Covered Wagon Women, Volume 4: Diaries and Letters from the Western Trails, 1852: The California Trail

Description

The fourth volume in a well-edited series of letters, memoirs, and diaries, this collection takes in recollections by six pioneer women who traveled the California Trail in 1852. These documents give a firsthand view of just what it was like to cross the continent in buckboard and prairie schooner, and to face the hardships of weather, starvation, and occasional Indian or bandit attack. We find fascinating glimpses of historical figures like the trapper Jim Bridger, who had, writes Marriett Foster Cummings, "stock in abundance, and gold without end, and yet is much of a gentleman but lives like a hog." Such material is of great use to students of women's contributions to Western history.