“Unquestionably Bridger’s claims to remembrance rest upon the extraordinary part he bore in the explorations of the West. As a guide, he was without equal, and this is the testimony of everyone who ever knew him. He was a born topographer; the whole West was mapped out in his mind, and such was his instinctive sense of locality and direction that it used to be said of him that he could smell his way where he could not see it. He was a complete master of plains and woodcraft, equal to any emergency, full of resources to overcome any obstacles, and I came to learn gradually how it was that for months such men could live without food except what the country afforded in that wild region.
Bridger was not an educated man; still, any country that he had ever seen he could fully and intelligently describe, and he could make a very correct estimate of the country surrounding it. He could make a map of any country he had ever traveled over, mark out its streams and mountains and the obstacles in it correctly, so that there was no trouble in following it and fully understanding it... As a guide I do not think he had his equal upon the Plains.” These quotes were delivered by none other than Grenville Dodge, a Union Army officer and intelligence chief for Ulysses S. Grant. And no other quote in history better summarizes the legendary exploits of Jim Bridger, the mountain man, expert explorer, and forefather of the American West. This is his story.
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