Hugo glass. A real Hugh glass. In the picture. The main action takes place in winter

This stern man in the picture is a bright representative of a now rare profession - a trapper, a fur hunter, a trap specialist. They could not establish his exact origin, they say, however, that in his youth he was involved in the activities of Jean Lafitte, a pirate and smuggler. What is known for sure is that Hugh (that was his name) in 1822 pecked at William Henry Ashley's ad in the St. four years" - the announcement received a short name - "Ashley's Hundred".

Literally from the first days of the expedition, Hugo has established himself as a skilled and hardworking hunter. In August 1823, in what is now South Dakota, Hugh encountered two grizzly bear cubs and their mother. He did not have time to use the gun - the bear attacked instantly. I had to fight with a knife, comrades arrived in time and the she-bear was finished. However, Hugh also suffered seriously. W. G. Ashley was convinced that a person would not survive after such wounds and asked two volunteers to stay with a wounded comrade and bury him. Fitzgerald and Bridger volunteered (a very outstanding personality, by the way).

Later they will tell the story of the Indian attack, they say - they were forced to take the gun and equipment of the dying man and suddenly flee. They already dug a hole for him, covered Hugo with a bearskin and flashed their heels. But at first they simply said that Hugh was dead, the Indians were invented later.

In the meantime, Hugo came to his senses and was apparently somewhat surprised by the lack of comrades, weapons and equipment. Broken leg, deep (to the ribs) wounds on the back and suppuration. 300 km to civilization and a knife in the asset. I think he cursed heartily at first. Then he threw the skin of a freshly killed bear over fresh wounds - so that the larvae from the raw skin would at the same time save him from gangrene and crawl. The journey to the Cheyenne River took 6 weeks. Diet - berries and roots. Plus, we managed to drive away two wolves from a killed young bison once. On Cheyenne he assembled a raft. Well, you get the idea, he made it to Fort Kiowa, Missouri.

He recovered for a long time. He took a gun and decided to take revenge. But Bridger had just married and Hugh forgave him in absentia. And Fitzgerald hid in the ranks of the US Army - killing a soldier in those days meant a certain death sentence. In 1833 Hugo was killed by the Indians.

It was an interesting time. Conquest of the Wild West. Cowboys and Indians. Heroes. Bastards. Researchers. Adventurers. The story inspired Roger Zelazny to write the only non-fiction novel. And, of course, there is the movie.

THE REAL HUGH GLASS.
Modern historians know little about Hugh Glass's early life. He was supposedly born in 1783 in the vicinity of Philadelphia. His origin is also not exactly clear: either his parents were Irish, or Scots from Pennsylvania.
Historians have pondered for decades whether Glass really went through the extraordinary ordeal that befell him, or whether it was just self-praise. Several researchers are sure that Glass's amazing adventures are not fiction. There are only a few fragmentary pieces of information that partially trace Glass's life among the pirates and Pawnee Indians. But his experience in the Rocky Mountains is confirmed by numerous documents that have stood the test of time. One of the most reliable sources is the published memoirs of George Yount. Entering the Santa Fe fur trade in 1825, Yount traveled to many places in the Rocky Mountains, and he claimed to have met and befriended Glass.
After 1851, Yount took his memoirs to the Catholic priest, the Reverend Orange Clark, who thought that Yount's story might make an interesting book. But it wasn't until after 1923 that paleontologist and historian Charles Lewis took the story to his attention, edited it, and published it as a memoir in the California Historical Society.
In his account, Yount recalled that Glass was a pirate. Sometime between 1817 and 1820, he is reported to have been a sailor, or perhaps even captain, of an American ship that was captured by the famous French pirate Jean Lafitte. Glass was probably in his thirties when his ship was boarded by the Lafitte adventurers and offered the choice of joining them or being hanged from a yardarm. Reluctantly, Glass chose life, and spent the next year of his life in the pirate colony of Campichi on Galveston Island, which was later incorporated into the state of Texas. The port of Campichi was in a dangerous position, as the mainland on both sides of Galveston Bay was overrun by the Karankawa Indians, who, according to rumors, practiced cannibalism, no matter that it could exist in their ritual form, any person who fell into their hands could be in their stomachs. At that time, the Texas coast was an unexplored wilderness, and Europeans tried to avoid meeting with this tribe. In addition, Campichi was surrounded by dangerous waters, which were inhabited by alligators and poisonous snakes. In general, it was almost impossible to escape from the island.
In his book The Saga of Hugh Glass, historian John Myers wrote: “Glass presented to George Yount the reality of the piratical existence, which, in its horror, eclipsed any possible perception of this trade for one who was not involved in it. Monstrous behavior belonging to a society that has cut itself off from honor and compassion to such an extent that newcomers can only guess at the cost of violent camaraderie."
Understandably, Glass didn't enjoy his role as a thug pirate. According to Reverend Clarke, Yount believed that Glass was a God-fearing man, inwardly shuddering at the sight of brutal murders committed every day.
“He shuddered to the depths of his soul and shrank from those bloody atrocities. It could not be hidden from the despotic lord of the emotions of their hearts” (The Chronicles of George C. Yount, California Historical State Society, April 1923).
The moment came when Glass and a certain companion could no longer hide their feelings and negative attitude towards the pirate life, and they were considered unsuitable for work as pirates. While the pirate ship was hiding in a secluded bay off the coast that would later enter the US state of Texas, two people eagerly awaited their fate, preparing for their hearing, which was to take place on Lafitte's return.
Glass and his comrade were afraid that they would simply be drowned in the sea, due to the fact that they violated the code of pirate loyalty. Fortunately, the night before the hearing, they were alone on the ship. They decided to seize the moment, as they had no choice. So they took some things and left the ship. Having sailed two miles in dangerous water, Glass and his compatriot reached the coast of the mainland, where for some time they lived at the expense of creatures they caught in the sea, often poisonous. Then they decided to go deep into the mainland, as the Karankawa scoured the coast in search of human prey. Without any maps, with limited knowledge of the area that later went into the Louisiana Purchase, uncertainly, they went ahead. They covered the 1,000 miles separating the coast of the bay from the Indian Territory, and on the way they did not meet (!!!) any of the warriors of the Comanche, Kiowa and Osage tribes hostile to any strangers, who, without much thought, scalped any white vagrants who were not able to resist them , and those who were capable after some time were reduced to the state of motionless bloodied bodies. But then, somewhere in the central plains, they were in the hands of the Skiri, or a tribe of Pawnee wolves, who practiced human sacrifice, believing that this ritual would guarantee them the fertility of their land, which means a future good harvest. Glass was forced to watch as his friend was burned alive and burning pine chips were thrust into his body. One can only guess what he felt at that moment, realizing that soon the same fate awaited him.
According to John Myers, Glass would not soon have been subjected to the same test, since the nature of such mortification was ritualistic. In anticipation of the next ceremony, the Pawnee treated the future victim well, "out of respect for the god or spirit to whom it would be dedicated."
Moving away from the horror he had recently experienced, Glass began to feverishly sort out in his mind the ways for his own salvation. Sooner or later, but the moment came when he thought that his last hour had struck: “He was approached by two who tore off his clothes, then the leader pierced his skin with a sliver, which was considered a royal privilege. Glass reached into his bosom and produced a large packet of paint (cinnabar), which the savages valued above all else. He gave it to the proud and arrogant warriors, and with a face expressing respect and reverence, he bowed in a final farewell. The leader was very pleased with his behavior, and he thought that, thus, God gave him a sign that he should save Glass's life and adopt him. In his book, John Myers wrote the following about this: “There is no record of any Thanksgiving turkey escaping from under an ax raised above it and being promoted to the status of a pet, but if such an event took place, it was like to save Hugh Glass.
Glass lived with the Pawnee for several years before entering the fur trade. He fully adopted the way of life of the Indians, married their woman, learned all the edible plants and insects, worked on the land and went to war with the soldiers. There is no doubt that this knowledge helped Glass survive in the wilderness after being attacked by a grizzly bear in 1823. Because of this, he can be considered an unusual person in the annals of American history.
Today, beaver hunters west of the Rocky Mountains are called "men of the mountains." Popular literature and cinema often depict them as scabbed simpletons, fodder for comic and cowboy stories. But in the early 19th century, fifty years before the traditional image of the cowboy appeared in the West, these mountain people lived through this myth-filled period of American history. It was the west of Hugh Glass.
They called themselves highlanders, not mountain men. Mostly they were 20-30 years old, or a little more. Whether out of curiosity or a rebellious spirit, each of them decided to leave the comfort of the settlements to take
participation in the first commercial enterprise of the American West - the beaver fur trade.
Manufacturers in the US and Europe made their finest felt hats from beaver fur, and this required setting up traps in a remote part of the North American continent. This trade, together with the trade in its products, connected cities, borders and Indians. This industry needed people like Hugh Glass, who could live long periods of time away from civilization with minimal benefits. The highlanders learned to tell hostile Indians from friendly ones, they learned to live with limited supplies a thousand miles from the settlements, making do with only a rifle and a few simple tools. They traveled within a vast space that was in the time of their grandparents. Their training schedule was very steep and some of them simply did not physically live to complete their full education. The storytellers among them would tell you that the highlanders live an incredible story every day. But the experience of Hugh Glass, when he was maimed by grizzlies and left by his companions to die without weapons and any tools or tools, and at the same time survived, was so incredible that the story of him became a legend among the mountaineers themselves.
Frontiersmen in the Rocky Mountains lived before and after the William Ashley era in the fur trade, but it was the adventures of Ashley's men on the banks of the Missouri River and among its beaver-rich western tributaries that marked the beginning of the classic mountain men period in the American West. Heavy rowing on the Missouri River in 1823 and a sharp confrontation in the villages of the Arikara Indians placed Hugh Glass in the history of the development of the West along with other people of Ashley, whose personalities later became legendary: Jedediah Smith, William Sublett, David Jackson, James Clayman, James Bridger , Moses Harris, Thomas Fitzpatrick and many others.
By 1820, renewed interest in the fur trade in the Rocky Mountains prompted the St. Louis capitalists to turn their eyes west. William Ashley, the lieutenant governor of Missouri, as well as a businessman and militia general, decided in 1822 to go into the fur trade. Andrew Henry at the time was among several men experienced in trapping and fur trading in the Rocky Mountains. As a partner in a new fur company, Henry was to manage the field and Ashley was to supply him with the logistics.
The Ashley-Henry Joint Venture advertised in the St. Louis newspapers in 1822 for the recruitment of hunters for the Missouri River into their Young Men's Enterprise. Jedediah Smith, Jim Bridger and boatman Mike Fink were among the first to respond to this year's call. It was planned to establish a fort in the upper Missouri, put keelboats (boats) there and use it as a base from where trappers would go to the mountains. The company was supposed to harvest the fur itself, and not buy it from the Indians for further resale.
In 1822, Ashley and Henry sailed on a keelboat to the headwaters of the Missouri, and their men built a fort near the confluence of the Yellowstone River and the Missouri River. Ashley then returned to the lower river to organize and supply the 1823 hunter set. Several trading companies competed fiercely for suitable labor in St. Louis, and Ashley had to make do with what was left for once. Nevertheless, he managed to fish out a rich catch in the form of Hugh Glass, William Sublett, Thomas Fitzpatrick and James Kleiman. And so, weeks of exhausting work with poles, towing, and only occasionally heavily loaded keelboats (draft reached 40-60 feet) went under sail against the current filled with Missouri snags. If you managed to walk 15 miles a day, then it was a good day. From Fort Henry, at the mouth of the Yellowstone River, to St. Louis was approximately 2,000 river miles. In what is now the center of South Dakota, Smith arrived from the headwaters of the Jedediah River with a message from Henry for Ashley. Henry was in desperate need of horses, as the Assiniboine Indians had stolen his entire herd. The rivers in the mountains beyond Fort Henry were impassable to boats, and Henry needed horses to carry men to the hunting grounds. Their agreement was well established. Ashley had not yet passed the Arikara villages, which specialized in horse trading, when, having gathered a new herd, he divided his people, instructing one group to follow the land route with horses to Fort Henry, while the rest were to continue towing boats across the Missouri to the same point destination.
The Arikara, or Sanish, were a tribe of merchants and farmers who lived in the middle reaches of the Missouri. Their villages served as trading grounds for horses from the south and firearms from the northeast, creating an intertribal barter economy throughout the Missouri River region, and the Arikara were the go-betweens. Arikara farms produced surpluses of corn, beans, and tobacco, which they sold, thus making their own direct contribution to the economy. Their merchants did not understand why the intermediary status of the Arikara should become part of the American trade extending west from the Mississippi. The Arikara did not want to be forced out of any form of commerce along the Missouri by the aliens. The American traders viewed the Arikara as an unpredictable tribe and were unwilling to deal with them. They were partly right, as the Arikara were occasionally intimidated, robbed, and even killed by individual white traders as they tried to pass through their territory. But, on the other hand, how else could the Arikara react to the intrusion of completely alien people into the sphere of activity on which the tribe depended directly? Their aggression was natural.
In 1823, two Arikara villages dominated the Missouri bend and were home to nearly 2,500 people. The uneven palisade, built of logs and mud, served as an effective barricade that protected both villages. Inside the palisades were earthen houses - rounded log frames lined with willow branches and compacted with mud, well protected from the weather. From the palisades, the open part of the near bank was clearly visible in all directions, and on the other side of the river stretched open prairie. Both cities had, each, a fortified trading post, located in a position from which the river itself was clearly visible.
May 30 Ashley anchored in the middle of the Missouri opposite one of the villages. By this, he made it clear that he wanted to enter into negotiations and open trade, and that he was not going to fight. To prove his peacefulness, Ashley left his keelboat and went ashore to begin negotiations. During them, the Arikara demanded compensation for their several warriors killed in the latest clash with another fur trading company. Ashley told the Indians that he was not of that company and that his men had nothing to do with this battle, and as proof of his peaceful intentions he offered them gifts. But the Arikara apparently didn't discriminate between rival companies of white people, so they accepted the gifts as reparations for their lost people, and thought that Ashley was admitting he was responsible in the conflict for the other company. Regardless of what there was understanding or misunderstanding, but soon the conversation turned to horses. Ashley had guns and ammunition, the Arikara had horses. According to the report, Ashley traded 25 muskets with ammunition for 19 horses. Twenty years earlier, the Arikara had paid the Cheyenne for each gun, a hundred rounds of ammunition and a knife, one horse brought in from the south, so Ashley had clearly overpaid them. If he thought that his confident appearance would create trepidation among the arikar and they would allow him to continue his journey upriver, then the distribution of guns could be seen as an additional expression of his confidence. The auction then ended abruptly as Ashley stated that he had no more weapons to trade.
The horses needed supervision, so Ashley divided his team into a river team and a land team. He placed Jedediah Smith in command of a ground group of forty men, including Glass. These men were to guard the horses behind the lower Arikara village and then drive them to Fort Henry. The boatmen remained aboard two keelboats thirty yards from the shore, ready to sail for the same Fort Henry the next day. Both groups would have left the vicinity of the Arikara village immediately after the deal, but they had to wait out the hurricane.
Ashley was warned by an Arikara that some of the warriors were plotting to attack the Americans near the village or later on the open prairie. Ashley then decided to stay where he was for the time being and remain calm, and leave as soon as the wind died down. The ground party set up camp and settled down to rest. Two of her, Edward Rose and Aaron Stevens, slipped away to an Indian village to mingle with the women there. Accounts of the battle, which took place in the early morning of June 1, are completely at odds with each other. Next, a compilation of facts from several reports, which is a more plausible version of what happened.
Sometime after midnight, three Arikara warriors climbed onto the boat and tried to get into Ashley's cockpit, but he chased them away, brandishing a pistol. Then shouts were heard from the lower village, and Edward Rose appeared running, shouting to the ground party that Stevens had been killed. Those on the shore began to argue whether to follow the body of Stevens or, despite the darkness, swim across with the horses to the opposite shore. As a result, they decided to be ready and wait for dawn. Before dawn, the arikar hailed them and said that they could go to the village and collect Stevens' body for the price of one horse. After a short discussion, the trappers agreed and paid the Indians. However, the Arikara returned without the body and said that it was so crippled that there was nothing to give back.
Dawn clarified not only the sky, but also the situation. The ground party was with horses on the open bank, on which rose a hill, surrounded by a rough palisade, several hundred yards long, marking the boundary of the lower village of the Arikara. There they saw through the palisade the warriors hammering charges into the barrels of their guns. The two keelboats were still in the swift current of the Missouri. Near each of them rocked a rowboat or skiff.
A few minutes later, the first musket balls flew at the men and horses on the shore. A barricade was quickly erected from the dead animals, and the hunters could now aim at the warriors behind the palisades. Some of them were called to the keelboats to pull the boats upstream. Ashley initially ordered the keelboats to be dragged closer to the shore, but his boatmen squatted down in fear and could not move for fear. One keelboat was finally pushed forward, but after a few minutes it ran firmly aground on a sandbar. Then Ashley and one of his men got into two rowing boats and rowed to the shore, which immediately attracted concentrated fire from the village. Several people from the shore jumped into one of the boats, and it swam towards the keelboat. Then, before the second attempt to reach the shore, a bullet hit the rower and the boat began to drift downstream. The Arikara, confident of victory, began to emerge from behind the palisade and approach the people from the ground party. Those of the whites who could swim immediately rushed into the river. Bad swimmers and some of the wounded quickly disappeared under the water. The current carried several of the men past the keelboat as they reached out to grab it. Meanwhile, the Arikara warriors occupied the entire coast.
Ashley's team dragged the keelboat off the sandbar and swam downstream. The crew of the second keelboat chose anchor and also set their ship free to sail downstream. With this maneuver, the trappers left the shelling.
Hardly fifteen minutes had passed since the shooting began, but in that short time Ashley lost 14 men killed and 11 wounded. The Arikara lost between five and eight warriors killed and wounded.
Shocked by defeat, the expedition surrendered to the will of the current. In the future, the trappers tried to find the stragglers and bury those whose bodies were found. Hugh Glass, also wounded in this conflict, wrote the following letter to the family of John Gardiner, one of the dead: “It is my painful duty to inform you of the death of your son, who fell at the hands of the Indians in the early morning of June 2nd. He lived a little longer after he was shot. He managed to ask me to tell you about his sad fate. We brought him to the ship, and soon he died. A young man, Smith, of our company, said a prayer over him, which moved us all very much, and we are sure that John died in peace. We buried his body with others near this camp, and marked his grave with a log. We will send his things to you. Savages are very treacherous. We traded with them as friends, but after a great hurricane with rain and thunder, they attacked us before dawn and killed and wounded many. I myself am wounded in the leg. Master Ashley must now remain in these places until these traitors are justly punished.
Yours Hugh Glass.
Initially (after the battle) Ashley's idea was to board the keelboats with wooden planks and try to get past the Arikara villages as fast as possible, but this plan was rejected by many of his men and he began to consider other options. He loaded the wounded into one of the keelboats and sent it back to St. Louis. Those who had enough impressions of the Western fur trade also sailed with them. Along the way, this boat was supposed to deposit Ashley's goods at Fort Kiowa, where a rival fur trading company had a trading post. He also sent Jedediah Smith and a French Canadian to the mouth of the Yellowstone River for more people. Ashley chose a camp site downriver and waited for help to arrive.
Along with the wounded, Ashley sent letters to the troops stationed at Fort Atkinson, to the St. Louis newspapers, and to the senior Indian agent, calling for help, demanding that the Arikar be punished, and that Missouri be reopened to American trade. The commander at Fort Atkinson, Colonel Henry Leavenworth, upon receiving a letter from Ashley, on his own initiative, immediately organized an expedition to the villages of the Arikara, consisting of 230 officers and soldiers of the 6th US Infantry Regiment, and personally led it. For the first time, the US Army marched against the Indians west of the Mississippi River. The soldiers themselves advanced on foot along the Missouri, and their food and ammunition moved on keelboats. Leavenworth named his unit the Legion of Missouri. Before arriving at the Arikara villages, he assembled a mixed force consisting of regular foot soldiers, 50 volunteers from the Missouri Fur Company, 80 volunteers from the combined Ashley and Henry group, and 500 Lakota cavalry. As a result, there were about 900 fighters.
Hugh Glass had not yet recovered from his wound during the first encounter with the Arikara, and therefore he did not participate in this campaign of revenge.
On August 10, after a day and a half of skirmishing, reconnaissance on the ground for an attack, having used up almost all the available ammunition for two cannons and a mortar, Leavenworth ordered a ceasefire. He decided to negotiate with the Arikara, despite the fact that his officers urged him to start storming the villages. This decision of his upset many in the Missouri Legion, and especially the Lakota warriors, who lost their chance for glory in battle and went home. Ignoring the objections of his people, who believed that the Arikara should be roughly punished for the murders of the Americans, the colonel entered into negotiations with their leaders. They accepted his terms, and at night the Arikara silently left their villages. Leavenworth declared victory and ordered the troops to march back to Fort Atkinson. The departing troops saw smoke rising from the abandoned villages. It was against Leavenworth's orders that employees of the Missouri Fur Company set fire to the empty houses. Left without villages, for the next few years the Arikara lived among other tribes (the Mandan and the Hidatsa), wandering and, if possible, destroying American trappers.
After an unsuccessful, in principle, combined (army-friendly Indian trappers) campaign against the Arikara in the summer of 1823, Ashley left the river and traveled downriver along the bank. He and Henry now believed that the route to the mountains in the upper Missouri was now closed to them. Too expensive payment in people and finances, he requested. Simply put, the Indians of the region simply threw the trappers out of there. Now, the only thing the partners could do was to send their people overland to the mountains to get something after such a disaster. So Ashley went downriver to Fort Kiowa to trade some of his surviving goods there for horses, while Henry led the remaining 30 men (according to trapper Daniel Potts) and six pack horses to Fort Henry. Upon arrival, they locked up all the premises and went to spend the winter south to the Crow Indians. Hugh Glass had by this time recovered enough to go with Henry's group. It happened in August 1823. The battle with the Arikara was the first in a series of trials that nearly cost Glass his life as a Highlander.
It took a month to recruit horses for the second group, led by Jedediah Smith. This group immediately went to the country of the Crow and was fully equipped for the next year's hunting. Ashley returned to St. Louis to his political duties and to his creditors. His men dispersed to both sides of the Wind River in search of beaver, and in the process established that the headwaters of the Green River were true beaver country. When the news of this came to St. Louis in the summer of 1824, Ashley thought that he could now pay off his debts in full if he supported his trappers and delivered furs to St. Louis. His scheme for getting goods on the spot and delivering them soon developed into annual rendezvous (meetings) of trappers and Indians that emphasized the seasonality of the fishery.
The battle with the Arikara forced Ashley and Henry to abandon the Missouri River region as their main supply line, and they pushed their men into the Rocky Mountains. This strategy brought the era of the rendezvous closer. Hugh Glass and the other hunters in Henry's party, as well as Smith's party, left Missouri and traveled overland from Fort Kiowa to the west, thus setting off a cycle of adventures that became legends in the American west.
Since the new Fort Henry was located in the territory of a hostile Blackfoot tribe, Andrew Henry moved as fast as possible, worried about the fate of the small contingent of trappers he had left there. One of two things, either Hugh Glass volunteered to join his party, or he was recruited by Ashley and assigned to her. One way or another, this action pushed Glass straight into the clutches of the grizzlies and into legend.
Henry's men were on foot, leading pack horses. As stated above, Henry had thirty men, according to Daniel Potts, but according to trapper James Clayman, it is possible that thirteen of them made up the crew of the keelboat that remained on the river, which means that there were only seventeen people in the land party.
This ground party featured James Potts and Moses "Black" Harris. Both of them left reports of an Indian attack on their party at the end of August. According to Potts, the trappers "were shot during the quiet hour of the night by the Mandan Gruswants" as a result of which two of them were killed and two wounded. The Gruswants were not the Prairie Gros Ventre, then part of a confederacy of openly hostile Blackfoot tribes (Piegans, Siksika, Kaina, and Gros Ventre), but the generally friendly Hidatsa of the Missouri River. Participation in the Mandan attack is also surprising. Perhaps this is the only recorded incident in the history of this tribe when they attacked the Euro-Americans.
In late August or early September, 1823, Henry and the remaining fifteen men came to the Grand River Valley. Hugh Glass, as a hired hunter for the party, was moving at some distance from the rest of the people, looking for game in the bush, when he encountered a female grizzly and her two cubs. The she-bear attacked Glass and severely injured him. Heard his cries, some trappers went to his voice and shot the bear. Once the severity of Glass's injuries had been determined, Henry and most experienced trappers concluded that "Old Glass will be dead before dawn." However, he was still alive at the hour appointed by them. Because of the wandering hostile Indian detachments, Henry decided that he had to move on, so he ordered the construction of a stretcher, on which Glass was loaded, and the whole party set off. It was carried for two days, and then, as the slow pace increased the threat of a surprise attack, Henry called for two volunteers to stay with Glass for a few days until his death and then bury him. For this, he promised them $80 in bonuses. This plan allowed the party not only to accelerate, but also to fulfill their Christian obligations towards their comrade-in-arms. An experienced lumberjack, John Fitzgerald, and a young man, who first got into the unexplored wilderness, agreed to stay. The original account of the incident by James Hall, which was published in 1825, did not name the two daredevils. In the other three reports, only John Fitzgerald is mentioned. And finally, in 1838, Edmund Flagg's accounts give the second person's name as "Bridge". In his detailed study of the fur trade in the Rocky Mountains, historian Hiram Grittenden identified James Bridger as a nineteen-year-old young man and the youngest member of Henry's party, based on information left by the upper Missouri river kilboat captain Joseph La Barge. Since Grittenden became the first author of a scholarly study of historical documents of that era, many modern historians automatically cite his work as James Bridger. Could the real Jim Bridger leave a dying man to fend for himself, in this particular case, Hugh Glass?
Despite his barely audible breathing and eye twitches, Hugh Glass was still alive five days after Henry and the others left. Fitzgerald by this time was imbued with the idea that the Indians would soon find the straggler trinity. Therefore, he began to ardently convince the young Bridger that they had fulfilled their agreement, since they were guarding Glass much longer than the time that Henry gave him to live. Fearing for their own lives and believing that Glass would lose consciousness any day now, the two men placed his wretched bed next to a spring oozing out of the ground and headed for the fort at the mouth of the Yellowstone. They also took with them a pistol, a knife, a tomahawk, and Glass's fire utensils, things that a dead man does not need.
Realizing that he had been abandoned, Glass exerted all his strength and crawled towards the Missouri River, stimulated by the desire to survive and get revenge on the two. He needed food, weapons and ordinary hunting equipment, and he could only get this at the Brazo trading post, another name is Fort Kiowa. This fort was located on the banks of the Missouri, a few miles upstream from the mouth of the White River, and far enough downstream from the Arikara country that the journey was long and perilous.
Because of his injuries, the journey was tediously slow at first. Glass ate insects, snakes, whether they were edible or not, his stomach had already met with similar food. A week later, he came across wolves in the process of killing and further devouring a bison calf. After waiting for the animals to fill their bellies and leave, he crawled under the cover of night to the half-eaten carcass. In this place, he remained until only bones remained from the calf. Gradually, his body came to its senses, and soon Glass felt a surge of strength. The meat diet has taken its toll. Partially recovered, Glass was now able to cover a much greater distance. As they say, God helps those who help themselves, so Glass was incredibly lucky. As soon as he reached the shores of the Missouri, he met some friendly Lakota Indians who gave him a leather boat and he swam downstream. In mid-October 1823, Hugh Glass limped into Fort Kiowa after over 250 miles.
After many weeks of fighting for his own life, after a couple of days in Kiowa, Glass learned of plans to send a small group of traders to the Mandan villages, some three hundred miles upriver. The head of the post, Joseph Brazeau, decided that the tensions between the Arikara, which had passed from them to the Mandan, had eased enough that they could try again to establish trade. The contingent was to consist of five men, led by Antoine Sitolux, better known as Langevin. Since Glass was Ashley's man, he was allowed to purchase a rifle, lead, gunpowder, and other goods on credit. He was in a hurry to set out on the upper Missouri, hoping to catch Fitzgerald and Bridger at Fort Henry. When Langelin's Mackinaw pushed off one early morning in mid-October, Hugh Glass was the sixth member of her crew. After six weeks of struggling with the prevailing northwesterly winds and seasonal strong currents, Fort Kiowa traders were within a day's sail of the Mandan village. In this part of the river, just below the village, there was a large bend, or oxbow lake. And at this point, Glass asked to be put ashore. He justified his request by the fact that the direct route to the Maidan village by land is shorter and less boring than rowing a boat along a large bend. He believed that any time he gained along the way would sooner bring him face to face with his intended victims.
Something kept Glass and led to the goal he had designated. Unfortunately for Langevin and his men, Brazeau's idea that the Indians were on the road to peace turned out to be deeply flawed. On the same day that Glass got off the boat, the Arikara attacked his companions and killed them all. A few miles from the river, Glass was spotted by women gathering firewood and immediately raised the alarm. A group of Arikara warriors on horseback quickly surrounded the lone trapper. His life was literally hanging in the balance, but then two Mandan men intervened, watching this scene from the side. They decided that they would play a good joke on the Arikara if they took another victim from them. They galloped briskly, quickly dragged Glass onto one of the ponies, and rode off just as quickly. A little later, they took him to Teton Post, located near their village, and owned by the Columbia Fur Company. It is not clear what the Mandan warriors were really guided by, snatching Glass from the hands of their friends Arikara, but fate again turned out to be favorable to him.
At Teton Trading Post, Glass learned of the slaughter of Langevin's party and that the people in that place had been living under constant fear of an Arikar attack for the past few months. Did Glass himself feel fear now? He survived two extreme events: captivity by pirates and Pawnee. He was included in three Indian attacks where 21 were killed and 16 wounded. He survived a grizzly attack on him. Be that as it may, vengeance seems to have completely taken over him, since one night he left Tethon, taking additional precautions: he crossed to the opposite shore, away from the Arikara camp, located next to the Mandan village.
What was happening at the mouth of the Yellowstone at that time? Leaving Fitzgerald and Bridger to care for the "dying" Glass, Andrew Henry's party reached Fort Henry in late October. Since the trappers who first settled in the fort attributed their failures in the fur harvest to the hostility of the Blackfeet, Henry decided to move his enterprise further south into the valley of the Bighorn River. As a result, a second Fort Henry was erected near the confluence of the Little Bighorn into the Bighorn. This new position was nearly thirty miles south of the mouth of the Yellowstone River.
It was the end of November when Glass began his long, cold journey of 38 days from Teton Post to Fort Henry; journey that led him to an empty fort.
There is no historical record describing Glass's feelings when he finally arrived at the deserted fort. It is also unknown how he learned that his company's new fort was built near the Bighorn River. Historians have pondered this, and believe that in the abandoned post, Henry left a written message, where for the people sent by Ashley from St. Louis, there was an indication of the location of the new fort. Whatever it was, but based on information received from a man named Allen, George Yount wrote in his chronicle that Hugh Glass came to the new Fort Henry on New Year's Eve 1824. As soon as people recovered from the shock that arose from the sight of a walking person whom they believed to be dead, they bombarded him with questions, to which Glass answered in good faith. Finally, he had a chance to ask his own question: Where are Fitzgerald and Bridger? After miles of suffering and deprivation, one can imagine the depth of Glass's disappointment when he learned that Fitzgerald was no longer with them, and only Bridger was in the fort. After talking with the young trapper, Glass realized that Fitzgerald alone was to blame, and he decided to forgive Bridger. Now, in order to punish Fitzgerald and return his rifle, he needed to go to Fort Atkinson on Missouri, where this desired object might have been.
Glass spent part of the winter at Fort Henry, and then Henry needed to update Ashley on current business. Henry thought that the message should first be delivered to Fort Atkinson, and from there to St. Louis. Due to bad weather and the hostility of the Indians, he concluded that five people would need to be chosen to successfully complete the mission. Henry offered an additional bonus to those who would venture on this perilous journey. Hugh Glass was the first to agree. Supposedly Fitzgerald was at Fort Atkinson, and he was the only reward that Glass needed.
So Hugh Glass, Marsh, Chapman, Moore, and Dutton, on February 29, 1824, left Fort Henry on the Bighorn River and headed for the military post, which was located at Cansle Bluffs on the Missouri River. They went southeast, crossed the Tong River, then came to the Powder River and followed it south to the point where it bifurcates into its northern and southern branches. From here they followed the south fork until they reached a wide valley, where they turned southeast and after 45 miles came to the North Platte River. As they moved on along the North Platte, a prolonged warm spring weather set in and the river broke free of ice. Then they built boats out of buffalo skins and sailed down the river.
Near the confluence of the Laramie River with the North Platte River, leather boats sailed right up to the Indian camp. The chief went to the water, gestured that he was a friend, and in the language of the Pawnee tribe invited the trappers to visit his camp. Believing that these Indians belonged to the friendly Pawnee with whom Glass had once lived, the Highlanders accepted the invitation. Leaving Dutton with all their rifles to guard the boats, Glass, Marsh, Chapman, and More, accompanied by the chief, went to the Indian tipis. Soon, during the conversation, Glass realized that they were hostile Arikara, not Pawnee. He signaled to his companions, and at the first opportunity the trappers ran towards the river. More and Chapman were quickly killed, while Glass and Marsh managed to reach the hills and hide until nightfall. Dutton, hearing the sounds of a struggle, set sail from the shore and swam downstream. Soon he met Marsh, who was walking along the shore in the same direction. The two thought that Glass had also been killed and continued on their way. In March they reached Fort Atkinson without further incident.
Again Glass was left alone in the wilderness among the hostile Indians. He again had no rifle, and the nearest settlement of white people was three or four hundred miles away. However, later comparing his experience, for which he had to “thank” Fitzgerald and Bridger, with his current position, Glass said to his fellow trapper: “Although I lost my rifle and all my booty, I felt very rich when found his shot bag, which contained a knife, flint and flint. These unsightly little things can greatly lift a man's spirit when he is three hundred or four hundred miles from anyone or anywhere."
Believing that the Arikara were wandering the Platte Valley, Glass decided to leave the river and head straight across the rough terrain to Fort Kiowa. Since spring was the calving season for bison, the prairie was full of newborn calves. This allowed him to dine on fresh veal every night and be in excellent physical shape when he went out to the Missouri River. At Fort Kiowa, he learned that John Fitzgerald had enlisted in the army and was at Fort Atkinson.
Sometime in June 1824, Hugh Glass finally arrived at Fort Atkinson. Burning with a thirst for revenge, he directly demanded a meeting with Fitzgerald, but the US Army had a different opinion on this matter. As a soldier, Fitzgerald was now public property, so the army could not allow Glass to harm him. After carefully listening to Glass's story, the captain returned to him his rifle, which Fitzgerald still kept, and advised the Highlander not to remember him as long as he remained a soldier in the US Army.
Overjoyed at having his rifle back, and frustrated at not being able to ruin Fitzgerald's hide, Glass walked west from the Missouri. After a few months of odd jobs, he decided to try his luck in another part of the country, and joined a fur company heading to Santa Fe.
Highlander and friend of Hugh Glass, George Yount, left most of the information concerning Glass's life after his departure from Fort Atkinson. According to Yount, Glass was given $300 at the fort to "assuage his need for revenge, and to compensate him, at least in part, for the hardships he had to endure." He used this money to travel to settlements far west of the Missouri, and, in 1824, became a partner in one of the trading enterprises in New Mexico. In Santa Fe, Glass befriended a Frenchman named Dubreuil, and the two paired up to trade and set up traps along the Gila River. After a year of such activities southwest of Santa Fe, Glass moved to Taos. There he hired Etienne Provost to catch beaver in southern Colorado, in the territory of the Ute Indians. One day, while canoeing down the river, Glass's group spotted a lone Indian woman on the shore. She belonged to the Shoshone tribe, which at that time was at war with the Ute and therefore hostile to any whites trading with their enemy. As soon as Glass and his men swam closer to the woman and offered her beaver meat, their sudden appearance frightened her and she took off running, screaming terribly. Shoshone warriors, who were resting in the neighborhood, came running to the cry, and in a matter of seconds they fired a cloud of arrows at the confused mountaineers. As a result, one of the trappers was killed, and Glass was left with an arrowhead in his back. He had to endure the pain of a raw wound all 700 miles to Taos. There he spent a long time recovering, and then joined a group of trappers who were heading to the beaver areas near the Yellowstone River. There is no information about events in Glass's life during his stay in the Yellowstone area in 1827-28. There is only the story of Philip Covington, who worked in conjunction with William Sublett in a rendezvous caravan during the same years. Glass also visited the Bear Lake Rendezvous in 1828. There is proof for that. Because of the monopoly high prices charged by Smith, Jackson and Sublette at this rendezvous, independent trappers asked Glass to introduce their group to Kenneth McKenzie and invite the American Fur Company to attend an 1829 rendezvous with a trading caravan. Therefore, leaving the rendezvous of 1828, Glass went to Fort Floyd, an American Fur Company post located near the mouth of the Yellowstone River, to speak with its agent MacKenzie there.
Glass's movements in 1829 are uncertain, but it can be assumed that he attended a rendezvous at Pier's Hole to inform independent trappers of the results of his visit to Mackenzie. He probably did not make the long journey to Fort Floyd in vain, since the American Fur Company planned to send a merchant caravan to rendezvous in 1830, led by Fontenelle and Dripps.
In the spring of 1830, Glass set traps in the upper Missouri, in the area of ​​the newly founded Fort Union. According to the historian Grittenden, Glass was the fort's hired hunter, and killed so many bighorn sheep on the slopes opposite the fort that the hills were named Glass Bluffs (Glass's Cliffs). On a map of the Territory of Montana from 1874, these hills near the mouth of the Yellowstone River are labeled Glass Bluffs.
The ledger book of the American Fur Company indicates that Hugh Glass - a "free man" - traded regularly at Fort Union in 1831-33. The same ledger indicates that Johnson Gardner, another famous free trapper, was in this fort during the same years. Gardner was a member of Henry-Ashley's party in 1822 and then operated as an independent trapper and merchant in the Rocky Mountains. Since Glass and Gardner were in the same Ashley-Henry party, it can be assumed that they had a friendly relationship. It was probably easier for the two old trappers to deal with the trading post in conjunction.
For the better development of trade with the Crow Indians, in the summer of 1832, Samuel Tulloch was sent to the Yellowstone River. There he was to establish a new trading post near the mouth of the Bighorn River. This trading post was called Fort Cass, and it was located three miles below the place where the Bighorn River flows into Yellowstone. Shortly after this post was built, Glass began supplying meat to it.
In the early spring of 1833, Glass, with Edward Rose and Alain Ménard, left Fort Cass to hunt beaver downriver nearby. As they crossed the river on ice, they were ambushed by an Arikara that was hidden on the opposite bank. Men are unfortunate in that they were in the wrong place at the wrong time. A raiding party of Arikara were engaged in stealing horses, and were just doing reconnaissance in the vicinity of the fort when they noticed the approaching trappers. All three were killed on the spot, scalped and robbed clean.
Another Ashley employee, James Beckworth, provided his own account of the death of Hugh Glass, in which he stated that he was at Fort Cass in the spring of 1833 and personally discovered the bodies of three hunters lying on the ice. With the exception of the report that Glass and two of his companions were killed on the Yellowstone River in the spring of 1833, no other part of Beckworth's account matches any other proven accounts of the period. Beckworth concluded his version of Glass's story with a description of the funeral of three trappers, during which the Crow Indians expressed their grief at the death of the illustrious veteran in a very emotional way.
“We returned to the site and buried three men whose bodies were the most terrible image I have ever seen. The crying was terrible. These three were well known and highly valued by the Crows. When their bodies were laid on their last resting place, countless fingers were voluntarily cut off and thrown into the grave. Cropped hair and various trinkets were also sent there and, finally, the grave was filled up.
Soon the plundering party of Arikara that had killed Glass and his two companions arrived at the source of the Powder River, where they came upon a trapper camp led by Johnson Gardner. The Indians pretended to be Pawnees, and the trappers let them sit down to warm themselves by their fires. During a leisurely conversation, the trappers drew attention to one of the Indians, who had a well-known Glass rifle, and other Indians also had things that previously belonged to the killed trappers. As is to be expected in such situations, there was a heated fight and two of the Arikara were captured, the rest fled. After taking a close look at Glass's rifle and other familiar items of his slain comrades, Gardner and the rest of the trappers were filled with vengeance. Gardner scalped the Indians and then burned them alive at the stake when they couldn't explain how they got the equipment.
In 1839, Edmund Flagg recorded the death of Johnson Gardner.
"Shortly after that, he himself fell into the hands of the Arikara, who inflicted the same terrible death on him." So the Indians burned Gardner alive.
GRIZZLY ATTACK ON JEDEDIA SMITH.
Hugh Glass was not the only person to suffer a ferocious grizzly bear attack in the fall of 1823. Jedediah Smith joined Ashley-Henry's trapper party in 1822 and, like Glass, took part in Ashley's disastrous attempt in the summer of 1823 to establish trade relations with the Arikara Indians in their villages along the Missouri River. Before leaving for St. Louis, Ashley appointed Smith captain of a party of ten trappers, gave him the task of leading these men overland to the Crow country and trying to establish a beaver fishery there. Thomas Fitzpatrick was appointed as Smith's deputy, and the party also included William Sublette, Edward Rose, Thomas Eddy, Jim Kleiman, and others. Andrew Henry, as already mentioned, led the second party, which went to the mouth of the Yellowstone, and in it was Hugh Glass.
In late September, Smith's party left Fort Kiowa and moved southeast to the area of ​​present-day Pierre, South Dakota, and soon forded the White River. The trappers then turned northwest and headed for the south branch of the Cheyenne River. Crossing the mountain range, they entered the Black Hills, descended from them into the Badlands and went to the Powder River. Smith took the only route through a vast lowland overgrown with bushes. They led their horses on foot, pushing their way through the dense thicket west of Beaver Creek. Suddenly, the stillness of the day was broken by a loud cracking of branches, and a grizzly bear emerged from the undergrowth, clearing its way down into the valley and heading straight for the people. A terribly growling, with bared fangs, the bear rushed to the column of people, stopped near its middle, turned and went in a parallel course to its head. Both people and horses reacted to this with panic: people screamed in fear, frightened horses snored furiously. James Kleiman left the only evidence of this event. Smith, who was at the head of the column, ran to an open place to divert the attention of the beast. Having got out of the thicket, he came face to face with a bear. He didn't even have time to raise his rifle. Kleiman described it this way: “Grizzly immediately rushed at the captain, grabbed him by the head and stretched him on the ground. Then he took him by the belt, but, fortunately, his round bag and a large knife were hanging there, which he tore off. However, several broken ribs and a lacerated head were bad wounds."
The powerful hug of the beast would have been fatal for a man if the gray clawed paws had not come across Smith's bag and blade. As soon as Smith was on the ground, razor-sharp claws were used, with which the bear ripped and tore his clothes into strips. Kleiman wrote: "He took almost all of Smith's head into his capacious mouth, close to his left eye on one side and near his right ear on the other, and exposed the skull near the crown, leaving white stripes where his fangs had passed, and severely tore one ear along the outer rim.
One of the trappers (possibly Arthur the Black, who was later credited with saving Smith twice from a grizzly), killed the monster before it completely ripped apart their captain. A bloodied, crippled Smith, still conscious, lay at the feet of his men, who stomped around him in confusion, sickened by the sight of blood. Kleiman recalled: “None of us had surgical knowledge, there was no one who would come up, understand everything and say why are you all walking around here?”. No one seemed to have the courage to touch Smith's crippled head and skinned face, and almost torn off scalp, to give him the necessary first aid.
Finally, Kleiman asked Smith what to do? The captain, with stoic calmness, began to give directions. After sending a couple of men to fetch water, he told Kleiman to take a needle and stitch up the wounds on his head that were bleeding. He rummaged through his things, found scissors and began to cut off the matted hair on the bloody scalp of the captain. With only an ordinary sewing kit, and having no medical knowledge, Kleiman began the first operation in his life to treat such a wound. Inserting an ordinary thread into the eye of the needle, “I began to stitch all the wounds in the best way, according to my ability and according to the instructions of the captain; I told him that only the ear was torn, but there was nothing I could do about it.” Smith did not rest on this and said: "Try to sew it up somehow." Kleiman recalled: “In resignation, the stubborn student brought himself into balance and redoubled his efforts to save Smith's face. I missed the needle many times, sewing together the torn flesh as beautifully as my hands could."

A few minutes later, the fresh embroidery on Smith's torn ear was completed, but the marks of this grizzly encounter remained with him for the rest of his life (Jedediah Smith was killed by the Comanche in 1831). With his eyebrow torn off, with his ear torn off, and with scars on his face and head, Smith later wore always long hair that hung loosely over his face, hiding his disfigured appearance. Kleiman put it this way about this incident: "We learned an unforgettable lesson about the nature of the grizzly bear."
Water was found one mile from the scene of this terrible incident. The supremely steely Smith was able to mount his horse on his own and ride to the place where the trappers had set up their camp near the water. Kleiman recalled: "We set up one tent that we had and made it as comfortable as possible in application to the circumstances."
Later, Fitzpatrick went ahead at the head of most of the party, while the two men and Smith remained where they were, waiting for the latter's wounds to heal. After nearly two weeks he was able to ride normally, and the trio soon caught up with the rest of the group. Their further journey lay west into the mountainous regions, and upon arrival they spent the winter in a Crow village on the Wind River (Wind River), probably near present-day Dubois, Wyoming.
Smith family lore says that Jedediah himself killed the bear that nearly killed him, but this is unlikely. There is also a legend that Smith carried the skin and claw of a bear when he returned to St. Louis. True or not, all the same, these relics have not been preserved.
Although the exact date of the grizzly attack on Smith near the Cheyenne River is not known, it is very likely that it occurred while Hugh Glass was trying to survive by crawling through the brush along the Grand River a couple of hundred miles away. Glass became a legend thanks to his remarkable experience of surviving a grizzly attack on him, and Jedediah Smith became a legend among the Highlanders thanks to his leadership skills and research knowledge.

But as you know, the film is based on a real story, which I would like to talk about in more detail.

Hugh Glass is a famous American pioneer, trapper and explorer who went down in history forever thanks to a miraculous rescue from the very heart of the American taiga and further adventures.

Here's what we know about him...

Before the era of hydrocarbons, when oil and coal became the most valuable resources in the world, the fur of fur animals played such a role. It is with the extraction of furs that, for example, the development of all of Siberia and the Far East of Russia is connected. In the 16th-17th centuries, silver and gold deposits were practically unknown in Russia, but it was necessary to trade with other countries - this was what pushed the Russian people further east in search of liquid currency: valuable sable skins, silver fox and ermine. These valuable skins were called "soft junk" at that time.

The same process took place in the USA. From the very beginning of the development of the North American continent, European colonists began to buy skins from the Indians and extract them themselves - this wealth was exported to the Old World by whole ships. The French became involved in the fur trade in the 16th century; the British, who established trading posts near Hudson Bay in what is now Canada, and the Dutch in the 17th century. By the XIX century, when the rapid development of industry began, an extensive network of trading companies engaged in the extraction and sale of furs had already formed in North America.

For a long time, the fur trade was one of the pillars of the American economy - long before the gold rush in California and Alaska, thousands of professional hunters rushed into the endless forests of the northwest for furry gold. They were called mountainmen or trappers. They not only disappeared in the forest for years, setting up snares and hunting animals with firearms for their own benefit, but also performed another important role.

These were the first white people in completely wild and unexplored places.

Expedition Recruitment Announcement, Missouri Gazette & Public Advertiser, 1823

It was they who, during their journey, filled out diaries, maps, made sketches and notes about the rivers they sailed along, and about the people they met. Subsequently, many of them began to serve as guides for scientific expeditions, to accompany the first caravans of settlers along the Oregon trail; others established trading posts along the settler routes or were hired as scouts for the US Army.

During the heyday of the fur trade in the 1820s-1840s, about 3,000 people could call themselves mountainmen. One of them was Hugh Glass, who became a real American legend.

Glass was born in 1780 to Irish settlers in Pennsylvania. From his very youth, he had a craving for adventure, and distant uncharted lands attracted the young man better than any magnet. And it becomes clear why: in the USA, the era of the famous conquest of the western lands of North America began, when every day more and more groups of pioneers and explorers went further and further west. Many of them did not return - the arrows of the Indians, diseases, predators and natural elements did their job, but the wealth and mystery of distant lands did not stop more and more frontiersman.

The name frontierman comes from the English word frontier. The frontier in the 19th century was called the zone between the wild undeveloped western lands and the already annexed eastern lands. The people who lived in this zone were called frontiermen. They worked as hunters, guides, builders, explorers and contactees with various Indian tribes. It was dangerous and hard work, interesting but full of hardships. With the development of wild lands, the frontier shifted east - to the East Coast itself, until it finally ceased to exist.

Probably at a young age, Glass left home and went to the frontier in search of adventure and work. Most of the information about his early life is missing, but we do know that from 1816 to 1818 he was in command of a pirate ship that attacked merchant ships along the rivers and along the coast. It is unknown if Glass volunteered to join the pirates or if he was captured with no other choice. Be that as it may, after 2 years, during another pirate raid, Glass decided to escape from the ship: he jumped from the ship into the water and swam 4 kilometers to the coast of the Gulf of Mexico. Without any equipment, he went north day after day, and, in the end, was captured by the Pawnee Indians. Glass was lucky that the leader of the tribe allowed him to stay in the tribe and provided him with everything necessary. The American lived with the Indians for 3 years, acquiring the skills of survival in the wilderness and hunting for animals, learned the Pawnee language and even married one of the Pawnee girls. Three years later, as an ambassador from the Pawnee, he went to meet the American delegation, and after negotiations, he decided not to return to the Indians.

In 1822, Glass decided to join the expedition of the famous entrepreneur William Ashley, who planned to explore the tributaries of the Missouri River for hunting grounds for a new fur company, organized by William Ashley himself and his business partner Andrew Henry. Many famous frontiermen and trappers joined the expedition; decided to try his luck and Hugh Glass. The experience gained and excellent physical data seemed to William Ashley sufficient, and at the beginning of 1823, Glass, together with the detachment, set out on a campaign.

A few weeks later, explorers traveling up the Missouri River were ambushed by hostile Arikara Indians. 14 people from the detachment were killed, and 11, including Glass, were injured. William and Andrew suggested moving on and passing the dangerous section of the river as quickly as possible, but most of the detachment believed that large Indian forces would be waiting ahead of them, and continuing along the intended route would be tantamount to suicide.

Having sent a boat with wounded comrades down the river to the nearest fort, the Americans began to wait for reinforcements. Finally, in early August, additional forces approached, which attacked the Arikara and drove them back to their settlements. Peace was made with the Indians, and they pledged not to interfere with the research group in the future. After that, the volunteers who came to the rescue went back.
Since the confrontation with the Redskins caused significant delays, William Ashley decided to split his men into two groups and send them along two different routes in order to catch up and explore the area faster. Moreover, although a non-aggression pact was concluded with Arikara, none of the Americans thought to trust the Indians, preferring to leave the intended route along the Missouri River. Glass got into the second detachment, which was led by Andrew Henry. They had to leave the Missouri River and continue along one of its tributaries, the Grand River. Another detachment floated down the river and set about establishing trade relations with the Crow Indians in order to somehow compensate for the losses from the unsuccessful start of the campaign. Both detachments were supposed to meet at Fort Henry, located upstream (see map).
Some time after the division of the detachment, Andrew Henry's detachment began to be disturbed by the Indian wars of the Mandana tribe: throughout the journey they ambushed the Americans, keeping them in constant tension. The frontiermen managed to avoid deaths, but they were exhausted and wanted to get out of the inhospitable Indian lands as soon as possible.

Missouri on an early 19th century map

In early September 1823, Glass and his party were exploring the Grand River. Hugh, who was playing the role of a hunter, was tracking a deer near a temporary camp, when he suddenly stumbled upon a bear and two cubs. The angry animal rushed at the man, inflicting many terrible wounds, and only the comrades who arrived in time for the screams were able to kill the grizzly, but Glass had already lost consciousness by that time.
After examining the wounded, everyone came to the conclusion that Glass would hardly last a few days. Unfortunately, it was during these days that the Mandan Indians most strongly annoyed the Americans and literally followed them on their heels. Any delay in advance was tantamount to death, and a bleeding Glass would greatly slow down the squad's progress. At the general meeting, a difficult decision was made: Hugh was left in place along with two volunteers who would bury him with all honors, and then overtook the detachment.
John Fitzgerald (23) and Jim Bridger (19) volunteered to carry out the mission. A few hours later, the main detachment withdrew from the camp and continued on its way, while two volunteers remained with the wounded Grass. They were sure that Hugh would die the very next morning, but the next day, and after two, and after three days, he was still alive. Briefly regaining consciousness, Glass fell asleep again, and this went on for several days in a row.

The anxiety of the two volunteers about being discovered by the Indians grew, and on the fifth day turned into a state of panic. Finally, Fitzgerald managed to convince Bridger that the wounded would not survive in any case, and the Mandan Indians could find them at any moment, and massacre could not be avoided. They left on the morning of the sixth day, leaving the dying man nothing but a fur cape, and taking his personal belongings ... In the future, they will catch up with their squad and inform Andrew Henry that they buried Glass after he expired.

Glass woke up the next day, lying under a fur cape from under a dead bear. Not seeing two guardians nearby and discovering the loss of personal belongings, he immediately realized what had happened. He had a broken leg, many muscles were torn, the wounds on his back were festering, and every breath gave off a sharp pain. Driven by the desire to live and take revenge on the two fugitives, he decided to get out of the wilderness at all costs. The nearest settlement of white people was Fort Kiowa, located at a distance of about 350 km from the place of the bear attack. Roughly determining the southeast direction, Glass began to slowly crawl towards the intended target.

In the early days, he crawled no more than a kilometer, eating roots and wild berries along the way. Sometimes dead fish washed up on the banks of the river, and once he found the carcass of a dead buffalo half-eaten by wolves. And although the meat of the animal was a little rotten, it was it that allowed Glass to get the energy necessary for the further campaign. Having made something like a bandage for his leg and finding a stick that was comfortable to lean on while walking, he was able to increase the speed of his movement. Two weeks after starting his journey, an exhausted Hugh met a band of friendly Lakota Indians who treated his wounds with herbal infusions, gave him food and, most importantly, a canoe, with which Glass was eventually able to get to Fort Kiowa. His journey took about 3 weeks.

Hugh Glass route on the map | Google Earth data was used for compiling

For several days Hugh Glass came to his senses, healing his terrible wounds. Upon learning that the commandant of the fort decided to send a group of 5 merchants to the Indian village of Mandana to restore friendly relations, Glass immediately joined the detachment. The Indian village was just upstream of the Missouri, and Hugh hoped that by reaching Fort Henry he could get revenge on Fitzgerald and Bridger. For six weeks, the Americans fought their way through the strong current of the river, and when the Indian settlement was a day away, Glass decided to leave his fellow travelers, as he considered it more advantageous to reach the village on foot, instead of boating against the current around the large river bend that could be seen ahead . Glass knew that the more time he saved, the faster he would find the escaped guardians.

At this very time, the Arikara wars were approaching the Mandana settlement - the Indians were constantly at war with each other, and intertribal hatred was often much greater than hatred for the pale-faced invaders. This is what saved Glass - the warriors of the two tribes noticed the white man at the same time, and it so happened that the first near him were the Indians of the Mandana tribe, sitting on horseback. Deciding to annoy their enemies, they saved the American's life and even delivered him safe and sound to the nearest trading post of the American Fur Company, located near Fort Tilton.
This is interesting: the merchants who accompanied Glass were much less fortunate. They were caught by the Arikara Indians, who killed and scalped all five.

In late November, Hugh Glass began his 38-day trek on foot from Fort Tilton towards Fort Henry. Winter came to these parts unusually early, the river was frozen, and a cold north wind walked across the prairie and snow fell. The temperature at night could drop below 20 degrees of frost, but the stubborn traveler went to his goal. Finally reaching Fort Henry on New Year's Eve, Glass stood before the eyes of the astonished members of his party. Fitzgerald had left the fort a few weeks ago, but Bridger was still there, and Glass went straight to him with the firm conviction to shoot the traitor. But upon learning that the young Bridger had recently married and his wife was expecting a child, Hugh changed his mind and forgave his former guardian.

For several months, Glass stayed at the fort to wait out the onset of cold weather and complete the task of the Fur Company - to deliver the skins to the fort, located downstream of the Missouri. The trappers, consisting of five people, went on a mission at the end of February. One day they saw an Indian chief in Pawnee robes standing on the bank of the river, inviting them in a friendly manner to come ashore and dine at the Indian settlement. Confident that it was indeed the Pawnees, who were known for their friendliness towards the palefaces, the trappers accepted the invitation. The leader did not know that Glass had lived for a long time in the Pawnee tribe and understood Indian dialects, therefore, when communicating with his entourage, he spoke the Arikara language, confident that the Americans would not be able to understand the differences. But Glass realized that the redskins wanted to outwit them, and in fact it was the Arikara, pretending to be Pawnee, luring them into a trap.

The trappers rushed in different directions, but two of them were immediately killed by the arrows of the Indians. The other two, who ran in the opposite direction from Glass, hid in the forests and safely reached the fort, and Hugh himself was once again left alone in the forest full of danger, which was combed by the embittered Arikara. But the hardened fighter was not so easy for the Indians to catch, and a few days later Glass safely reached the familiar Kiowa Fort, where he had already come, wounded after a bear attack. There he learned that Fitzgerald had joined the US Army and was currently at Fort Atkinson, down the river.

This time, Glass decided to focus entirely on revenge on his former comrade, and in June 1824 he reached the fort. Indeed, Fitzgerald was at the fort, but as a US Army soldier, Glass faced the death penalty for his murder. Perhaps this was what stopped Glass from retribution, perhaps something else, but after a while he abandoned his revenge and decided to continue working as a trapper and guide on the frontier.

A man like Glass simply could not meet his death calmly, lying at home under a warm blanket. The Indian arrow of the Arikara warrior found him nine years later, when he, along with other trappers, went to get fur-bearing animals in the vicinity of the Missouri River.

A few months later, a group of Pawnee Indians came to the Americans to establish trade relations. One of the Indians, in the presence of the trappers, took a flask from his bag and drank. The trappers saw on the flask a characteristic drawing that Hugh Glass had once made on his flask. The Arikara Indians, again trying to pretend to be Pawnee, were shot on the spot.

Based on real events, the filmmakers emphasize to us. But often, when making a movie based on real events, filmmakers take it easy with the facts. Some events are a little boring and neglected, some events are thought out to give the film spectacle and make the plot exciting, intriguing, interesting. The real story of the "Survivor" is not so spectacular, but also admires the strength and lust for life of the protagonist. And yet, in fact, he forgave everyone.

Was Hugh Glass really a fur trapper?
Yes, a hunter and a pioneer. And this is one of the few facts that are known about him reliably. In 1823, he signed a document ordering him to participate in the Rocky Mountain Fur Company's exploratory expedition organized by General William Henry Ashley, who placed an advertisement for expedition members in the Missouri Gazette & Public Advertiser. It was on this expedition that Glass was attacked by a bear.

Did Hugh Glass really convince the hunters to abandon their boats and continue off the river?
No. After the first battle with the Indians of the Arikara tribe, the organizers of the expedition, General Ashley and Major Henry, decided to go through the mountains.

Did Hugh Glass really have a Native American wife?
Little is known about Glass's life prior to the bear attack. The hypothesis is also a marriage with an Indian woman, with whom he allegedly fell in love when he lived in captivity with the Indians. And he was captured, according to legend, after escaping from the pirate Jean Lafitte. Hugh Glass was an accomplished hunter and explorer. And where and how he acquired these skills, one can only guess.

Illustration in The Milwaukee Journal article, Milwaukee Journal, 1922

Was Hugh Glass really attacked by a grizzly bear?
Yes. This happened in the summer of 1823, five months after Glass had joined the expedition. The meeting with the beast took place on the banks of the Missouri. The she-bear was with two cubs and was therefore very aggressive. She inflicted a huge amount of damage on him, including breaking her leg and piercing her throat. Glass's colleagues heard his cries, rushed to his aid and shot the bear away.

Is there documentary evidence of this attack?
No. At least they weren't found. Although it is reliably known that Hugh Glass was literate. A letter has been preserved that he wrote to the parents of the hunter John Gardner, who died during the attack of the expedition by the Arikara tribe. Some papers among the documents of the organizers of the expedition characterize him as not a simple person with a difficult character, but do not leave us information about the incident. However, there are stories written from the words of eyewitnesses. Thus, the story of the attack appeared in 1825 in the Philadelphia Literary Magazine. It quickly spread throughout the states and became a legend.

The real story takes place in winter?
No, at least not all. The bear attack happened in the summer.

Did the members of the expedition really leave Hugh Glass to die alone?
Yes. Assuming that the hunter was mortally wounded, the expedition leaders paid two other hunters to stay with him to the end and bury him according to Christian customs. They stayed with Glass for several days (the exact number is unknown), and then placed him in a shallow grave, collected all the weapons and supplies, and left to catch up with the expedition.

Did hunters really kill Hugh Glass's son?
No. This part of the movie is pure fiction. There is no evidence that Glass had children, much less that those children were killed in front of him. But revenge for a son is a more interesting plot move than revenge for oneself.

Did Hugh Glass really sleep in animal carcasses?
This is unknown. But sleeping in animal carcasses is not uncommon in various survival tactics. This and other details of Glass's journey arose from numerous retellings of his macabre adventure.

Did Hugh Glass really crawl 200 miles?
Hugh Glass crawled for six weeks. The distance that he covered changed and grew from retelling to retelling, and now it is not possible to establish it.

Did Hugh Glass really get revenge on the hunters who left him?
No. Hugh Glass did catch up with John Fitzgerald and Jim Bridger, but forgave them both.

What happened to Hugh Glass after this story ended?
Almost nothing is known about this, except that he continued to work as a hunter on the Yellowstone River.

Was Hugh Glass really killed by the Indians?
Yes. According to an article in The Milwaukee Journal, a Fort Union visitor shared news of the hunter's death. "Old Glass, with two companions, went to Fort Cass to hunt a bear, and as they crossed the river on ice, they were shot and scalped by the Arikara Indians." This happened in 1833.

Monument to Hugh Glass in South Dakota

There is also the excellent film "Man of the Wild Prairie", filmed in 1971 by Richard S. Sarafyan.

Hugh Glass was played by the famous actor Richard Harris. One of his last works - the role of Emperor Aurelius in the film "Gladiator".
The film features excellent wildlife shots - majestic snow-covered forests and spurs of mountains. The most powerful picture in terms of impact. The great strength of the spirit of the people who conquered the west. Great actors. In addition to Harris, the film also stars John Huston, who received an Oscar as a director for the film "Treasures of the Sierra Madre". The scene of Glass's forgiveness of his companions looks especially strong.

sources

Current page: 1 (total book has 15 pages) [accessible reading excerpt: 10 pages]

Elizabeth Buta
Survivor Hugh Glass. real story

© Elizabeth Buta

© TD Algorithm LLC, 2016

* * *

Who was beaten by life, he will achieve more,

Having eaten a pood of salt, appreciates honey more,

Who shed tears, he sincerely laughs,

Who died, he knows that he lives.

Omar Khayyam

Prologue

1859 Napa Valley

In the last days of summer, the Napa Valley was literally pierced by the sun. Every square inch of George Yount's vast estate basked in the pre-sunset rays. The air was filled with lively and somehow melancholy sounds. It seemed that with the onset of evening, everything here plunged into a light slumber, systematically flowing into a deep sleep. Somewhere in the distance, a newly built mill rumbled, dissatisfied cries of hired workers were heard, endless plantations of ripening grapes could be seen. Yount recently completed the construction of his own winery. This year he planned to make his first batch of wine.

The Gold Rush safely bypassed the valley, and the trappers 1
Trapper ( English. trap - "trap") - a hunter for fur animals in North America.

Fur hunters had nothing to do here. To be more precise, even ten years ago it was generally impossible to meet a pale-faced person here. And with the Redskins, too, a clash seemed unlikely. The desolate but fertile land of the Napa Valley belonged to Mexico. When George Yount decided that adventure was enough for his lifetime, he remembered his old connections and turned to an old friend for help. He helped him get sixteen and a half acres of useless land. So George Yount became the first official settler of the Napa Valley. Of course, people already lived here, but there were so few of them that Yunt could rightfully consider himself a conqueror of endless expanses. The implausibly fast aging fellow trappers, adventure hunters whose golden age ended many years ago, disapproved of Yount's decision to become a farmer. However, everyone has their own way, and it is not for them to judge Junt. In the end, even the legendary John Colter returned to St. Louis, got married and became the most ordinary farmer. True, it only lasted a few years. A nondescript and hard life quickly killed the legendary trapper. Literally three years after retiring from business, Colter fell ill with jaundice and died somewhere near New Haven.

George Yount was busy building the farm for so long that he did not even notice how several years of his life had passed. Not the most, it must be admitted, disgusting. He was rightfully considered here the most respected person in the city, or rather, in a small settlement, well, yes, this is not so important. He liked to spend his evenings on the small terrace of his house. He was often visited by old friends, local residents, heads of administrations from neighboring settlements and young adventurers. The latter came here mainly in search of lodging for the night. Yount Ranch was open to anyone who needed it. George Yount's only stipulation was these evening gatherings on the terrace of his house in the Napa Valley. Here, together with the guest, according to the old trapper habit, they lit a pipe, and Yount started his endless stories. He was an excellent storyteller, so the guests listened with pleasure to the stories of half a century ago. Fifty percent they were complete fiction, but exactly the same they were true. Now, contemplating the surprisingly calm expanses flooded with infinitely joyful sun, all the stories about legendary trappers and great expeditions seemed even too realistic. Even if all this did not really exist, all these legends would simply have to be invented for such sunny and quiet evenings of the last days of summer.

In that distant 1859, a famous writer and no less famous adventurer named Henry Dana decided to visit Yount Ranch. He was a thin, gloomy man in his early forties with a very heavy look. He wore long hair, was always dressed in a formal suit, topped off by a bowler hat to hide his bald patches. It was already hard to see in him that completely insane guy who dropped out of his studies at a prestigious university in order to serve as a sailor on a merchant ship. And yet he was not adapted to a quiet and measured life. Henry Dana has been a fairly successful politician in Massachusetts for many years now. He came to California in connection with some business. Having learned that the legendary George Yount, famous for his stories about trappers, lives nearby, Dana decided to stay at Yount's ranch for some time. All these stories could easily make more than one book.

Have you ever heard of a man who killed a bear with his bare hands? Henry Dana asked that evening. They sat on the terrace, George's wife brought them new, even too young wine, and the conversation moved smoothly to times long gone.

“I even know a couple of such daredevils,” George chuckled, “the banks of the Missouri are full of grizzlies. Almost every trapper faced them, however, most often the duel ended before it even started. If the bear did attack, it was not difficult to predict the result, but sometimes there were also lucky ones. Jedediah Smith, one of Ashley's hundred, killed a bear, Hugh Glass...

“I read about a man who killed a bear with one knife. He was considered dead and left, but he crawled three hundred kilometers and still survived. – Henry Dana even slightly leaned forward from the curiosity that burned him. He read that story in one of the magazines. It was published by a journalist, a collector of stories, back in the 1820s. Moreover, the author of the article was not at all interested in the person who defeated the grizzly bear. The journalist then did not even mention his name, limited himself only to describing the fight itself. Henry Dana remembered that story for the rest of his life, but did not even hope to find out the details of the life of that person.

“His name was Hugh Glass,” George Yount nodded slowly. - A man of amazing honesty. Do you know what the trappers used to say about him? Born to run. His story began long before the fight with the bear.

1823

Dying is hard only the first time. Then it turns into a game. Fate loves when there is a person who challenges her. She always takes the fight. She likes to watch with interest how a person tries to deceive her. Nobody has succeeded in this yet, but sometimes, very rarely, fate gives in to crazy people who are desperately trying to overtake her at the turn.

Into a clearing near the banks of the majestic Grand River, an incomprehensible-looking creature came out. Without a doubt, a predator. Dangerous. All wrapped in the skins of the animals he killed. These predators have appeared here recently. They were very similar to the Arikara Indians. 2
Arikara, Ree - a group of closely related Indian tribes who speak the language of the Arikarakaddoan family.

To which the local forests are already accustomed. And yet these predators were different from the Indians. They were much more dangerous and ruthless. Their weapons were capable of destroying any beast in just an instant.

Hugh Glass stared in horror into the she-bear's shiny, black eyes. Grizzly watched the creature with no less horror. This went on for a very long moment. Then the monstrous scream of Hugh Glass poisoned the clearing. This voice literally destroyed the hearing of the unfortunate animal. Every instinct begged her to run away from here. Then a small, one-year-old bear cub came into the field of view of the she-bear. The second inadvertently hobbled towards an incomprehensible creature wrapped in the skins of local animals. The bear's instincts instantly changed their mind. She has to protect her children, so you can't run. The animal snarled with equal vehemence.

Hugh Glass knew perfectly well that when meeting a bear in the forest, it is important to frighten the animal. This is the only chance for salvation. But this time it didn't work. The scream, no doubt, frightened the grizzly, but she was not going to run. Two one-year-old bear cubs deprived her of such an opportunity. One of the most dangerous and unpredictable animals in the world accepted his challenge. He saw it in the grizzly's shiny black eyes. Just a couple of seconds to reload the gun. He was an excellent hunter, so this was not a problem. As soon as the she-bear took the first, cautious step towards Hugh, he fired. There was a muffled sound, barely distinguishable against the background of a cacophony of screaming. Misfire.

Two men ran into the clearing. They ran to the heartbreaking screams coming from the clearing. One was a little older. His face had a look of indifferent squeamishness to what was happening. The second is still quite a boy with disheveled hair.

These two did not cause fear in the she-bear. They didn't scream. The she-bear slightly bent over and in one jump overtook Glass. The trapper managed to get his last hope for a fight. Dying is not scary if you know that the last moments of your life will be spent in battle. Glass managed to stick his hunting knife into the animal's chest. The bear roared in pain. There were pops from somewhere. He did not even have time to understand that these were shots. All his consciousness was swallowed up by the gigantic mouth of a bear with fangs bared by fury.

The bullet that hit the target did not leave the bear a chance to live. She had only a few moments of agony left in her arsenal. In a futile fury, she mustered the forces that were leaving her and struck down the most dangerous of the predators in the clearing. Her claws ran all over the right side of Glass's body. Deep furrows remained behind the claws, from which blood flowed. Dying, the bear was still able to neutralize at least one of the trappers in the clearing. This left a chance for her children to live.

In an instant, everything was silent. The she-bear let out a grunting growl for the last time and exhaled. She lost, just as every living being in the world once loses, just as Hugh Glass was losing now. These are the last minutes of his life. He was aware of it.

As soon as the animal stopped showing signs of life, two trappers rushed to pull off the giant carcass. Hugh Glass welcomed his agony. Jim Bridger suddenly appeared before his eyes. The boy who had become his son in the few months they'd known each other. The clearing was flooded with the midday sun. Glass did not feel pain, but the fear of the unknown still splashed in his eyes, gradually it was replaced by humility. After all, he lived an interesting life. So... why not?

Part one. Pirate

Chapter 1. Childhood. Philadelphia

Hugh Glass fought a bear at the age of thirty-six. Who would have thought that a boy who was destined for a completely quiet, unremarkable life, turn into a desperate adventurer, a trapper, the greatest of mountain men? 3
Mountainmen, mountain people, highlanders ( English Mountain, men) - hunters, pioneers and fur traders in the Wild West of the United States, who rushed to the Rocky Mountains in search of valuable furs in the early 19th century.

Nobody but Hugo Glass himself.

Philadelphia in the 1780s and 1990s was one of the largest cities in the United States. From 1775 to 1783, this city served as the capital of the "united colonies", and a little later, in 1790, it became the temporary capital of the newly formed state. The largest trading port, located in an unusually flat area for this area, became a refuge for emigrants from all over the Old World. The city literally teemed with merchants, swindlers, bandits, pirates, businessmen, aristocrats and adventurers.

Here, in 1783, Hugh Glass was born into the family of Irish emigrants, who fled from annoying creditors. One of five children in the family. From birth, he received the stigma of a difficult teenager.

The Glass family in Ireland were famous for their weapons. They made the best guns in the country, light and strong, and they rarely misfired. However, life has played a bad joke on them. History remains unknown how the Glass family suddenly went bankrupt overnight. There was only one way out. Escape from the island. Away. Preferably overseas. It was rumored that there, in North America, people, almost getting off the ladder of the ship, get a fortune. And the Glasses were vital for a second chance, at least a minimal opportunity to start everything from scratch.

Philadelphia generously gave them this opportunity. Many months of sailing in the hold of the ship was hard for the family. The chances of surviving such a journey are no greater than winning at Russian roulette. The Glass family managed to avoid serious losses.

At the dawn of the formation of the United States of America, the Glass family settled in one of the most prestigious areas of the largest city. In just a couple of years, the father of the family managed to make a small fortune and open a shop selling a variety of food.

Hugo Glass from the first years of his life began to surprise his parents. A smart, intelligent boy, he was fascinated by the sea from birth. At first, the boy's parents did not pay attention to this, but the older Hugh became, the more often he could be found on the banks of the Schuykill River, the largest tributary of the Delaware River.

From time to time they were visited by a family friend, according to another version, a distant relative who was engaged in maritime trade. Every time he was in Philadelphia, he made sure to stop by the Glasses. Of course, he brought with him many different gifts, but the main advantage of his appearance was the endless stories about distant shores and incomprehensible customs of other countries. And once he gave Hugh very good advice, to which he, however, at first did not pay any attention. What to take from a five year old boy? I remembered the words of a family friend a couple of days later. Together with their parents, they went out of town. While the parents were arguing passionately about something, Hugh decided to take a walk along a small path. Very soon he was completely and irrevocably lost. For a five-year-old child, the forest instantly turned into a gloomy and formidable enemy who wants to destroy it without fail. I wanted to run away, but where?

“Sooner or later, all roads lead to people, Hugh. The main thing here is just to find the way, - a family friend, whose name of history remained unknown, told him a couple of days ago. Hugh was standing on the road, but he did not know exactly where to go. Deciding that the main thing was to just keep going, he continued on his first great journey. Five hours later, the words of a family friend were confirmed. Hugh went to some small village, consisting of several houses. Here he was noticed and taken to his relatives. It turned out that they were not so far away, it was just that the path made too much of a detour.

In matters of study, Hugh proved to be a very obstinate child. He flatly refused to study theology, which literally pissed off the Sunday school teachers. The boy also attributed spelling and the study of languages ​​to his unloved subjects. But he studied mathematics and cartography with great pleasure. Discipline was limping on both legs. Hugh constantly ran away from home, categorically did not want to do his homework and listened with horror in his eyes that they intended to send him to gunsmith training. In fact, a position is no better than a slave, and for many years, if not for life.

This went on for a little over a year. Everything changed when Hugh was thirteen. That year, his mother became ill. The cholera epidemic then claimed a lot of lives. Hugh's mother suffered for several weeks. Anticipating the imminent end, she called Hugh to her and, in a breathless voice from excessive tension, gave life parting words.

“Study theology, pray, help your father…” she pleaded softly. There was nothing on the boy's face except despair due to the inability to somehow help. The woman pointed to an old music box that stood beside her bed and asked her to take it for herself. So that Hugh does not forget about his roots. The next day the woman fell into unconsciousness.

The fever lasted three days, and on the fourth day she died. Everyone Hugh Glass has ever loved has died or betrayed him. His path seemed to never lead to people. That incident in the forest is just the exception that proves the rule. The father began to take a bottle in his hands more and more often, the family's income dropped sharply, Hugh began to beat often.

The day his mother passed away changed the world of Hugh Glass forever. It seemed that someone reloaded the gun and pulled the trigger. There was a deafening explosion, and everything around was covered with acrid smoke. Despite all the shortcomings of black powder, it has a number of undoubted advantages. It ignites instantly. All his brothers and sisters have almost grown up, some have gone to study, one sister has already married. Glass no longer held anything in Philadelphia. The streets of this city are empty. Almost a third of the city's population suffered from the epidemic, while the rest were afraid to take to the streets. Houses in which all family members died were boarded up. Sometimes it began to seem that there were simply no sounds left in the city, except for this measured knock of hammers. To drown it out, Glass would open a gifted music box and listen to the tune of an old Irish song.

A couple of months after his mother's death, Glass's father announced:

“I got my way, I sold you to a gunsmith,” he muttered in a slurred tongue. After that, the man, barely keeping his feet, marched to Hugh, who was sitting peacefully on the stairs, grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and threw him down. Glass did not have time to group, so he just fell head over heels at the feet of the gunsmith. A melancholy-looking middle-aged man led him to the workshop.

Now he spent almost all twenty-four hours a day in a dirty and dusty basement. The gunsmith had several slaves, but Glass only interacted with one. A newly purchased black boy of the same age as Glass was at first wary of the apprentice's arrival. However, Glass's position here soon became clear. In fact, he was now just as much a slave as the gunsmith's black servants, just like that boy. They became friends out of hatred for their master. The main and only goal of both was survival. And Hugh had an undoubted advantage here. He had a family and, albeit nominal, but the freedom granted to him by the fact of birth.

Day after day, Glass was engaged in cleaning guns, cleaning the workshop and other, even more boring activities. The master gunsmith did not devote much time to teaching the apprentice the basics of his art. And Glass himself did not show zeal for study. Of course, at first gunsmithing seemed to him quite an interesting occupation, but the closer he got acquainted with the work, the less interest aroused in him weapons. However, whether he wanted it or not, he began to understand weapons better than any hunter. Yes, and his own recipe for explosive gunpowder soon appeared. In those days, almost every hunter had his own recipe for making black powder. Someone preferred larger gunpowder, someone a special grade of coal, etc.

For some time, Glass served as an apprentice with a gunsmith. Exactly until the smoke screen cleared before my eyes. As soon as it seemed to everyone that life had returned to its former course, Glass saw a goal in front of him. And she was not at all about becoming a gunsmith, like his ancestors from Ireland, this goal was thousands of kilometers from this gloomy cellar. Perhaps he could not yet tell the exact coordinates of the target, but one thing was clear: in order to get closer to the target, you must at least start the path.

Together with a black slave boy, Hugh Glass began to think of an escape plan. However, they did it in fifteen minutes, but the question of where to run, tormented the heads of teenagers for a long time.

And then one fine morning, Hugh Glass woke up with the thought that there is only one way out, and he knows which one. Their family friend had just arrived in Philadelphia. It remained to find him and ask for help.

“I want to serve on the ship,” he said grimly and distinctly.

The family friend carefully looked at the boy, on whose face a resolute expression was frozen, uncharacteristic for such an age, and realized that this was not a question or a request, but a simple statement of fact.

Leaving Philadelphia, Glass felt that he had betrayed his family to some extent, but he could no longer remain in this dead city.

Chapter 2

Strictly speaking, there is practically no reliable information about the early years of Hugh Glass's life. Some sources claim that he went into the service of a gunsmith, after which he escaped and ten years later ended up on the ship of the famous pirate Jean Lafitte. Other sources deny the service of the gunsmith, but they talk for a long time about how quickly Hugh made a naval career for himself. Most of Glass's biographers say nothing at all about the first thirty-six years of Hugh Glass's life. His story has long turned into a legend, in which only two facts are reliable: a bear and three hundred kilometers of crawling. What brought him to the banks of the Grand River? Here we have to be content with meager, sometimes little resembling the truth stories. The kind that pioneer George Yount often told on his ranch in the Napa Valley.

On a merchant ship, Hugh became a cabin boy. None of Glass's previous acquaintances were here, not even that family friend was on board. He decided to stop at the port.

Fifteen-year-old Glass knew nothing about the laws of marine life. The first thing he did was put his foot on the post where the ship was moored. A sailor passing by casually pushed him into the water and went on. Subsequently, it turned out that you can never sit on the bollards (as these pedestals were called) - this is how you show disrespect for the boatswain. Such signs and superstitions turned out to be a great many. For Glass, this was a revelation. Superstition is the lot of impressionable women, but not sailors. Of course, he knew that the sea has its own laws, but did not expect that there are so many of them. And most of them at first seemed strange and even stupid.

- Water is an element, it cannot be challenged, you can only rely on luck. Yes, and on the shore, too, no matter what you do, it all depends on luck, and she does not tolerate neglect and arrogance, then one of the sailors told Glass.

All difficult teenagers of the beginning of the 19th century sooner or later got on the ship. It was believed that the naval service quickly knocks down arrogance from overly arrogant boys. In most cases, they simply could not withstand the strict rules of life at sea. Stepping ashore, they became meek and obedient respectable citizens who only occasionally start long stories about the beautiful and free life at sea. However, usually those who like to tell such stories will never set foot on a ship again, even as a passenger.

Like everyone else, it seemed to Hugh and his friend, whom the captain also reluctantly accepted into the service, that work on the ship was nothing more than an adventure. What can be difficult about getting from one destination to another? There is no need to row, the sails themselves will lead to the shore. If you're lucky, you'll have to fight off the goods from the pirates, well, you'll have to do something on an emergency basis when the storm starts ... In any case, this is only a small part of the journey. The rest of the time you can thoughtfully stand on the deck and look into the distance. Needless to say, Hugh was wrong.

Everything on the ship depended on the will of the captain, the first person on the ship. He turned out to be a stern and very religious man. His assistants were to match him. Already on the second week of the journey, the sailors literally howled from the wolf formations that the captain had established here.

There were several immutable laws on the ship, the main of which was to always be in business. The second most important law was the need to be silent during work. In general, both of these rules, to one degree or another, acted on all merchant and warships. Work deprives a person of the need to think, and at sea this is important. Since people do not have the opportunity to go ashore, sooner or later thoughts take on a gloomy tone. With such an attitude, luck will definitely turn away from you, and soon from the entire crew. She doesn't like dark people. From here flowed one of the main maritime laws, the execution of which the captain did not need to follow. Whatever happens to you, don't take it too seriously. Storm, attack, illness, death... Anything. Gloomy thoughts attract failure, and this reduces the chances of survival not only for a person, but for the whole team. Whatever happened, the first thing was to find a way to turn it into a joke.

The ship's crew consisted mainly of young and quick-tempered people. In a confined space, this inevitably led to mutual irritation, smoothly flowing into skirmishes, fights and riots. From this followed another rule: to be silent at work. The less you talk, the less reason for conflict.

The work never ended. Only one check of rigging, gear and cage 4
Kletnenie is a special type of rigging work, which consists in the following: a cage (an old canvas cut into long narrow strips) is placed on a trimmed and pitched cable along the descent of the cable so that each of its steps overlaps the next.

They occupied the whole crew for many months, not to mention the watch that each sailor had to carry every day.

Hugh, day after day, was engaged in cage making and making the so-called "thin ends", in the land - ropes. From old cables and other junk, it was necessary to weave shkimushgars, benzel and trance lines and marlin suitable for use.

This went on day after day. Only on Sundays the team was released from most of the work. On this day, the sailors studied the Holy Scriptures, whether they wanted to or not. Every minute of life should be occupied with business, since it is customary to give people a day off, so let them spend it for the benefit of the cause.

Gradually, Glass began to show more and more interest in learning. A couple of stops in unfamiliar ports explained to him the value of knowledge very intelligibly. Languages, mathematics, cartography, astronomy - all these sciences were simply necessary for a sailor. Not all team members understood this, but Glass quickly realized that information, knowledge and intelligence are the most valuable goods that can be transported.

The law of silence, almost immutable, Glass endured easier than anyone else. He didn't need to talk to people. He preferred to address people only on business. This good quality for a sailor played a cruel joke on him. On the one hand, for his reticence and harshness, he received the respect of the team, on the other hand, he turned out to be completely unsuited to learning languages. His quick and tenacious mind literally refused to memorize all these completely illogical laws of foreign languages. Some knowledge is given easier, some more difficult, but sooner or later each person masters the minimum necessary for himself.

Very soon, Glass learned the basics of cartography, mathematics and astronomy. Mathematics and cartography were especially useful. In any port, it was easy for a person who was able to count well and draw a map of the area to find a part-time job. A couple of extra bucks a day or two was good for ten dollars a month on the ship.

Beginners are in luck. The first few raids went fairly smoothly. Glass quickly got used to it, began to enjoy the respect of the team. Thanks to his invaluable knowledge, the level of respect of his comrades completely jumped to the skies. Glass began to feel that life at sea was strictly ordered, systematized and devoid of any surprises. This is partly true, but not always.

They had a long voyage ahead of them, so they left the port loaded to capacity. In addition to the goods, the ship was literally crammed with food prepared for the trip. The diet was not particularly varied, but the team needed a lot of high-calorie food to maintain morale. And yet, it took a little more to cross the ocean. The swim was nearing its end. The team was completely exhausted and embittered. Food stocks were running out, so the cook cut the already modest diet in half. It did not add optimism to anyone. Moreover, everyone began to suspect each other of theft. Of course, the cook and his assistant were the first to suspect, but very soon irritation and suspicion spread to all members of the team. It began to seem that someone was being given more rations, someone was being unfairly deprived, and so on. On top of that, corned beef, the main dish on the ship, although high-calorie food, was not able to replace vegetables and fruits. From lack of vitamins and general weakness, a good half of the crew fell down with scurvy. People started dying. In sequence.

The ocean generously welcomed everyone. When the body, wrapped in canvas, was lowered into the water, the depths of the sea, with a barely audible hiss, took him into their arms. With this slight hiss against the background of the general measured roar of the waves, the ocean seemed to remind of the insignificance of human life. Not only the body disappeared, but also the memory of the person. One of the main rules: do not allow gloomy thoughts on the ship, no matter what happens. Everyone tried not to talk or think about the departed comrades, about the fact that a few more people are so bad that they are just lying down now and waiting in the wings. Many by that time were so weak that they no longer got up.

Against the background of famine and disease, a few storms and a couple of pirate ships on the horizon were not even considered trouble. It was in the order of things, in any voyage it happens. To be honest, almost any long voyage claimed the lives of more than one or two members of the team, and hunger was also far from uncommon. Sometimes luck is more, sometimes less. All the will of God. Or so the captain, a very religious man for his profession, thought.

Glass once again proved to his comrades that he deserves respect. It seemed that he was not at all concerned about either hunger or the death of his comrades. Every day he got up and from morning to evening he carried out all the instructions. Quickly, clearly and unquestioningly. It was impossible to tell from his face what he was thinking now. He could well be accused of callousness and cowardice. Sick and embittered by hunger, the sailors periodically came to precisely this opinion about this man, but Glass was not at all disturbed by this. The main thing is to survive, and for this you just need to follow a pre-planned plan of action. The friend with whom he ran away from the gunsmith decided to stay in the first port in which their ship anchored. Glass was friends with a couple of sailors who were condescending towards the cabin boy. Soon he was promoted to sailor, but Glass preferred to treat the rest of the team with a certain degree of distrust.

When one of the sailors with whom Glass spoke died, Hugh got the unfortunate ration. In the evening, Glass was already about to eat the unexpected extra portion, when he suddenly heard the mocking advice of one of the sailors:

- You think, boy, what do you want: if you live, then it’s better not to, but if you die faster, so as not to suffer, then eat.

Glass, puzzled, put aside a piece of corned beef and looked at the sailor. It is unlikely that the unfortunate man rubbed his ration with rat poison before his death in the spirit of “so don’t get it for anyone,” so why shouldn’t you eat then?

- It will become very bad - eat it, - the sailor grunted and fell asleep. Glass hid the rations away and also tried to sleep.

I want to tell you about the American pioneer, trapper Hugh Glass

He was born around 1783 in Philadelphia (Pennsylvania), in a family of Irish immigrants. From his youthful years, driven by a thirst for wandering, he became a sailor. Once his ship was captured by the famous French pirate Jean Lafitte, who at that time was robbing ships in the Gulf of Mexico. Glass had to stay in the crew of the pirate ship. After 2 years, he managed to escape, and he swam to the shore (2 miles) and set off through the wild territories. The Pawnee Indians took him prisoner, but later accepted him into their tribe. Hugh Glass even married an Indian woman. A few years later, Glass traveled to St. Louis with a delegation of Indians. There he remained, deciding not to return to the tribe.

In 1822, Glass joined General William Ashley's troop, which established the Rocky Mountain Fur Company in St. Louis. The general recruited a detachment of 100 young people to travel up the Missouri River and explore its sources, and, of course, to harvest furs by itself. The St. Louis newspapers wrote: "... it takes 100 enterprising young people ... to reach the origins of the Missouri ... employment - two, three, or four years." Many famous trappers and fur traders joined the detachment, among them were Jim Bridger, Major Andrew Henry, Jedediah Smith, William Sublett, Thomas Fitzpatrick. The unit was later named Ashley's 100.

The detachment set out on a campaign in early 1823. During the campaign, they encountered Indians, as a result of which several participants in the campaign were killed, and Glass was wounded in the leg. General Ashley called for reinforcements, as a result of which the Indians were defeated. 14 people (among them Hugh Glass) separated from the main detachment, led by Major Henry, who decided to follow their own route. It was planned to climb up the Grand River and then turn north to the mouth of Yellowstone, where Fort Henry was located.

A few days later, Henry's detachment approached the fork of the Grand River. Glass went to pick berries, but in the thicket he ran into a grizzly bear. The she-bear was with two cubs and fiercely attacked the hunter. Glass did not have time to shoot and he had to defend himself with one knife. The comrades who ran to his cry killed the bear, but Glass was seriously injured and was unconscious. Hugh Glass had a broken leg, a bear left deep claw wounds on his body - ribs were visible on his back. The satellites considered that a person with such wounds would inevitably die. Therefore, it was decided to leave it.
The leader of the detachment, Major Henry, left two people with Glass, instructing them to bury him after he gave his soul to God, and he continued on his way with the main detachment. John Fitzgerald and Jim Bridger were left with the unconscious Hugh Glass. They dug a grave and waited for his death. Five days later, Fitzgerald, fearing that they might be discovered by the Arikara, persuaded the young Bridger to leave Glass and go after Major Henry. They took Glass's weapons and belongings, believing that he would no longer need them anyway. Returning to the detachment, they reported that Hugh Glass had died.

However, he survived.
When he regained consciousness, he found that he was left completely alone, without supplies, water and weapons. Nearby lay only the skin freshly flayed from the grizzly, with which Fitzgerald and Bridger had covered him. He covered the back of it with the skin, allowing the raw hide maggots to cleanse their festering wounds.

The nearest settlement to which the detachment moved, Fort Kiowa, was 200 miles (about 320 km).
Hugh Glass made this journey in almost 2 months.

On the map it looked like this:

Most of the distance crawling. Here he was very useful survival skills acquired during his life in an Indian tribe. He ate mainly berries and roots. Once he managed to drive two wolves away from the carcass of a dead bison and eat meat.

Hugh Glass was recovering for a long time. Having recovered, he decided to take revenge on John Fitzgerald and Jim Bridger who left him. However, upon learning that Bridger had recently married, Glass forgave the newlywed. Fitzgerald, on the other hand, went to the soldiers, so he had to forget about revenge here, since the murder of a soldier in the United States army at that time meant a death sentence.

Having experienced many more adventures, Hugh Glass was killed along with two other hunters in the winter of 1833 on the Yellowstone River as a result of an Indian attack.

In honor of Hugh Glass, a memorial sign was erected near the city of Lemmon.

The inscription on it reads:

"Hugh Glass, a member of the Ashley Fur Campaign, led by Major Henry, was on the Great River campaign in August 1823, separated while hunting and was attacked by a grizzly bear near a bend in the Great River. He was horribly maimed and unable to move. Two men Fitzgerald and Bridger were left with him, but they, believing that he was dead, took his gun and savings and left him.He, however, did not die, but crawled forward.Hugh managed to survive on seasonal fruits and meat, which he obtained when was able to drive off several well-fed wolves from a buffalo they had hunted down, and in an incredible way, along the hardest route, he came out near Fort Kiowa, below Big Bend, which was 190 miles of a bird's eye view from the bend of the Great River. All of the above is a reliable story. He was killed by the Arikara Indians on on the ice of the Yellowstone River near the Big Horn in the winter of 1832-33 John G. Nelhart immortalized his name in the epic poem The Song of Hugh Glass. wounded, he advanced at night, over high hills, to avoid meeting with the Indians, and during the day he sought water and shelter. Guided only by his instincts, he successfully reached Big Bend and Fort Kiowa. Whatever the details, it was a fine example of endurance and courage."

In general, writing about Glass prompted me to an excellent film "Man of the Wild Prairies", filmed in 1971 by Richard S. Sarafyan.

Hugh Glass was played by the famous actor Richard Harris. One of his last works - the role of Emperor Aurelius in the film "Gladiator".
The film struck me first of all with its wildlife footage. Majestic snow-covered forests and spurs of mountains. The most powerful picture in terms of impact. The great strength of the spirit of the people who conquered the west. Great actors. In addition to Harris, the film also stars John Huston, who received an Oscar as a director for the film "Treasures of the Sierra Madre". The scene of Glass's forgiveness of his companions looks especially strong.

Another moment.
In the massively multiplayer online role-playing game World of Warcraft, developed by Blizzard Entertainment, there is a merchant character Hugh Glass :) Here is such an easter egg