The Prairie Traveler - A Hand-book for Overland Expeditions [Illustrated]

by Randolph Barnes Marcy

Overview

The Prairie Traveler: A Handbook for Overland Expeditions, written at the direction of the Department of State and published by the U.S. government, has been called one of the most important works in making possible the great Western overland migration of the United States in the last half of the 19th century. There were thousands of emigrants heading west, but many of them were poorly informed and ill-prepared for the journey, and alarming numbers were reported to be perishing.
Marcy’s Prairie Traveler quickly became an indispensable guide to thousands of American overlanders in their arduous trek to California, Oregon, Utah, and other western destinations, and was a best-selling book for the remainder of the century. Andrew J. Birtle, author of U.S. Army Counterinsurgency and Contingency Operations Doctrine 1860-1941, has described The Prairie Traveler as “perhaps the single most important work on the conduct of frontier expeditions published under the aegis of the War Department.”

Product Details

BN ID:	2940012266941
Publisher:	Cherry Lane Ebooks
Publication date:	03/07/2011
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Randolph Barnes Marcy (April 9, 1812 – November 22, 1887) was a career officer in the United States Army, achieving the rank of Brigadier General before retiring in 1881. Marcy was born at Greenwich, Massachusetts, in April, 1812. He graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1832 and was commissioned a lieutenant in the 5th U. S. Infantry, and served with the 5th in the Black Hawk War in Illinois and Wisconsin. In 1846, he was promoted to Captain and fought with the 5th in the Mexican War at the battles of Palo Alto and Resaca de la Palma.
He was then assigned to duty in Texas and Oklahoma, escorting emigrants, locating military posts, exploring the wilderness, and mapping routes, during which time he met his future son-in-law, George B. McClellan. In 1857, Marcy accompanied Brigadier General Albert Sidney Johnston on the expedition against the Mormons in Utah. It was during this period that Capt. Marcy led his men safely from Utah to New Mexico on a forced march through the Rocky Mountains in the dead of winter, during which his troops ran out of provisions the last two weeks of their journey, in extremely harsh weather. Nonetheless, Marcy led his men to safety without loss of life, an extraordinary accomplishment which Marcy partially recounts in The Prairie Traveler.
Marcy was promoted to acting Inspector General of the Department of Utah, but his exploits and his well-written military reports had attracted attention in Washington, and he was recalled to work for the Department of State (which at this time had responsibilities much beyond the conduct of foreign affairs), preparing a guidebook on Western travel -- The Prairie Traveler: A Handbook for Overland Expeditions.