Imperfect Union

"Steve Inskeep tells the riveting story of John and Jessie Frémont, the husband and wife team who in the 1800s were instrumental in the westward expansion of the United States, and thus became America's first great political couple John Frémont grew up amid family tragedy and shame. Born out of wedlock in 1813, he went to work at age thirteen to help support his family in Charleston, South Carolina. He was a nobody. Yet, by the 1840s, he rose to become one of the most acclaimed people of the age -- known as a wilderness explorer, bestselling writer, gallant army officer, and latter-day…