Passion and Principle : John and Jessie Frémont, the Couple Whose Power, Politics, and Love Shaped Nineteenth-Century America

Written with an investigative journalist's eye for detail and a novelist's flair, this biography of explorer, politician, and gold-mine owner John C. Frémont and his intellectual wife, Jessie Benton Frémont, also casts light on the tumultuous period that forms the backdrop for their lives, from the abolition of slavery to the building of the railroad.