Captain Randolph B. Marcy’s Prairie Traveler, published in 1859, was the definitive guide for overland travel across the American West in the era of wagon trains and frontier exploration. Covering route-finding, camp organization, food supplies, water sources, mule packing, and relations with Native peoples, the handbook was consulted by emigrants, soldiers, and explorers heading into the trans-Mississippi interior.
Commissioned by the U.S. Army and written from Marcy’s own extensive frontier experience, the book is both a practical manual and a primary document of mid-nineteenth-century American expansion. Download this free EPUB for a fascinating window into the logistical realities of westward migration.