Following John C. Vermont's second expedition, both he and his guide, Kit Carson, would become instant celebrities.

Folks started calling Vermont the Pathfinder, newspaper scrambled to publish his reports,

and the U.S. Congress authorized an astounding $50,000 for a third expedition.

Hell, there were even some encouraging the young explorer to run for president.

As for Carson, he too would become a household name. Although Vermont wrote glowingly of

most of his scouts, it was Carson who caught the public's attention. The stories of his heroism

and wilderness skills just flat out excited the nation's collective imagination. No time flat,

dime novels were published,

portraying the just five and a half foot tall Carson as a giant of a man who rescued maidens,

avenged all manner of wrongs, and slaughtered hostiles by the thousands. As one biographer,

so astutely put it, seemingly overnight Kit Carson was transformed into a real-life 19th century action hero.

And again, Carson had already garnered himself a pretty decent reputation out West. After running away from home at the age of 16, Kit became a fur trapper. And for well over a decade, he explored

the West extensively, harvesting beaver and pretty much perfecting the art of

living off the land. It wasn't until the fur trade petered out that Carson had a chance

encounter with the aforementioned John C. Vermont, then a young lieutenant with the Army Corps

of topographical engineers. Vermont had recently been charged with mapping out the Oregon Trail,

and as fate would have it,

he hired Carson as his guide. And as I alluded to a moment ago, this partnership proved extremely

successful. Indeed, Vermont's published reports spurred on a great migration's pioneers began

flocking west to the promised land in droves. Ah, but then there was the third expedition,

one we're going to discuss today that only had the pretense of being topographical.

Officially, Vermont was to explore the eastern slope of the Rockies in present-day Colorado,

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