements to settle land. Sparing no details of risks and horrors, Wagons West tells of disaster as well as success, from the fiasco of the Donner party to the tragedy that beset the Mormon treks. An amazing true account that practically transports the reader through time, and a welcome contribution to American and pioneer history shelves.

Frank Mc Lynn had written one of the finest pieces of literature on the subject of the United States' westward migration that has been written. Focusing on the pre California gold rush western expansion, he starts the book with the question, why? He then takes the reader sequentially through each year, 1841-1848, weaving from diaries and journals this epic story of our country's geographic growth. To say that these people were tough is to perfect the English art of understatement. It is a complex story. The basic drivers are as different as are the dreams that were pursued. Yet this amazing story is unraveled in such incredible detail that the reader is truly left very informed of the events and people, large and small, that make up the fabric of this phase of our Nation's Manifest Destiny. As you turn each page you know that this work took time. The fortitude of the emigrants, the concentric, enabling combination of the mountain men, the missionaries and Britain's Hudson Bay Company and the surprising, early support of the Native Americans, all combine to describe a very different story than that which occurred after the discovery of California gold. McLynn takes his time but makes sure each moment of the reader's time is satisfying. The result is a really remarkable work, unparalleled anywhere, by anyone else. But in the end there remains the question of why? Why did they do it? Why did they endure? Why did they continue to come, year after year, and in increasing numbers? This is an amazing tale told by a very gifted historian. You will not be disappointed.

This is a class act look into the overland emigration movement to Oregon and California during the 1840's. Dr. McLynn seems to have somewhat of a mental metal detector as he meticulously sifts through and unearths the numerous journals, diaries and biographies of early day pioneers who blazed their way westward.After a captivating introduction on Manifest Destiny and reasons why these adventurers left their homes and ventured out into the wilderness, McLynn then chronolgically guides the reader through the 1840's decade of the Oregon/California/Mormon Trails. Beginning with the first attempt of its kind westward emigration of the Bidwell/Bartleson wagon party in 1841, we then read of the 1842 White/Hastings party; the 1843 Applegate/Overton Johnson wagon train; the six major companies of 1844 such as Andrew Sublette, Stephens, Gilliam, Nathaniel Ford and others; the 1845 parties of Joel Palmer, Samuel Parker and others, along with a detailed account of the disastrous and deadly Stephen Meek Cutoff incident; the various 1846 wagon companies, with an entire chapter devoted to the gruesome, ghastly and grisly Donner Party tragedy in the Sierra Nevada mountains; an in depth study of the Mormon's mass migrations from 1847-1848; and culminating with how the California gold rush of 1849 blew life on the trails all helter skelter.A very articulate and keenly written book, the reader certainly acquires a feeling for the many hardships, sacrifices, sufferings, endurance levels, etc. that these early pioneers endured to get to the land of their dreams.An excellent book.