John C. Frémont

John Charles Frémont (January 21, 1813 – July 13, 1890), was an American military officer, explorer, the first candidate of the Republican Party for the office of President of the United States, and the first presidential candidate of a major party to run on a platform in opposition to slavery, although he lost to Democratic candidate, James Buchanan.

Prior, Frémont served as a military governor of California (1847), and then US Senator (1850-1851). He held the rank of General for the Union army during the American Civil War. In 1862, as commander of the U.S. Army's Department of the West, Frémont took the dramatic step of imposing martial law on the state of Missouri, during which he emancipated the slaves and seized the property of secessionists. His actions brought him into conflict with President Abraham Lincoln, who overruled Frémont and rescinded his order.

In 1864, Frémont was the favored candidate of the Radical Republicans. Only a political deal with Lincoln kept Frémont from running. After the war, Frémont left politics, except for a brief stint as the territorial governor of Arizona.

John C. Frémont in The Guns of the South
With the Republican Party in disarray after the Confederate victory in Second American Revolution, John C. Frémont became the presidential nominee of the breakaway "Radical Republicans" in the 1864 election. Andrew Johnson, a Tennessee politician who had refused to secede with his home state, was Frémont's running-mate. The ticket came in third place in the popular vote with 436,337 votes and last in the electoral votes, only carrying three electoral votes from Kansas.

John C. Frémont in Southern Victory
Only the most diehard of Republicans remembered John C. Frémont. He was, for example, one of the namesakes of sailor Fremont Blaine Dalby, who served aboard the USS Townsend during the Second Great War.