Capt. Grant Marsh was one of the river pilots who navigated the shoals and rapids of the Missouri River. Captain Marsh watched Jackson’s sense of American Manifest Destiny unfold. He helped survey the upper reaches of the Missouri, he took his steamer to the shallows of little Bighorn to return battle-weary soldiers to their homes, and he watched as the region was transformed from a lonesome wilderness to a region of agriculture, commerce, and industry. In his presentation of the life of the great steamboat captain, Joseph Mills Hanson provides historical context for Captain Marsh’s accomplishments and uses accounts of his contemporaries to breathe life into one of the men who helped shape the future of this nation. The Conquest of the Missouri is one of the classic narratives on the history of the American West.
