A Union That Put California on Map of U.S.

Except for California’s becoming the 31st state, the 50-year marriage between the pioneer soldier John C. Fremont and Jessie Benton may have been the most consequential union in California history.

In any event, a careful observer of the 19th century couple’s long and dramatic life together probably would want to revise the old maxim to read: Behind this great man was an even greater woman.

She also was a controversial and contentious one: President Abraham Lincoln scorned her as a “female politician,” while she privately called him “an ass.” Yet without her, Gen. John Charles Fremont never would have brought California into the United States.

Jessie Benton Fremont, a free spirit undaunted by her era’s barriers to women, passionately poured her seemingly inexhaustible energy into her husband’s career. The result was a life of soaring successes--the conquest of California, a U.S. Senate seat, a career as a mining magnate and governor of Arizona--and bitter failures--an unsuccessful presidential campaign, repeated rumors of infidelity and, finally, poverty. Yet through it all, she remained her husband’s staunchest and most indispensable supporter.

She was an equal partner from the start, transforming the dry topographical notes of his Western military exploration into best-selling accounts that catapulted him to fame and made his scout, the buckskin-clad Christopher “Kit” Carson, into a legend.

Born in 1824, Jessie was the favorite child of the powerful Democratic Sen. Thomas Hart Benton of Missouri, and she became a belle of the nation’s capital. At 17, she fell passionately in love and scandalized society by eloping with Fremont, then a handsome but lowly Army engineer.

Confronting her outraged father, she invoked the Old Testament words of Ruth, declaring: “Whither thou goest, I will go. . . .” The senator, a notorious duelist, relented.

In 1842, Benton, acting on his daughter’s urgings, secured the funds to send Fremont on the first of three expeditions to the West. The second, which blazed the historic Oregon Trail, was the most important exploratory journey undertaken since Lewis and Clark traversed the new Louisiana Purchase 40 years earlier.

Instrumental in overcoming bureaucratic snags, Jessie even intercepted military dispatches ordering Fremont back to Washington. Instead, she wrote to him to keep going--and he did, even though his frequent absences left her downhearted and prone to migraine headaches.

Homebound herself, she made her husband’s expedition into her own adventure and one for their readers. An advocate of the U.S. expansion philosophy called Manifest Destiny, she penned accounts of her husband’s sojourns, published in newspapers around the world, that lured settlers to the Wild West with its promise of free land and open spaces.

Emboldened by the glory and fame his wife’s ghostwriting generated, Fremont, newly promoted to lieutenant colonel, headed again for California, where a war was waiting to happen--even though his orders told him to do nothing to trigger it.

From Oregon, where he was ostensibly mapping routes and trails, Fremont led a band of freebooters into California, an action that helped to provoke the Bear Flag Revolt in Sonoma late in 1846, when these insurgents proclaimed California an independent republic.

A few weeks later, war erupted between the U.S. and Mexico, and Fremont led American forces south, securing Gen. Andres Pico’s capitulation at Campo de Cahuenga near what is now Universal City.

Fremont’s heroic legend continued to grow--everywhere but at Army headquarters. Court-martialed and found guilty of mutiny, Fremont was now a tarnished hero. Yet Jessie once again used her considerable political connections, and President James K. Polk waived Fremont’s punishment.

But Fremont, humiliated, resigned his commission and entered business and politics. After a brief stint as a U.S. senator from California, the 43-year-old Fremont became the new Republican Party’s first presidential nominee in 1856. Critics immediately made an issue of his high-handed conduct in California and his many failed business deals. They spread rumors concerning his illegitimate birth and his alleged seduction of a housemaid, and joked that the politically savvy Jessie might be “the real candidate.”

But Fremont’s followers didn’t laugh. Thousands who attended the new party’s rallies roared the slogan “Fremont and Our Jessie.” Never before had a woman played such a role in a national political campaign. Jessie was the beautiful, bright, loyal wife and mother, the daughter of a famous politician who went to great lengths for the man she loved. When a speaker recounted how 18-year-old Jessie withheld government orders that threatened to stop her husband’s expedition, the crowd cheered “for a gallant wife of a gallant man.” But voters’ enthusiasm for Jessie wasn’t enough, and Fremont was soundly defeated.

He was restored to rank by the Republicans’ first elected president, Abraham Lincoln, who made Fremont a general at the outbreak of the Civil War. But Fremont, encouraged by Jessie, issued his own Emancipation Proclamation, freeing slaves in his wife’s home state. Lincoln transferred him and Fremont resigned.

Jessie sought out Lincoln, who sneeringly dismissed her as a “female politician.” Others labeled her a “brazen woman” and condemned her as “General Jessie.” She in turn called the uncooperative Lincoln an “ass” to friends.

In 1865, the couple headed to California’s Central Valley to seek gold. There, the Fremonts settled on Las Mariposas, a 70-square-mile rancho that Fremont picked up for $3,000 at the end of the Mexican War from a former Mexican governor. The land yielded a fortune in gold, and they traveled twice to Europe in luxury. But by 1870, they had lost it all in litigation over mining rights and a failed railroad venture. And once again it was Jessie who restored the family fortunes, churning out a steady stream of new books and stories.

The Fremonts arrived in Los Angeles in 1886, at the height of the city’s first real boom. In exchange for a lot and new house, they lent their name to developers building the new town of Inglewood. But the boom wasn’t as thunderous as expected and it bottomed out, impoverishing the Fremonts. Fremont returned east in 1890 seeking a military pension. There he fell ill and died that same year.

Jessie was forced to borrow money to meet expenses. Word of her circumstances leaked out. “Fremont’s Family Destitute,” read a newspaper headline. Congress voted her a widow’s pension of $2,000 per year. And Los Angeles suffragist Caroline Severance and a committee of California women raised $85,000 for a home at 28th and Hoover streets. There, amid a grove of orange trees, Jessie lived until her death in 1902.

Even in widowhood, she remained passionately devoted to the man she called “the General,” the man her friends called “Jessie’s insanity.”

Rasmussen’s new book, “L.A. Unconventional,” a collection of stories about Los Angeles’ unique and offbeat characters, is available at most bookstores or can be ordered by calling (800) 246-4042. The special price of $30.95 includes shipping and sales tax.