Born January 21, 1813, at Savannah, Ga., Frémont entered Charleston College, where his disregard of discipline prevented his graduating, although the faculty later honored him with the degrees of Bachelor and Master of Arts. Well grounded in the classics and familiar with the ordinary astronomical methods of determining latitude and longitude, Frémont visited South America on the United States ship Natchez, as a teacher. Later, appointed a professor of mathematics in the navy, he declined the position to accept more congenial service as assistant engineer of the United States Topographic Corps, where he had experience in preliminary surveys of railroads and also in a military reconnoissance among the Cherokees in Georgia. Commissioned in the United States Army, in 1838, as second lieutenant in the Topographic Corps, his initial service was fortunately as principal assistant to I. N. Nicolet, in the survey of the country between the Mississippi and the Missouri. Nicolet, an able and distinguished engineer, was the first explorer in America who made general use of the barometer for determining elevations of the great interior country, and his map of this region was one of the greatest contributions ever made to American geography. [Illustration: Jessie Benton Frémont.] In 1841 Frémont married Jessie Benton, a daughter of Senator Benton, through whose influence Frémont was assigned to the command of the expedition ordered to explore the country between the Missouri River and the Rocky Mountains on the line of the Kansas and Platte Rivers. In May, 1842, while Frémont was on the frontier making preparations for the journey, there came, as Mrs. Frémont relates, an order recalling him to Washington. Mrs. Frémont sent a special messenger to her husband, advising him to move immediately for good and sufficient reasons, to be given later. Meanwhile, holding the letter, she wrote the colonel who had given the order for the recall that she had neither forwarded the order nor informed Frémont of it, as she knew that obedience thereto would ruin the expedition. On such a small thread of circumstances hung the fate of his first separate command, which brought Frémont into such great prominence in connection with the exploration and development of the Pacific Coast region. The journey of Frémont lay up the North Fork of the Platte, through South Pass, into Wind River Valley, his march being marked by the usual experiences of hardship and suffering inseparable from the time and region. The most notable event of the journey was the ascent of the main and highest peak of the Wind River range, now known as Frémont's Peak. Their first attempts were unsuccessful, the party suffering from great cold, excessive fatigue, and mountain fever resulting from the rarity of the air. Frémont, however, persevered and succeeded. He describes the final ascent as follows: