I called upon him in New York at his office, where we had a pleasant
chat of an hour. His office was plain, without carpets, the floor
was worn rough, rather than smooth, and the appearance of the rooms
was a striking contrast to the editorial rooms of prosperous
journalists generally.
My experience at Cairo gave me a poor opinion of Fremont's qualities as
a business man, but in the early part of his career he had exhibited
capacity of a high order as a bold and successful explorer of the then
unknown regions of the Rocky Mountains. He had also exhibited genius
as a soldier, which led to high expectations which were not realized
when he came to important commands in the Civil War. My studied
opinion of General Fremont is contained in an article that I prepared
for the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, of which society he was
an honorary member:
ARTICLE ON GENERAL FREMONT
It is a singular circumstance in the career of John C. Fremont that
his important services as an explorer and his contributions to science
were brought to a close when he was scarcely more than thirty-four
years of age. He was born in the State of Georgia in the year 1813,
and from the year 1842 to the year 1846 inclusive, he undertook and
carried to a successful result three expeditions from the Mississippi
River across the plains, and finally over both chains of the Rocky
Mountains to the Pacific Ocean.
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