It was 1846, and from the banks of the Missouri to the crests of the Rockies, limitless opportunity awaited those with the ambition and the courage to seize it. But with the promise of fortune there also came the certainty of danger. Over the next two decades, the relentless onrush of civilization--steamboats, telegraph lines, and railroads--would change the West forever. And so would the drumbeat of war.
