Trailblazing pioneers set out to conquer the west, but find the land already claimed. Wagon trains meet hardship on the road to California's gold. The steamboat ushers in a new era of commerce, industry, and unprecedented wealth. In the south, cotton is king but slavery fuels a growing divide. Violence flares across the territories and the election of Lincoln is a harbinger of war. It could be said that America was invented, not discovered.

An acclaimed historian’s “compellingly told” year-by-year account of the pioneering efforts to conquer the American West in the mid-nineteenth century (The Guardian).
 
In all the sagas of human migration, few can top the drama of the journey by Midwestern farmers to Oregon and California from 1840 to 1849—between the era of the fur trappers and the beginning of the gold rush. Even with mountain...

Longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence
Finalist for the Oklahoma Book Award
A Publishers Weekly Holiday Guide History Pick

"A book so gripping it can scarcely be put down.... Superb." —New York Times Book Review

"WESTWARD HO! FOR OREGON AND CALIFORNIA!"

In the eerily warm spring of 1846, George Donner placed this advertisement in a local newspaper as he and

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