Includes bibliographical references and index.

The story of America's westward migration is a powerful blend of fact and fable. Over the course of three decades, almost a million eager fortune-hunters, pioneers, and visionaries transformed the face of a continent- and displaced its previous inhabitants. The people who made the long and perilous journey over the Oregon and California trails drove this swift and astonishing change. In "Overland West: the story of the Oregon and California Trails," the four volumes of the set tell the sweeping saga of how this 'road across the Plains' transformed the American West and became an enduring part of its legacy. -- From book jacket.

The first volume, subtitled "So rugged and mountainous: Blazing the trails to Oregon and California, 1812-1848," tells how this massive immigration began. Drawing on extensive research, the author has woven a wealth of primary sources- personal letters and journals, government documents, newspaper reports, and folk accounts- into a compelling narrative that reinterprets the first years of overland migration. It relates the story of remarkable men, women, and children who first traveled 'the plains across' from the Missouri River to the Pacific Ocean between 1812 and 1848, and who helped make the United States a continental nation. He folds into the narrative more than five hundred overland sources unknown to earlier scholars. And he particularly spotlights the crucial years between 1840 and 1848, when American adventurers, explorers, and farmers blazed wagon roads to the Pacific across both the Cascade Range and the Sierra Nevada, making the vainglorious concept of Manifest Destiny into flesh-and-blood reality. -- From book jacket.

The second volume, subtitled 'With golden visions bright before them : trails to the mining West, 1849-1852' captures the danger, excitement, and heartbreak of America's first great rush for riches and its enduring consequences as a quarter of a million travelers followed the 'road across the plains' in the mid-nineteenth century to the gold rush in California. With narrative scope and detail, the book tells this classic American saga through the voices of the people whose eyewitness testimonies vividly evoke the most dramatic era of westward migration. The gold rush epoch witnessed untold suffering and sacrifice, and the trails and their trials were enough to make many people turn back. Drawing from hundreds of previously unpublished diaries, letters, and recollections, the author describes the fortunes and misfortunes of gold-seeking forty-niners, Oregon-bound farmers, and Mormon pilgrims. Also discussed are America's native peoples, for whom the effect of the massive migration was no less than ruinous as thousand of intruders encroached on their ancient homelands. -- From book jacket.

With Golden Visions Bright Before Them: During the mid-nineteenth century, a quarter of a million travelers -- men, women, and children -- followed the "road across the plains" to gold rush California. This magnificent chronicle -- the second installment of Will Bagley's sweeping Overland West series -- captures the danger, excitement, and heartbreak of America's first great rush for riches and its enduring consequences. With narrative scope and detail unmatched by earlier histories, With Golden Visions Bright Before Them retells this classic American saga through the voices of the people whose eyewitness testimonies vividly evoke the most dramatic era of westward migration. Traditional histories of the overland roads paint the gold rush migration as a heroic epic of progress that opened new lands and a continental treasure house for the advancement of civilization. Yet, according to Bagley, the transformation of the American West during this period is more complex and contentious than legend pretends. The gold rush epoch witnessed untold suffering and sacrifice, and the trails and their trials were enough to make many people turn back. For America's native peoples, the effect of the massive migration was no less than ruinous. The impact that tens of thousands of intruders had on native peoples and their homelands is at the center of this story, not on its margins. Beautifully written and richly illustrated with photographs and maps, With Golden Visions Bright Before Them continues the saga that began with Bagley's highly acclaimed, award-winning So Rugged and Mountainous: Blazing the Trails to Oregon and California, 1812--1848, hailed by critics as a classic of western history. - Publisher.