Warning. This episode contains scenes of graphic violence and descriptions of cannibalism.

It is not suitable for all audiences.

Listener discretion is strongly advised.

Listener discretion is strongly advised. On October 28, 1846, James Reed and Walter Heron stumbled into Sutter's Fort in California's Sacramento Valley. Reed had been banished from the wagon train for killing a driver named John Snyder,

and Heron had volunteered to travel with him.

They were emaciated when they met John Sutter and reunited with Edwin Bryant,

William Russell, and Lilburn Boggs. It must have seemed like another

lifetime that these men had parted ways before the Hastings cut off. Briant was the journalist who was

always concerned about the slow pace of travel. Russell was the first captain of the wagon train,

and Boggs was the second. As men with no families on

the trip, they had traded their wagons for mules, ditched the things they didn't need, and

split off from the caravan. They had made it through the mountains and down into the Sacramento

Valley, while the wagon train was still mired in the badlands of Nevada.

That night, after a proper meal, Reed and Heron heard all the news of California's war with Mexico.

John C. Fremont was forming his California battalion with Kit Carson.

Bryant, Russell, Reed, and others saw the writing on the wall and got ahead

of things. They drew up a contract offering their services to fight with Fremont and recruit

other immigrants to the cause. But Reed added one important stipulation. Before he left

to fight, he needed to help his family get through the Cierras.

He had managed to squirrel away some cash and transport it all the way to California.

He offered it as collateral to John Sutter.

In return, Sutter gave him 30 horses, a mule, and food to take on a rescue mission into the mountains. Old friend William McCutcheon

...