The Donner Party's Perilous Journey West - Desperate Passage

I really enjoyed the pace and factuality of the book the author went to great lengths to bring us the story of the Donner party. Be ready for a very gruesome and descriptive account of the amazing will to survive.

I have read many histories of the Donner Party and the Emigration west by wagon, and this is definitely one of the most entertaining ones, while simultaneously not skimping on facts. 4 stars only because I wish it were a bit longer, and went more in depth on the trail aspect of the journey.

I can't stop talking and thinking about this book. We traveled up Weber canyon last weekend and I couldn't help but think how hard it must have been to go thru it on wagon and foot. It now takes 90 min to cross the salt flats by car, it took them a week.... unreal

A most interesting read. Tragic at times but also shows how people can overcome adversity and become resourceful enough to find ways to survive. Well written. Poignant, heartwarming, brutal, adventurous.

Desperate Passage is short and smooth. It is by no means the definitive book on the Donner Party, but it's a good place to start. It has no pictures and only a single, nation-wide map, which seems stingy when you look at the wonderfully detailed maps in George Stewart's Ordeal by Hunger. But it is not marred, like Stewart's work, by smug bigotry, and if it lacks Stewart's narrative polish, that is partially because Rarick does not indulge in conjecture.

My main quibble with the book is a peculiar lack of professional courtesy in the bibliography, where books are identified by the edition Rarick read, rather than their original publication date. If you want to know whether Stewart's Ordeal by Hunger was originally published before De Voto's Year of Decision, or when, exactly, McGlashan's or Houghton's book first appeared, don't expect to find that information in the bibliography. In the case of Stewart, the dates are critical, because Stewart's first edition was published the year after the last Donner survivor died (1936) and trivially updated (essentially by adding some primary documents like the Breen diary and Virginia Reed's wonderful letter home from California) in 1960. Rarick has the advantage of fifty years of research, investigation, and even archeological excavation (One of the essential books for the historian is Donald Hardesty's The Archeology of the Donner Party); Stewart has the advantage of proximity in time and space.

And related point: The facts of The Donner Party need to be organized, weighed, and presented, and Rarick does that effectively, although with a kind of spare reticence. But this is a story that cries out for an effective fictional treatment, and it has been fictionalized more than a dozen times, beginning only a few decades after the dreadful events. Although Rarick obligingly lists some fictional accounts, his selection seems almost at random. Where is the great novel of the event, Vardis Fisher's The Mothers? Where is Bret Harte's contemporary treatment in Gabriel Conroy?

It would have been nice to have some recommendations from the author. If he's unfamiliar with the literature, that's fine, but then don't make unqualified suggestions. I'm reading The Mothers again and recently read treatments by Richard Rhodes and James Houston. I'm thinking about tracking down Hoffman Birney's Grim Journey and waiting for Gabrielle Burton's novelization of Tamsen Donner's journal (Impatient with Desire). Rarick's haphazard list is less than useless in deciding what to read.

Anyone with a passing interest in The Donner Party and a concern for the current state of historic knowledge on the subject will find Desperate Passage a satisfying read. But frankly, I think that sort of casual interest is better served by a fictional treatment, with the understanding that "facts" may take second place. It's a delicate balance. Witness the current trope that Keseberg raped Mrs. Donner before killing her. There is no historical evidence that he did either. Read the review of David Galloway's Tamsen for an example of when things tip too far.

Fisher's The Mothers was written during WWII, and Fisher is merciless to the less-than-admirable Germans in the party (not, however, all of them). His book is also tainted with some commonplace racism of his generation, though less obviously than Ordeal by Hunger. Fictional accounts generally find their villain in Keseberg who clearly was, as the histories make clear, "asking for it." But Rarick exonerates Keseberg of most charges (although he inexplicably fails to mention that Reinhart confessed on his own deathbed that he did indeed murder a wealthy member of the party). Fisher shares the common and nasty prejudice against the "Digger" Indians of the area (shares it with George Stewart, Bernard de Voto and Mark Twain among others), though his treatment of the Miwoks from Sutter's Fort who died helping save the party is respectful. And Fisher is clearly of the "Reed camp," rather than an impartial historian, as well as clearly taken with self-promoter William Eddy (who "narrates" Birney's Grim Journey so convincingly that reviewers mistook the Birney novel for an as-told-to history, unaware that Eddy died forty years before Birney was born).

None of the faults of The Mothers does any harm to the central story, which Fisher was uniquely qualified to comprehend and communicate -- that of people facing utter desperation, the heights and depths such challenges can pull us to, and how it must have been in that horrific winter. Rarick flies above the story, safe in a news copter; The Mothers is a ground-eye view.

This book was interesting because it is based on facts. It would have been more interesting if it had focused mainly on one family. There were so many people mentioned that at times it became confusing. I guess that is the difference between fiction and non-fiction.

I recently read The Oregon Trail: A New American Journey by Rinker Buck and I thought is was amazing and it got me thinking about the Donner party. I bought this book and wasn't disappointed. I knew the basics of the story from documentaries I'd seen. But after reading this book that went into more details, I was stunned! What these people went through was incredible! If you're into US history and curious about the Donner party story definitely read this book

After watching the excellent documentary "American Experience: The Donner Party," I wanted to learn more. Ethan Rarick expands on a lot of the issues in this saga. As many primary sources that are available were used and the author tells the story as accurately as possible--even making sure names are properly spelled. The Donner Party was doomed by poor timing, bad decisions, the advice of a conniving promoter, and terrible luck.

The documentary makes much of Lansford Hasting's promotion of a shortcut that he did not even try. Rarick covers "Hasting's Cut-Off" in depth, of course, but also examines the dilly dallying of the Donner Party, who left Independence Missouri late in the season, took many unnecessary days off and often started late in the the day and pitched camp early. Edwin Bryant was concerned of the party's tardiness, and ended up gambling with some traveling companions by taking pack mules and leaving the group. At Fort Bridger, Bryant wrote a letter addressed to Donner Party leader James Reed warning him against taking the risky Hastings Cut-Off. Rarick explains why this letter was never delivered (actually, the author uses the strange, flowery wording of "the warning letters from Bryant lay as hidden as a miser's heart") (pg. 57). The late start and many delays may have played a role in Reed not heeding other warnings that the Hastings Cut-Off and the man promoting it was not what was advertised as they needed to make up for lost time in order to beat the coming of winter. This decision ended up costing them more precious time and, considering that they arrived at the Sierra Nevada just as a storm hit ushering in the worst winter in the area on record, proved fatal for many members of the Party.

The author goes into the background of many of the more important people in the story. Tamzene Donner, for example, is given a detailed back story, letters she wrote her sister right before the journey to California are quoted, and her final departure from her children is described.

Rarick paints a picture of a group of travelers who were not always very close-knit. Fights broke out (and at least one murder) along the way, weakened companions were left behind to die and, during the worst times where families were forced to camp at Truckee Lake (now Donner Lake) for the winter, animosity grew between factions and the care of other families' children were often resisted or resented. The behavior of some of the rescuers was also selfish and unfeeling, although one rescuer is singled out for his commitment to getting the survivors out of the camps (pg. 215).

The main reason the Donner Party is such a famous tragedy is the cannibalism which took place, both in the group who left camp to make it over the mountains as the "Forlorn Hope" and in the camps at Truckee Lake. A sad fate fell on one child who was rescued but ended up perishing due to overeating. Rarick examines the cannibalism issue factually but also with reference. He also explains reasons why women survived at a significant higher percentage than men.

The author uses strange wording sometimes. Along with the "miser's heart" line, the sentence "...if you cannot reach them for precisely the same reasons they cannot reach you--then how the hell do you save their lives?" does not fit a book that is, for the most part, well-written and formal. A list of the names in the Donner Party and whether they survived or perished would be a welcomed addendum as many had the same surnames. Otherwise, "Desperate Passage" is an excellent and highly recommended source on the Donner Party. It is 288 pages with notes and index and a small middle section of photos and illustrations.

It's thoroughly researched and masterfully written. Though we know the ending this reads like a novel because we don't know details of the obstacles the party encountered and the life and death decisions they had to make along their way. Ethan Rarick went back to original diaries and first hand accounts of the Donner Party's treacherous trip by wagon train and mule across the country in 1846 . He accounts for every member of the party and provides an extensive index at the end along with footnotes and a bibliography. Rarick also explains in a final Author's Note how he weighed sometimes conflicting versions of what occurred and why things ended the way they did. He puts cannibalism in perspective when there is no alternative except for all to perish. If you like the works of David McCullough and Stephen Ambrose you'll enjoy this one.

In the modern American lexicon, the Donner Party is synonymous with cannibalism. The average person knows next to nothing about these people or what drove them to do what they did, but everyone seems to know the one detail that matters: They ate each other. The actual truth is more nuanced than that, but there's no getting around that the story of the Donner Party is one of the most infamous examples of cannibalism in human history.

Ethan Rarick's Desperate Passage starts at the very beginning, at the head of the California Trail in Independence, Missouri. It was May 1846 and, as the pioneers of the time knew, that was an awfully late start date for a wagon party heading west. The risk of winter arriving before they did was too high. This was the first of series of unfortunate decisions that would, compounded over time, lead the emigrants towards historical notoriety.

Two points jumped out at me while I was reading. (1) To be trapped in the mountains during the early winter of 1846 under the circumstances that led to, not immediate death, but cannibalism was a result of an improbable confluence of timing. It's like the stars aligned in the worst way—geographic terrain, time of year, etc. Each factor had a small window that could lead to big problems and in each case the timing was disastrously perfect. (2) The Donner story is one of extraordinary actions under unimaginably desperate conditions, and yet the tale that people told for half a century afterwards painted the survivors as monsters. Why the lack of sympathy? Rarick supposes when sharing stories of westward expansion, of manifest destiny in other words, the storytellers preferred optimism over despair. The tragedy occurred just a few years ahead of the California Gold Rush and it's not hard to imagine that pioneers wanted reasons to push onward, not to stay away.

The epic disaster defining the Donner Party is such a bear to tackle. Like the wagon train, it curls through numerous valleys and over multiple mountains. What to emphasize? What to ignore? Ethan Rarick's 2005 update "Desperate Passage: The Donner Party's Perilous Journey West" is a riveting account of the most famous pioneer catastrophe in American history. While archaeological finds have granted new information, I'm not sure this is an improvement over George Stewart's ultimate 1936 book Ordeal by Hunger.

For whatever reason, Rarick has ignored some dirty secrets while examining others (a similar mistake of the brilliant and incomparable 1992 PBS documentary The American Experience: The Donner Party). The journey took place over a year, as the party left Independence, Missouri in May of 1846 and the final survivor arrived in California in April of 1847. Considering what happened over a torturous process encompassing many months, one practically needs an encyclopedia to cover all angles. Perhaps with today's attention-deficit-disorder marketplace, you have to leave out facts for quick consumption.

For those unaware, the Donner Party was the final wagon train to set off for California in 1846. A surprisingly easy journey through Fort Bridger, leaders made the fatal mistake of choosing the unproven Hastings shortcut over the Wasatch Mountains and across the Great Salt Lake Desert (Salt Desert Trails). By the time they crossed both expanses, they lost a month of time, half their cattle and many wagons. Terrified pioneers struggled forward to cross the Sierra Nevada Mountains before winter snows. Eventually trapped, they suffered unimaginable starvation, freezing temperatures and the worst blizzards in recorded history. Out of 80-plus pioneers, roughly 40 men, women and children died, with many survivors cannibalizing the dead to live.

"Desperate Passage" is a polished and responsible work, and Rarick makes credible observations. The book is closer to the truth than past studies, and his passages about the level of cannibalism (a controversy to this day) are thoughtful. He disagrees with theories the Donner Party plodded along, though disparages their observance of the Sabbath the day after heavy drinking on the Fourth of July. Rarick's belief that James Reed was the one natural leader is plausible, and his banishment after killing John Snyder following an enraged disagreement, was yet another factor tipping the scale towards catastrophe.

For more than a century, Lewis Keseberg has been carved into the great villain of this tale. The final survivor brought down out of the mountains, it was claimed he enjoyed cannibalism, murdered Tamsen Donner (Searching for Tamsen Donner (American Lives)), was the first to resort to cannibalism, wanted to hang Reed, threw the elderly Hardkoop out of his wagon and was German to boot! It appears everywhere treachery took place, Keseberg was hovering like a smirking fiend. One of the lessor known occurrences is the mystery of Wolfinger, a wealthy German settler who vanished after the crossing of the Great Salt Lake Desert. It appears he was murdered for his gold coins and, once again, Keseberg may have been involved. Rarick entirely ignores this angle, perhaps because it involves a more sinister element than historians are comfortable tackling. Or perhaps he doesn't believe the story. Which is it? Rarick refuses to vilify Keseberg, which is unique to traditional versions. I don't believe Keseberg is a monster (two of his children died) any more than Reed is Captain Ahab for insisting on the Hastings shortcut. But to entirely ignore the Wolfinger episode is irresponsible.

After finishing Rarick's book, I shut it quickly and took a deep breath. What a story, and has American history ever produced such intimate tragedy? Rarick sums it up best with a single line, and with the exception of his discovery of the unsung hero John Stark, is perhaps his greatest contribution - "the Donner Party is a story of hard decisions that were neither heroic nor villainous." A fine companion book, though not the final word.

Of the many books devoted to this American Saga, I have read five. This book is one of the best of those five. The actual history is complex. There were at least 80 members of the party that became entrapped in the snow of the Sierra Nevada that winter. Many were children. In a table labeled Dramatis Personae, the author puts most members of the party into 11 groupings consisting of 10 different family groups, followed by a short list of non-family "others". In addition to members of the party, there were members of 4 different rescue parties who also figure into this tale.
This gets to be a very long and confusing list of characters. This writer does a good job at clearing up the confusion by keeping the story line understandable and uncluttered. But inevitably there will be readers who want more detail. There is an excellent website and associated blog by Kristin Johnson entitle "New Light on the Donner Party" and I recommend it to other readers.
Everyone knows that the tale of the Donners involves Cannibalism, and the media has managed to portray some members of the party as heroic pioneers and other members as cannabilistic ghouls. Well the author has some fine things to say about that. If you read only one book on the Donners, I would recommend this one to you.

Ethan Rarick's intriguing account of the Donner party's tortured attempt to reach California in the winter of 1846-47 is honest and well-written. In DESPERATE PASSAGE he has eschewed the tendency towards sensationalism found in so many other books about the emigrants and has relied on extensive research to tell the story of the small band of pioneers stranded in the Sierra Nevada mountains and its struggle for survival.

This book has many stories of heroism and cowardice, industry and sloth, resourcefulness and ignorance. The enigma of the way the group handled the dreadful conditions under which it eventually found itself is clearly laid out without being judgmental or overly lurid. When the Donner party is discussed today, cannibalism is the overriding theme attached to the story. Rarick certainly doesn't sugarcoat the details, but presents them in such a way that the reader can understand abandonment, homicide, or the eating of human flesh without feeling the revulsion that normally accompanies such ideas.

We often hear of humans suffering through hunger, filth, and horrific climatic conditions. The vast majority of us haven't actually experienced those types of conditions in person. It's more likely that we've read about them while munching on an apple and hearing the wind and rain assault the exterior of our comfortable houses. Or perhaps we've seen the starving children in third world countries pleading for help on television screens. Rarick will change all that for you. In this riveting account of real life suffering, your apple will not taste as sweet nor your coziness be as comforting. You'll actually feel the pain caused by hunger and cold. The cooking up of a loved one's liver might be a little more acceptable.

The sheer number of characters involved in the Donner story and the number of incidents makes the narration hard to follow. I had a little difficulty following who did what when, but that is my only criticism of this work.

As I've said many times, research makes the book. Rarick has done his and he has included some modern findings that shed new light on conditions found and decisions made in the Sierra blizzards that plagued the Donner party. His compilation of this enormous amount of background material into such a tight and compelling report is truly the mark of a great writer. I strongly urge you to read this book.

I had always been interested in the Donner party. There are many books on the subject but this one seemed to have the most good reviews so I went with it. Good choice. The book is informative and well researched. The events are well covered as well as the people involved. It is a story of tragedy and endurance. A true testament to the trials some people can endure. A true test of the human spirit. Even though the book is very thorough my only complaint was in some areas it seemed to move a bit fast. It may be due to lack of information in certain areas or time frames, I don't know. I wouldn't have minded the book being longer with a little more detail in some areas. But like I said, they may just not have the details to write. The author does a great job with the information given and I don't know that a better job could have been done on the subject. A great history related story and well written. If you have an interest in the story of the Donner Party buy this book, you won't be disappointed.

Rarick tells the story of the Donner Party aware that the reader already likely knows in outline the terrible trouble those emigrants will find, and so he does not write as if he's building a mystery and needs to withhold vital information. He says straight out, they were running behind and that this resulted in the tragedy that followed. (It's unlikely you don't know, but if you don't, the Donner Party took a "short-cut" on their way to California in 1846 and fell behind the coming winter. The snows fell heavily and they couldn't make it over the Sierra Mountains. They had to make camp and wait till the mountain pass opened in the spring. Meanwhile, they ran out of food, and some of them resorted to cannibalism to survive.)

The Donner Party wasn't known by that name until after their decision to split off from the train of emigrants taking the established route to California. Those who joined to follow the newly proposed Hastings Cut-Off, a route untried heretofore by emigrants, elected George Donner as leader of the group. The book has a convenient "Dramatis Personae" cataloging the names, ages, and family memberships of the Donner Party and of others important to the account. Thirty-nine members are listed as age twelve or under. The catalog of names does not indicate who survived and who died.

California emigrants took the Oregon Trail from Independence Missouri until after crossing the Continental Divide through the South Pass of the Rocky Mountains in what is now Wyoming, and so spent part of their journey with emigrants to Oregon. The established route took all of them over the South Pass to Fort Bridger (with an important exception I'll mention in a moment), then through Soda Springs to Fort Hall in what is now Idaho, where the emigrants to Oregon and California soon parted ways. Instead of traveling northwest from Fort Bridger towards Fort Hall, the Donner Party turned southwest, following the short-cut Lansford Hastings had described in his 1845 book The Emigrant's Guide to Oregon and California.

Rarick explains that Fort Bridger had opened in 1843 "as a trading post and way station for westward emigrants" but that the next year "a party of emigrants blazed what came to be known as the Greenwood Cut-Off, a shortcut that saved several days' travel [to Fort Hall] but went nowhere near Fort Bridger." (57) At the Greenwood Cut-Off the Donner Party had parted ways with the other California emigrants heading towards Fort Hall and had gone on to Fort Bridger.

They had expected to meet Lansford Hastings at Fort Bridger and for him to guide them along the unproven route he had described in his book, but by the time they arrived he had left with an earlier group. The Donner Party's delays along the way had cost them their guide. At this point they could have changed their minds and gone on towards Fort Hall (taking what before the discovery of the Greenwood Cut-Off had been the way there) and, from Fort Hall, the well proven route to California; but the seemingly more direct route of the Hastings Cut-Off was too alluring to the men who determined the route the Party would take. They were strongly advised against it by those whose advise they should have respected, but they turned southwest for the new route anyway, not knowing what lay ahead.

The delays mounted as difficulties with the terrain increased. Their travails through the Wasatch Mountains and across the Great Salt Lake Desert cost them the loss of livestock, wagons, supplies, and many days time. The distance of the Hastings Cut-Off may have been less than the established route through Fort Hall, but the time and effort required were far greater. The "short-cut" had put them four weeks behind (79).

Along the Humbolt River (now, via the Cut-Off, they were back on the established route to California), the Party lost more livestock, now to thieving Indians, forty head of cattle being stolen in the space of a few days (95). "The losses imperiled transportation - cattle pulled the wagons - but the real cost was far greater, and one the emigrants could not yet fully appreciate. A good portion of the Donner Party's potential food supply had vanished." (95)

The book is divided into three parts: Journey, Tribulation, Salvation. The summary I've given, leaving much out, is from part one only. Endnotes show that Desperate Passage was written with the use of primary sources. Rarick gives references for the content of his narrative and, where he has entered the thoughts of a person, he explains his reasoning for the literary device.

"As a general rule, I have relied most heavily on primary sources written at or near the time of the events, such as journals and letters. Second, I rely on memoirs and letters written years later by individuals who were directly involved. I have tried to place relatively little emphasis or reliance on third-hand accounts." (247)

"Indeed, by purchasing two anthologies - Dale Morgan's two-volume Overland in 1846 and Kristin Johnson's Unfortunate Emigrants - interested readers can gain access to most, though certainly not all, of the key primary documents." (248)

On May 12, 1846, George and Tamzene Donner, along with James and Margaret Reed, left Independence, Missouri with a group of fifty wagons and 150 adults for a better life in "the bay of Francisco." They left a little late and brought up the rear of a snaking line of 500 wagons heading to Oregon and California that spring. Loaded with children, livestock and provisions, and lumbering along at two miles an hour, the two thousand mile trip took about six months. After they crossed the Continental Divide, and turned left to take the Hastings Cutoff ("an untried shortcut through unknown wilderness"), instead of the tried and true path to the right, the travelers coalesced into what became known as the Donner Party.

There was nothing remarkable about the Donner Party's sojourn to California (which at the time still belonged to Mexico). The first wagon train west left in 1841; they were merely part of an "expansionist fever" over the next two decades that saw 250,000 people cross the continent. The outcome of their trip, though, and the sensationalist reporting about it, make them some of the most famous and carefully studied of the early pioneers. Only a mile or two from summitting the Sierra Nevada mountain range onto a downward slope just 100 miles from their destination, a ferocious November snow storm buried them in a frigid prison.

Thanks to the diaries, journals, letters, and (conflicting) memories of the survivors, and later work by historians and archaeologists, today we have a good idea of exactly what happened. Eighty-one people were trapped for four months in snows up to twenty feet deep, at an elevation of 6,000 feet. Forty-five people survived because of their decision to eat their dogs, boiled rawhide, and even their own dead, and thanks to the bravery of four separate rescue parties (the last of which found one man alive on April 17). Initial reports caricatured the Donner Party as ghouls because of their cannibalism, or dupes due to their poor choices and lack of experience. Rarick rejects these interpretations; in his empathetic retelling, the Donners were Everyman, "the drama of the mundane gone madly wrong." Today a national historical landmark, state park, memorials, towns, and a lake all commemorate this survival adventure with the Donner name.

In my middle school days in Oregon, I first heard tales of the Donner Party and the lengths they went to survive--some of them resorting to the eating of human flesh. My great-grandparents owned a cabin only seventy miles from the fateful pass, and that again brought the story to light in my young mind. The idea was gruesome, yet strangely intriguing. How far will one go to survive? What are the moral boundaries in such situations? Does guilt play a long-term role in the lives of the survivors?

Ethan Rarick does a wonderful job of setting the stage for this nineteenth century story. He introduces us to the realities of westward expansion in 1849, giving clear views of the timeframes, weather, terrain, and threat (and lack thereof) from local Indians. Without overwhelming us, he gives us insights into the motivations of the Donner Party, and the ill-advised decisions that led to their ultimate downfall. His narrative is empathetic and humane, relying on numerous journals and other archives. As in "The Perfect Storm," we find out many relevant facts regarding nature and its adverse affects on humans who proceed without caution. As in "In the Heart of the Sea," we get a grim and matter-of-fact account of human consumption. While Rarick does not hold back from the harsh realities, he never wallows gratuitously in the horrors.

I picked up this book as part of a research project, yet found myself engrossed on a more personal level, discovering truths about those pioneers who helped shaped the area of the country I grew up in, and truths about human nature's ability to find hope in the midst of darkness.