Booknotes: Fremont's 100 Days

New Arrival:

• John Frémont’s 100 Days: Clashes and Convictions in Civil War Missouri by Gregory Wolk (MoHS Press, 2025).

Major General John C. Fremont's command of the Union Army's Department of the West was brief (July 25, 1861-November 2, 1861) but eventful, encompassing a number of military campaigns in Missouri as well as igniting a political firestorm over the general's emancipation order that was issued without consultation with his civilian superiors in Washington. Bits and pieces of "Fremont's 100 Days" have been explored at length among a number of modern works, but no single volume has been dedicated to the subject in its entirety. Gregory Wolk's newly released John Frémont’s 100 Days: Clashes and Convictions in Civil War Missouri is the "first book-length study of John Frémont’s time in Missouri written since the Civil War."

Politics and personal relationships dominate the Fremont literature, but Wolk pays special attention to Fremont's role in military affairs in Missouri. From the description: "At the heart of Gregory Wolk’s John Frémont’s 100 Days: Clashes and Convictions in Civil War Missouri are the military campaigns and battles that took place in the state while Frémont was in command, including at Wilson’s Creek, as well as the campaigns that resulted in the battles of Lexington and Fredericktown. The book culminates in the stunning cavalry charge made by Major Charles Zagonyi in Springfield in October 1861, an ultimately tragic and unnecessary affair brought on by a combination of hubris and political backstabbing."

John and wife Jessie Fremont were headstrong people thoroughly caught up in the whirlwind of Civil War-era power politics that transformed erstwhile allies into foes, and Wolk's book also delves into those matters. More from the description: "Also central to John Frémont’s 100 Days are members of the Blair family, influential men who had the ear of President Abraham Lincoln. Although they were responsible for Fremont’s rise to power, their allegiance quickly turned. John Frémont’s wife, Jessie Benton Blair—an intelligent, passionate defender of her husband and of equal rights for enslaved persons—was another driving force behind many of Frémont’s most consequential actions. The theme running through it all is the battle for emancipation."