The keys to Frémont's character and personality, several historians argue, lie in his having been born "illegitimate" (to unwed parents) and in his drive for success, need for self-justification, and passive-aggressive behavior.

[7] On December 8, 1818, Frémont's father died in Norfolk, Virginia, leaving Anne a widow to take care of John and several young children alone on a limited inherited income.

[13][verification needed] Gaining valuable western frontier experience Frémont met Henry Sibley, Joseph Renville, J.B. Faribault, Étienne Provost, and the Sioux nation.

Frémont's initial explorations – specifically, his timely scientific reports (co-authored by his wife Jessie) and their romantic writing style – encouraged Americans to travel West.

[14] Frémont and his wife Jessie wrote a Report of the Exploring Expedition to the Rocky Mountains (1843), which was printed in newspapers across the country; the public embraced his vision of the west not as a place of danger but wide open and inviting lands to be settled.

[14] Rather than turning around and heading back to St. Louis, Frémont resolved to explore the Great Basin between the Rockies and the Sierras and advance Benton's dream of acquiring the West for the United States.

[23] Exploring the Great Basin, Frémont verified that all the land (centered on modern-day Nevada between Reno and Salt Lake City) was an endorheic, without any outlet rivers flowing towards the sea.

[23] Working with Benton and Secretary of Navy George Bancroft, Frémont was secretly told that if war started with Mexico he was to turn his scientific expedition into a military force.

[23] On June 1, 1845, Frémont and his armed expedition party left St. Louis having the immediate goal to locate the source of the Arkansas River, on the east side of the Rocky Mountains.

[47] Frémont sent Lt. Gillespie to Montgomery and requested supplies including 8,000 percussion caps, 300 pounds (140 kg) of rifle lead, one keg of powder, and food provisions, intending to head back to St.

[47] On May 31, Frémont made his camp on the Bear and Feather rivers 60 miles (97 km) north of Sutter's Fort, where American immigrants ready for revolt against Mexican authority joined his party.

[49] In early June, believing war with Mexico to be a virtual certainty, Frémont joined the Sacramento Valley insurgents in a "silent partnership", rather than head back to St. Louis, as originally planned.

[f] On July 1, Commodore John D. Sloat, commanding the U.S. Navy's Pacific Squadron, sailed into Monterey harbor with orders to seize San Francisco Bay and blockade the other California ports upon learning "without a doubt" that war had been declared.

[77] Unknown to Carson at this time, the Californians had revolted, which would lead Kearny to a disastrous attack on waiting Mexican lancers at the Battle of San Pasqual, losing 19 men killed and being himself seriously lanced.

Despite losing many of his horses, mules and cannons, which slid down the muddy slopes during the rainy night, his men regrouped in the foothills (behind what is today Rancho Del Ciervo) the next morning, and captured the Presidio of Santa Barbara and the town without bloodshed.

Ordered by Kearny to report to the adjutant general in Washington to stand for court-martial, Frémont was found innocent of mutiny, but was convicted on January 31, 1848, of disobedience toward a superior officer and military misconduct.

[83] While approving the court's decision, President James K. Polk quickly commuted Frémont's sentence of dishonorable discharge and reinstated him into the Army, due to his war services.

Mary Lee Spence and Donald Jackson, editors of a large collection of letters by Fremont and others dating from this period, concluded that "...in the California episode, Frémont was as often right as wrong.

[97] After his court martial in 1848, Frémont moved to Las Mariposas and became a rancher, borrowing money from his father-in-law Benton and Senator John Dix to construct a house, corral, and barn.

[99] Frémont hired Park as a managing partner to oversee the day-to-day activities of the estate,[99] and Mexican laborers to wash out the gold on his property in exchange for a percentage of the profits.

[107] Rushing back to California hoping to thwart the Chivs, Frémont started his own election newspaper, the San Jose Daily Argus, however, to no avail, he was unable to get enough votes for re-election to the Senate.

After spending two weeks in Parowan to regain strength, the party continued across the Great Basin and entered the Owens Valley near present-day Big Pine, California, on the eastern flank of the Sierra Nevada Mountains.

[136] A primary concern for Frémont, after he assumed command, was the protection of Cairo, a Union-occupied city on the Mississippi River, vital to the security of the Union Army's western war effort.

[139] Responding the best he could to the Confederate and state militia threat, Frémont raised volunteer troops, purchased open market weapons and equipment, and sent his wife, Jessie, to Washington, D.C., where she lobbied President Lincoln for more reinforcements.

[144] In a turning point of the Civil War, on August 27, 1861, Frémont gave Ulysses S. Grant field command in charge of a combined Union offensive whose goal was to capture Memphis, Vicksburg, and New Orleans, to keep Missouri and Illinois safe from Confederate attack.

On November 1, Frémont ordered Grant to make a demonstration against Belmont, a steamboat landing across the river from Columbus, in an effort to drive Confederate General Price from Missouri.

[159][verification needed] Confederate General Stonewall Jackson took advantage of this divided command and systematically attacked each Union Army, putting fear in Washington, D.C., taking spoils and thousands of prisoners.

[161] Frémont had moved down the Valley Pike from the northwest through Harrisonburg to Cross Keys, while Union Brigadier General James Shields closed in from the northeast, hoping to entrap Jackson's forces.

[182] Nevins said Frémont was encouraged by his parents to heighten his inherited self-reliant, heedless, and adventuresome traits and that he lacked the discipline his passionate spirit and quick mind most needed.

[135] According to Rebecca Solnit, the celebrated murders of Californios Berryessa and his two nephews on the shores of San Rafael, commanded by Frémont during the Bear Flag Revolt on June 28, 1846, highlighted a dubious path to California's statehood.