Ordeal by Hunger: The Story of the Donner Party

by George R. Stewart

Award-winning author George R. Stewart's history of the Donner Party is “compulsive reading — a wonderful account, both scholarly and gripping, of horrifying episode in the history of the west" (Pulitzer Prize-winner Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.)The tragedy of the Donner party constitutes one of the most amazing stories of the American West. In 1846 eighty-seven people — men, women, and children — set out for California, persuaded to attempt a new overland route. After struggling across the desert, losing many oxen, and nearly dying of thirst, they reached the very summit of the Sierras, only to be trapped by blinding snow and bitter storms. Many perished; some survived by resorting to cannibalism; all were subjected to unbearable suffering. Incorporating the diaries of the survivors and other contemporary documents, George R. Stewart wrote the definitive history of that ill-fated band of pioneers. Ordeal by The Story of the Donner Party is an astonishing account of what human beings may endure and achieve in the final press of circumstance.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Survival, American History, Adventure, Historical, Biography

392 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1936

About the author

George Rippey Stewart was an American toponymist, a novelist, and a professor of English at the University of California, Berkeley. He is best known for his only science fiction novel Earth Abides (1949), a post-apocalyptic novel, for which he won the first International Fantasy Award in 1951. It was dramatized on radio's Escape and inspired Stephen King's The Stand .

His 1941 novel Storm , featuring as its protagonist a Pacific storm called Maria, prompted the National Weather Service to use personal names to designate storms and inspired Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe to write the song "They Call the Wind Maria" for their 1951 musical "Paint Your Wagon." Storm was dramatized as "A Storm Called Maria" on a 1959 episode of ABC's Disneyland. Two other novels, Ordeal by Hunger (1936) and Fire (1948) also evoked environmental catastrophes.

Stewart was a founding member of the American Name Society in 1956-57, and he once served as an expert witness in a murder trial as a specialist in family names. His best-known academic work is Names on the Land A Historical Account of Place-Naming in the United States (1945; reprinted, New York Review Books, 2008). He wrote three other books on place-names, A Concise Dictionary of American Place-Names (1970), Names on the Globe (1975), and American Given Names (1979). His scholarly works on the poetic meter of ballads (published under the name George R. Stewart, Jr.), beginning with his 1922 Ph.D. dissertation at Columbia, remain important in their field.

His 1959 book Pickett's Charge is a detailed history of the final attack at Gettysburg.

Reviews

[Susan · Rating 5 out of 5]

We just don’t know how good we have it today! I can’t even image traveling across country to California in a wagon, with all my worldly possessions and leaving loved ones behind. But that is what thousands of pioneers did to build our cities and towns. This is the story of one tragic crossing in 1846. The Donner party consisted of 87 people and was getting a late start in the season. They were duped by trail leader who claimed he knew a way that would take 350 miles off the trip and save them many days travel. He had already gone ahead of them, and they were to follow his trail. They didn’t know the trials that they were in for. Instead of a well worn wagon path, they had to chop trees and build their own road. It was physically tiring for the men on the trip, but that isn’t the worst of it. They soon came to the dessert, which they were prepared for, but instead of the 40 miles they expected, it was more like 80. Everyone was becoming weak from thirst and tempers were flaring. All these things caused them to lose valuable time and by the time they came to the mountain pass it was too late. It had already started snowing and they were forced to make camp until spring. This is their incredible story of struggling to survive while starving to death. This book tells of the heroic efforts for the rescue parties and the brave men who risked their own lives to help this unfortunate party.

I knew a little about this incident in history, but I always heard more emphasis placed on the fact that the subjects were reduced to cannibalism. This is really only a very small part of the whole story however, and I don’t think that they should be blamed for it. None of us knows what it is like to starve to death and watch our babies die in our arms because we couldn't feed them. That there were survivors at all, and that they seemed to go on and live normal lives, is a testament to the incredible strength and spirit of our ancestors.

[Lawyer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ordeal by Hunger: George R. Stewart's Story of the Donner Party



The Donner Party Monument, Truckee, California State Park

I happened to be in Reno, Nevada, in late March, 2012. It was strictly business, assisting a family with whom I have had a significant bond for many years. Casinos have no allure for me. However historical sites have drawn me to them like a magnet since childhood. I owe that to my grandfather with whom I would travel during summers on his business trips. As the rest of my family, he was a reader and was particularly fascinated by the Great American West and the westward emigration beginning in 1846. So I first heard the tale of the ill-fated Reed-Donner Party from my grandfather. But I had never visited the site or had the opportunity to do so.

When we touched down in Reno on March 28, the weather was crystal clear. The skies were a magnificent blue. It was warm in Reno, but in the distance the white on the peaks of the Sierra Nevada was still clearly visible. Donner Pass is only about a forty minute drive from Reno. My traveling companions were game, we had a rental car, and off we went.

As we drove up into the mountains towards Truckee, California, the winds were howling. The rented Nissan reverberated in the stiff cross winds that whistled across the highway through the passes. One last winter storm was forecast. About a foot and a half of snow was forecast for that Saturday evening. Yet, the snow began to fall early. I stubbornly insisted we were so close to our destination that the ground temperatures were too warm for the snow to cause a problem so early in the day.

When we pulled into the parking lot of the Pioneer Emigrant Museum, there were two other cars there. I was in a light weight jacket, no hat, no gloves. Although the air temperature was 34 I would not have ventured to guess what the wind chill factor was. The photograph of the monument is much clearer than the view I had of it, although I stood directly in front of it. The snow was coming down so heavily that it was hard to keep your eyes open to take in too much of the scenery at once.

After all the obligatory photographs were taken, we ventured into the museum. Several books on the Donner Party were available, but I chose the Stewart volume. The Ranger nodded with approval. "Yes. You picked the right one. I've read them all. After all these years, this is still the best you'll find. Stewart was careful and very thorough."

I told the Ranger my first read about the Donner Party was, Mothers by Vardis Fisher. "Oh, my, we have requests for that all the time. It's been out of print for years. There's a copy of it over at the Truckee Public Library. That's where I read it. Mark my words, though, Stewart's the best. Now, I'm not trying to hurry you folks along, but I wouldn't advise going up to the summit. The chain requirements are on. I'd be headed on down before too long. I've been watching the temperature. It's dropping faster than predicted. You never know what the weather's going to do up in these mountains."

"Thank's, Ma'am. We'll take your advice and head back." Shortly after pulling back on I-80 East to Reno along came a chain of three snow plows. These days in the Sierra Nevada the highway departments are prepared to deal with the storms.

Visiting this isolated location on a cold and windy day with snow visibly accumulating by the minute made an impression on each of us that we most likely would not have experienced had we been there in mid summer in light clothing. I questioned how rash I had been in pressing on with the weather uncertain. Sometimes, the foolish are just lucky.

Needless to say, the Reed-Donner party had no idea what they were facing. Through the years the members of the Reed-Donner party have alternately been portrayed as greedy, lazy, stupid, or incompetent. Stewart destroys those inaccuracies through careful research and an understanding of the circumstances that led to the plight of the party.

If there's a villain responsible for the fate of the Donners and those families that traveled with them, it's Lansford Hastings, an entrepreneur who had traveled to and from California on more than one occasion. He developed the Hasting's Cut-Off which he vowed to cut 350 miles from the cross country trip from the Missouri jump off to California. However, Hasting's route crossed the Wasatch Mountains, the Great Salt Lake Desert, which he described as half the actual length of actual passage without drinkable water. Hastings had written a highly touted travel book regarding California and the ease of the journey. George Donner had a copy of it. Additionally, Hastings charged each party $10.00 to serve as guide for the journey. His guidance amounted to leaving posted signs and promises to return to retrieve those who had fallen behind on the journey. He didn't.

Stewart proposed that Hastings intent was to build his own constituency of voters in an effort to become the equivalent of the Sam Houston of California, as it was still in the hands of Mexico. After the Donner disaster, the Hastings cut-off was virtually abandoned. Subsequently, Hastings fell into disrepute after becoming a member of the California Confederacy Conspiracy. He died destitute, but not under the circumstances which his slap dash leadership resulted in to the Reed-Donner Party.

The party was comprised of eighty-seven members. Only forty-eight members survived. The dead included men, women, and children.

As George Stewart forthrightly noted:

“It is a long road and those who follow it must meet certain risks; exhaustion and disease, alkali water and Indian arrows will take a toll. But the greatest problem is a simple one, and the chief opponent is Time. If August sees them on the Humboldt and September at the Sierra — good! Even if they are a month delayed, all may yet go well. But let it come late October, or November, and the snowstorms block the heights, when wagons are light of provisions and oxen lean, then will come a story.”

It should be noted that although Hastings had traveled his route three times, this expedition was the first trip attempted with wagons. Because of the distinct differences of travel by wagons pulled by oxen, anyone hitting the Sierra Nevada after the passes filled with snow was likely doomed.

As with any group of human beings, those comprising the Reed-Donner party responded to their trial as any group--some with bravery and generosity and some with selfishness to the extent their own self preservation led to the death of comrades. That some survivors resulted to cannibalism of the dead is without doubt. That two Indian members of a relief party were murdered for food is true. Whether Keseberg, whose first name is lost to us, the last survivor to be rescued by a third relief party murdered Tamsen Donner, the widow of the Party Captain, George Donner will remain a mystery.

Virginia Reed, aged twelve wrote of her experiences to a cousin back east on May 16, 1847. In part she said,

"I have not rote you half of the truble we have had but I have rote you enuf to let you now tht you down now what truble is but thank god we have all got throw and the onely family that did not eat human flesh we have left everything but i dont cair for that we have got throw with our lives..."

In the New York Times of February 3, 2008, Dana Goodyear reviewed Desperate Passage: The Donner Party's Perilous Journey West, by Ethan Rarick, Oxford Press. While noting that Rarick had done his homework, Goodyear reinforced the opinion that Stewart's original work remains the standard for study of one of the most controversial disasters of Western Emigration. I have to agree. Highly recommended. This is a solid 4.5 Star read.

[booklady · Rating 5 out of 5]

Up until a couple of nights ago, lifetime reader that I am and far from young, I had never actually read anything on the Donner party. George R. Stewart’s description of that terrible tragedy has remained the definitive account, which is saying something as it is also probably the best known and most widely recounted story of pioneer journeys ever.

Among Americans anyway, you only have to say, ‘the Donner party’ and the immediate association is cannibalism. That much I knew, but little else.

From the moment I picked up Ordeal by Hunger two nights ago, I have scarcely been able to think about, much less read anything else. Although I am not a believer in luck, the saying, ‘if they didn't have bad luck, they had no luck at all’ fits here.

Stewart’s book was originally published in 1936, which was optimal because he was able to interview the last surviving witnesses and yet enough time had passed that everything hidden had been flushed out—by way of diaries, and other oral and written evidence, etc. My copy also included the 1960 update to the ’36 edition as well as a forward which updated the ’60 update.

Additional information has continued to come out, but less in the way of evidence to change known facts and more by way of new generation’s perspectives on what actually happened. It is so easy to judge. I admit I was doing it all the while, sitting in my comfortable chair, in my warm—okay it is September—home with a full stomach.

The truth is, none of us knows what he/she would do under similar circumstances. And these were some of the most extreme circumstances I have ever read about. And there were SO many children and babies involved! Yes surprisingly more survived (47) than died (42). Also, it is unfortunate the cannibalism is what is best remembered. Rather the heroism of so many who braved untold misery to save not only themselves and their own families but even complete strangers—knowing full well the worst that could befall them—is what will stay with me.

Stewart would not have been a believable author if he was completely indifferent to everything that happened, but he did a fair job of relating events without undue prejudice. What he interjected of himself, caused me at least to consider him a reliable narrator.

A book, a story, not to be forgotten.

[Katherine Addison · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ordeal by Hunger is, um. "Dated" is the kindest word I can think of. The naivete of Stewart's racism is almost charming--except for the part where it makes me want to throw the book across the room. He's also prone to sentimentality about the heroism of the men of the party and the pathos to be milked from the plight of the women and children, and I object to the explicit trivializing of the children's experiences and equally explicit privileging of the men's: "There is the story, for instance, of how little Eliza Donner cried herself to sleep that next night because Miller had promised her a piece of loaf sugar if she would walk a certain distance, and then had harshly told her that there was no sugar. And then how, the morning after, he would have beaten her because she would not walk, if Foster and Eddy had not peremptorily stopped him. But after all, this is only the pathos of childhood, not the tragedy of strong men in the struggle with death. And before we judge Miller too harshly, we must recall his heroism when on the night of the storm he labored with McCutcheon to keep the fire going. The man had been in the snow for nearly three weeks, and had been to the lake twice; if his nerves were frayed out, we may forgive him." (201). Eliza Donner was three years old and had been trapped in increasingly desperate, grotesque, and outright horrific situations for nearly six months. I can do the math, even if Stewart can't. Also, if we go by his own definition--"the tragedy of strong men in the struggle against death"--I think Eliza's mother, Tamsen Donner, deserves far more attention than he gives her. There's no excitement or romance to Tamsen Donner's heroism; Stewart is really not interested in the people who stayed in the camp by Truckee Lake, only in those who crossed the pass, and thus Tamsen Donner, who refused more than once to make the journey because she would not leave her dying husband, is mostly off his radar. And her death, mysterious and grotesque as it is--she survived everything only to die and be eaten by Keseberg (who very possibly murdered her) less than a month before he was taken out--seems to me every bit as tragic (if we must assign a valuation to such things) as that of Stanton, who made it safely to California twice and died because he came back to help the rest of the party.

But honestly, I object to the imposition of narrative values onto history. Making it into a story--particularly making it into the story of "strong men in the struggle against death"--obscures the truth. Eighty-seven people were trapped on the wrong side of the pass. Forty-two of them (by my count) were children under 18 (and thirty of those forty-two were under 12), and one of the most dreadful aspects of the situation is what happened to those children as their parents either died or left them behind--or in the case of the little Donner girls, tried to send them ahead. Neglect and starvation were the best they could hope for without their parents' protection (and at least one parent turned against her own child before she herself died), and some of them didn't even get that much, such as Harriet McCutchen, age 1:

Seared into her [Patty Reed's] memory was the plight of the McCutchen baby, after its mother had departed with the snowshoers: 'When the lice (pardon me, sir) were literally eating it up alive. It had scratched, broken the skin over its little bones.'

The adults in the cabin, apparently recognizing the child's fate, but with euthanasia not part of their philosophy, tied its hands down so that it could no longer scratch, and let it cry until the crying ceased. (244)

And notice the way Stewart dehumanizes Harriet McCutchen (he never calls her by name except in the roster of the Donner Party appended on pp. 291-2, behind both his narrative and the primary documents). He applies Victorian sentimentality to children where he can; where he can't, he treats them as almost sub-sentient. Unimportant.

And, yes, many of these problems are due to this being a book written in 1936, and, yes, I will be looking for more recent scholarly work. But this is a good object lesson in the distortions created by the insistence on creating a narrative out of history, especially a narrative with value-judgments inherent in its structure, and in the distortions created by the patriarchal bias that says Men Are Important. I don't for a moment deny that the men's experience is as important as the women's or as important as the children's. I just deny that some animals are more equal than others.

[Jill · Rating 4 out of 5]

In the longstanding tradition of adoring nonfiction where historical people suffer and die and suffer some more, I loved Ordeal by Hunger. Donner Party tales are a dime a dozen. It is arguably the proto-die and suffer nonfiction. A group of pioneers whose tragedy was built for consumption. Even back in 1846, the story quickly traveled back to the East Coast, reproduced in countless local papers, despite the lack of telecommunications or trains. It is a story that must be told.

Author George Stewart's depiction emerges from the many depictions of this story for two reasons. First, it recognizes the need for build-up. We do not begin the book with the Donners racing to cross the Sierra as winter approaches. Rather, we begin way back in Wyoming, at the end of July, as the wealthy pioneers decide to take the Hastings Cutoff through Utah instead of the traditional California Trail Route that edges northward to Oregon before coming back down. Stewart delivers the exposition in a way that pushes the Donners to fall from the highest heights possible. His second successful tactic is his devotion to consulting the primary sources. Relying heavily on diaries and firsthand accounts, he never lets you forget: this all happened.

As a noted Oregon Trail junkie and connoisseur of the survival tale, I consumed Ordeal by Hunger like [insert punny Donner cannibalism joke here]. I felt giddy reading it in the way only the best stories--fictional or non--can do.

[Katya Mills · Rating 4 out of 5]

Stewart focuses on forming an accurate logistical picture of the travels and trials of 87 members of the Donner Party against a harsh environment, whose wagon train came together around July 1846 near the Great Salt Lake and headed to California over a newly inspired yet little tested route over a dangerously steep pass in the Sierra Nevadas, which the trusted and well-traveled Hastings recommended they try in order to save 300 miles had they taken the known (and therefore safer) emigration trail around the mountains. Unfortunately the going is rough in Utah and Nevada, and they are doomed to hunker down and camp beside what is now known as Donner Lake. This tale of tragedy and triumph ends in April 1847, after several relief parties (often comprised of family members of the original caravan) made successful rescues over the course of the long and brutal winter featuring several devastating storms packing snow 30+ feet in some parts. Amazingly, 42 of the 87 characters (many of whom are painted in thin brushstrokes by the author, but just enough to begin caring about them) make it out of the mountains and down to Sutter's Fort in Sacramento, a lush valley ripe for settling, and the promised land which was the basis for most of the families making the trip in the first place. Many, including the Donners, had been farmers in the midwest, and envisioned taking a grand adventure in a well-orchestrated way (books and goods and kitchen utensils and blankets all packed into wagons driven by teams of oxen with cattle and pack animals behind) providing comfort for the many women and children, some as young as one year old. The families were mainly of Irish and German and English descent, and we get a glimpse into the different and resourceful ways they survive, as the elements ultimately cause each family to fall back on itself for support. As a city dweller in the 21st century, I could only marvel at the kind of grit and determination displayed by these pioneering folk 200 years ago. As the winter progressed, the snowbanks rose far above the chimney tops of the cabins they built lakeside. Game was scarce. Only timber and religion were of endless supply to them. The ones who were snowed in at the camps had mostly to combat slow starvation and cramped conditions. They lived off of rawhide before resorting to cannibalism as a last resort on the well-preserved bodies of the dead in the snow. Some went mad. The ones who ventured out from time to time in last ditch efforts to cross the towering pass to the 100 mile or so stretch of canyons and valleys which lay on the other side to take them down to Sacramento, showed incredible tenacity and spirit. Others were selfish and cowardly, and abandoned all scruples in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds. Such was the kind of language the author used to recount the stories. A bit old-fashioned but powerful nevertheless, and kept me reading well past my bedtime!

Here are some vivid images circling my mind still, well portrayed by the author. A man wrapped in blankets propped up against a snowbank beside a campfire, smoking the last of tobacco after saying goodbye and courageously telling the hikers to go on without him, and left behind to die alone in the mountains. Five women who made it over the pass on snowshoes, coming into an Indian camp looking like skeletons on broken frostbitten feet and half-clothed, being taken into warming huts and given acorns to break the starvation. A father returning two months after leaving his children in the camp, on a relief mission funded by the rudimentary California-Mexican government, and finding his 8 year old daughter sitting on the edge of the roof of the cabin he built for them, her feet scraping the receding snowbanks. In the time he was absent, he had survived war, flood, fire, starvation, cold, and thirst. Unlike the others, his entire family would survive the ordeal and live to tell. Another image of a group of nine hikers, long starved, mostly young children, holding on for dear life in the midst of a snowstorm in the mountains, 30 feet down in a hollow made by a campfire which grew and ultimately sunk down into the snow by the heat, and made a space large enough for all of them to climb down into, to stay warm until days later when they were found. One who had died there had their liver and heart taken for boiling for sustenance of the remainder. Solitary men and women at Sutter's Fort, finally arrived, gazing back to the foothills every day, wishing and wondering whether their loved ones were still alive on the other side.

[Linds · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this book for two reasons -
1.) I grew up in northern California and we would drive through Donner's Pass from time to time.
2.) I've been into true survival stories lately, most notably 127 Hours and the 1972 Uruguayan plane crash.

It's almost hard to believe what they went through, even before getting trapped in the mountains. They got lost, had to carve their own trail, attacked by Indians, and almost died of thirst on the Salt Lake flats. That's before they got trapped in the Sierras and had to resort to cannibalism.

It's definitely one of the bleakest books I've ever read. There wasn't helicopters for a rescue, and there were children involved. It's hard not to blame it on men's stupidity and arrogance. What type of men would bring their women and children on an untested shortcut when there was an established and safe trail? Though no one deserved what they got for their fatal mistake, that's for sure.

It's a thorough and the most famous telling of the ordeal. There were heroes and cowards, like there are always in times of trouble, though rarely this extreme. It was written in 1936 so the language tries to make it seem like some great adventure sometimes, and there are obvious racial and sexist bias. But it's an interesting read, if a bleak one.

[Kurt · Rating 4 out of 5]

Most people know at least a little bit about the Donner party of 1846. Probably all of them know something about the cannibalism. The whole story of the Donner Party is so much more fascinating and important than the sensational tidbits that might get tossed around in casual conversation.

Ordeal By Hunger was written in 1936 -- 90 years after the events it describes. It vividly tells the story of hardships endured by a handful of rugged individuals and families who followed their dreams and sought out the adventure of a new life in the unsettled and disputed territory of California. One decision -- that of following the unproven but shorter Hastings Cutoff rather than the traditional California Trail -- precipitated and (one could argue) directly resulted in their future travails.

This is a book that I would recommend to almost everyone (except, of course, for young children and the very squeamish). It made me, more than ever, appreciate what we have today and realize the true strength and endurance of the human spirit, its desire to explore and experience adventure, and – most of all – its will to survive.

[Mauoijenn · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a fascinating tale of true strength and bravery like no other I have read. My boyfriend is a truck driver so he drives Donner's Pass a lot and he has told me about it, so when I saw the made for TV mini series on the Weather Channel over Thanksgiving, I knew I would want to read more about this ordeal. Boy, what an ordeal. I mean being in cold freezing snowy weather when people were dropping like flies and then eating them in order to survive. I WOULD DIE IN A HEART BEAT. Excellent book and an interesting tid-bit in history.

[Krista the Krazy Kataloguer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gripping account of the Donner Party's struggle to survive during the winter of 1846 in the Sierra Nevada mountains, by an author who interviewed that last living survivors of the party. I couldn't believe what they suffered before they even got to Donner Pass, much less afterward. I read the book all in one sitting-- just couldn't put it down. Incredible! Highly recommended!

[Chuck · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book goes beyond words. It is inspirational and disgusting at the same time. It highlights all the best of mankind's soul, but also the worst. The book was written in 1936 when one of the Donner Party was still alive but author Stewart apparently had also researched in great detail the diaries and the journals of the settlers involved in this tragic event. He tells the story in such complete detail it makes you feel like you were there and knew everyone personally. He shares with us the bravery of the of the settlers as well as the rescue teams and makes it clear that the leaders of this expedition made many mistakes on their journey. Of the eighty some members of the Donner party only about half survived, but most that did went on to successful lives. There are no words that can adequately explain the inspirational and soul searching aspects of this book other than to highlight that it reveals kindness, thoughtfulness as well as selfishness at its best and worst revealed by the harshest of circumstances. Needless to say, an excellent insightful book.

[Bobbi · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've never read anything by George Stewart before and discovered him by way of Wallace Stegner's "Big Rock Candy Mountain". This was truly a page turner and well written. It was written in 1936 so was probably the first book about that incident. He seems to have done a lot of research; quite a few of the people had left journals and of course about half of them survived. He mentions that one of the survivors was still alive at the time of his writing but he/she must have been pretty old as the ordeal took place in 1846. Stewart is a good writer so that added to the suspense of the story. There have been a lot of stories about the Donnor Party but this one seems to be the real deal. I highly recommend it if you can find it. I plan to read more by Stewart.

[Jenni Wiltz · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book faster than any work of fiction I've read in the past year. Stewart tells the tale well, generating suspense despite the fact that most of us know how this one turns out. The story is so gripping that I couldn't put it down. Stewart describes the terrain with an expert eye because he performed excavations in the area while researching the book. I appreciated the fact that he told this more as a narrative than an analysis--no blame for the bad decisions that led to this tragedy, for example. He doesn't ignore the fact that there were bad decisions, but he's not interesting in assigning fault. He's empathetic enough to know it doesn't matter.

The main text was published in 1930, with an afterword written for this 1960 reprint. For the most part, Stewart's prose holds up. There are a couple of questionable passages where he devolves into folksy frontier-speak for a few sentences ("Californy") just for emphasis, but they come across as an affectation because there's (a) no reason for it, and (b) no transition between the serious prose and the frontier-speak. The added material for the 1960 reprint includes a letter of Virginia Reed's, the diary of Mr. Reed, and a summary of what's happened to some of the survivors since the first edition.

Stewart tries hard not to play favorites in terms of casting heroes and villains in the story. He mostly succeeds. It's hard not to be moved by his admiration for Reed (and Reed's daughter Patty). He gives Keseberg a fair shake, which is more than I can say for a Donner-inspired novel I came across recently.

Overall, Stewart handles the tragic and sensational elements with panache and taste.

[Jill · Rating 4 out of 5]

One time I got stuck in Truckee in a snowstorm. To get home, we took the train because I-80 was closed indefinitely. I bought this book in the Truckee train station, during a Sierra snow storm and read it on the train home to Roseville. Of course I was travelling right through the heart of Donner Party territory. To this day, I often drive the short hour long drive through the Sierra Nevadas with a little pause to remember the arduous journey for the survivors who had to walk out to safety and drum up their own rescue. I grew up hearing about Mary Brunner, namesake of Marysville, and reading Patty Reed's Doll in the 4th grade; but "Ordeal by Hunger" really gets into the details of the party. The novel showcases their doomed fate before they ever arrived in Nevada. Instead of the textbook teaching: these people took their time crossing the mountains and got stuck in the snow, this novel gives much more respect for the Donner Party members. They were easily led astray by persuasive tales of a few guides and prospective business leaders.

The Donner Party's horrific tale was spread far and wide. A mere four years later my own relatives chose the brave journey to cross the country by wagon train. To my good fortune, they took the Oregon Trail and landed safely in northern California to farm and raise a family. However it was through the terrible fate of the Donner Party that many other emmigrants chose to stick to the other worn travel trails and not stand their chance in the Nevada desert.

[Tom Phillips · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one version of the Donner Party story. The writing, or the book itself may not be deserving of 5 stars, although it is well done and eminently readable. However, the historical story itself is one of the most heartbreaking and tragic in the American psyche. How could so much go so wrong for these people? If, when you think of the Donner Party, you only think cannibalism you are missing most of the story. How it got to that is the real story and how it all turned out. It is a story of the American west, but it has all the elements of a Greek tragedy. "...Never take no cutoffs and hurry along as fast as you can."

[Emily · Rating 5 out of 5]

I think that this book does an amazing job of sticking by the details and accurate interpretation of the journals and letters written by the members of the Donner-Reed party. After reading some chapters I feared I would have nightmares! The whole struggle is UNBELIEVABLE! I felt by reading this book published in 1936 that it was a trip back into different time when the author could provide an authentic view of the type of people in the party. I would recommend this book to anyone with slight interested in the Donner Party story. I could hardly put the book down.

[Jennifer Nelson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love books like this, where you come away feeling like you genuinely learned something. Everyone knows the "Donner Party", probably since childhood, but mostly in an almost urban legend way. I had no idea how many people were actually involved, the multitude of escape and rescue attempts, some successful, some not, and that by the time these people were snowed in they were already in a very bad way. I would recommend this to anyone interested in this subject.

[Hapzydeco · Rating 3 out of 5]

Today, "Ordeal By Hunger" is rather dated if only because there are no visuals. The maps are poorly detailed. But for those yet unaware of this historical footnote, "Ordeal By Hunger" should be the first step towards understanding the dark side of the human experience. Thus, there is wisdom to be found in these pages.

[Julia · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book absolutely blew me away. I had heard of the Donner Party and knew something of their fate, but nothing can prepare you for their full story.

[Nadienne Williams · Rating 4 out of 5]

I remember reading this back in Middle School...or rather I remember it being assigned reading back in Middle School...or rather I remember bits of it being discussed back in Middle School. :) It's entirely possible that we were supposed to read it, and I was pretty much actively opposed to assigned reading back then - hell, I think I still am. You can't tell me what to do!

I think it's more interesting to me as I live in the area the Donner Party passed through/camped at before ascending the mountains...and, every time I drive to California, I drive through the route that they took and met their unfortunate fate. I am intimately familiar with the terrain and weather in the story.

And, it's interesting in that this story has entered our popular culture as one of unending and rampant cannibalism, and how little actually occurred - for sure it did, but it was almost the last resort of last resorts and only partaken by a small group.

What I think is far more interesting is that this was always taught to me (this entire pioneer period anyway) as plucky adventurers heading out into empty frontier to establish civilization. And, of course, as we age, learn, and grow we add in all of the indigenous people who were already there. But, what never really occurred to me until know, after looking in particular at the date (1846), the Donner Party and all of those who came before them, were invading the territory of the Empire of Mexico and essentially become an army of squatters illegally occupying another nation's territory. That's never taught in school.

[little · Rating 4 out of 5]

4/5 - dense historical nonfiction but about the most interesting and tragic pioneers ever. This book is like a bad car accident - I wanted to look away but I couldn’t. Spoiler alert: they eat each other

[Chris Gager · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read a condensed version of this in "The Best of the West Vol. 1" from Reader's Digest. A gripping, well-told tale, but also depressing. I think I have read an even more condensed version of this back when the book came out, but then any account of the Donner disaster would have covered the same ground, so maybe not.

[Suzanna · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was fascinating. I was not familiar with the Donner Party's ordeal until I heard some snippets from this book on NPR a few times (mostly from the very early part of their travels). I found a copy at the local library and could hardly put it down once I started.

The story of the Donners and those who travelled with them on that fated journey is absolutely amazing. It seemed every paragraph found new, terrible challenges these people faced. The author does a decent job of balancing the details of the facts with the need to emotionalize some of those same facts. One can't describe the horrors some of these people faced without recognizing them as just that - horrors. It's an amazing story that should make any reader appreciate our modern life in America, and what some of those who went before us endured.

I felt this was extremely well researched and, for the most part, written with practical insights. The book was written some time ago, and sometimes the prose are dated in the manner the information is presented, but one can hardly fault the author for that. The edition I read has an excellent annotation by the author, written several years after the original; it offers some unedited diaries and letters by some of the travelers, notes about other books on the subject, and some information he gleaned after the first edition. I found this section well worth reading and recommend it.

I would like to point out that another Goodreads review states there is one incident of cannibalism reported in the book. That, along with a few other statements by the author of that review, have led me to believe she actually read another book. George Stewart describes some other books on the subject that have been popular at different times in history, and he makes some reasonably objective comparisons between his book and the others. I can only conclude she read one he mentioned which brushed over the cannibalism (because it was considered too uncouth for readers at the time) and had particularly flowery prose.

Summing up, this is a page turner, not for the faint of heart.

[Jenny · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this for a book club. I wasn't excited about it, and it wasn't the normal more fun books I normally like to read, but I did find it very interesting and informative. Even though I knew what happened, I still was sad at all of the hardships they experienced and rooted for them to triumph. A still shocking look at the horrific desperation of long term starvation and it's effects.

Some react to the hardships with humility, selflessness and heroism. Others became bitter, heartlessly self-serving and willing to sacrifice someone else's comfort and safety and even life for their own. Even the rescue parties, albeit disorganized and unexperienced, exhibited a range of gallantry and self-sacrifice to save the needy, and pure self-serving greed without a thought to the lives that could be saved.

It forces a look in the mirror to decide honestly 'how would I react to those circumstances? Your children are starving- what character comes out in those trying circumstances?'

It stood in stark contrast to the mormon pioneers who were organized, went as one unified body with leaders they trusted. They all shared what they had as community property and helped those in need. Even the rescue party was completely different. The need was expressed and within hours a rescue was underway. The rescuers of the mormon pioneers only wanted to help save lives- they were not bribed with high wages, or promises of spoils for their involvement. Interestingly, two or three mormon emigrants were among the Donner rescue party and aside from a weak one that had to turn back, they were among the courageous and gallant.

I just wonder how different the Donner Party's story would have been if they had had the faith, leadership, sharing, and unity, of the mormon pioneers.

I would recommend this book. It was well written, a unique compilation of all the histories that read similar to a novel- with an omnipresent narrator describing the happenings.

[Cassie · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was so disturbing and it definitely freaked me out. This might be because I've always had a fear of being lost and snowbound in the mountains in Wyoming and inevitably freezing to death (or, alternatively, getting lost in the summer and drying of thirst... basically I've just always assumed I'm going to get lost and die). I vaguely knew the story of the Donner Party--a family traveling along the California Trail get trapped in snow and resort to cannibalism. But my previously simplified knowledge was unfair and obviously incorrect. I had been unaware that there were nearly 90 people in this wagon train and they had been relying on the supposed knowledge of someone who made the crossing a few times, only to realize much, much too late that the man was a hack. They weren't just trapped in snow for months but also crossed a desert running out of water. They experienced misfortune after misfortune after misfortune. When I read stories like these, it's so much more tragic reading the beginning where things are fine and the travelers innocent and naive while knowing that it's going to go so very badly for them.

This wouldn't have freaked me out at all had it been fiction. But the idea that real people experienced these hardships and were put in such terrible circumstances fills me with a sense of dread. It's interesting to me that it seems those who survived bounced back from this ordeal pretty well and led fairly normal lives after this. People can be so very resilient and strong, especially in the face of tragedy and hardships.

Advice from Virginia Reed when she was twelve: "Never take no cutofs and hury along as fast as you can."

[Theresa · Rating 4 out of 5]

I picked up a used copy of this book on a whim, because I was tired of reading fiction and have an affinity for adventure/survival biographies. Ordeal by Hunter did not disappoint. In it, Steward provides a meticulously researched, historically accurate account of the plight of the 87 pioneers who set out for California from Illinois in the spring of 1846, and follows them as they make a series of unfortunate route choices while crossing from Wyoming to California. They traveled an essentially untried route being hawked by a man named Hastings, along the way enduring near death from thirst, marauding Indians, at least one murder, and, finally, entrapment in the Sierra Nevada mountains through the worst-ever recorded winter in that region. Most of the party that survived did so by eating the dead bodies of the fallen -- only about half of the original party got out alive -- but while the story of the ill-fated Party is well known because of the survivors' cannibalism, Stewart focuses strongly on their journey, endurance, and on the bravery and fortitude of those who pushed through, on foot, to come back and rescue the trapped. The book is gripping, fascinating from a modern-day perspective, and appears reliably researched. It concludes with several chapters discussing the party's ordeal, its causes and consequences, and includes postscripts about the fate of each individual, and reprints of diaries and letters from the travelers.

[Paula · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a tough book to get through. It was interesting, but a lot of the same: they were starving, freezing, destitute. The author did a remarkable job with the material he had to work with. He does not take artistic license by padding the stories with fictional dialogue or drama; he pieces together the story splinter by splinter from the diaries and letters of the party members and the other historical resources available from the time.

Interesting to see that, contrary to what one might assume, the party did not band together as one, but maintained a "dog eat dog" (cough) mentality to the very end. One has to wonder if this contributed to their demise, or was the very salvation of the survivors.

Because of the age of the story (1846) and the book (published originally in 1936, updated in 1960), some of the language caused me confusion. For example, there is reference to "the Californians", who differ from "the Americans", but I'm not sure who is what. In addition, the same book written today would have probably included clear maps, or maybe even photos, of the area. The pen and ink map drawings were adequate for the times when the book was published, but they do little to indicate the location now, particularly since some location names or references have changed. I was anxious to see where they traveled in relation to developed areas today.

All in all, a fascinating but challenging read.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

This history of the Donner Party was first published in 1936, then updated and republished in 1960. The basics of the story of this group of Illinois settlers bound for California are known to most - they got stuck in a storm in the Sierras and eventually resorted to cannibalism to survive. But there is much more to the story, and it's told well in this book.

I particularly enjoyed the description of the party's passage from Wyoming down through the Wasatch mountains into Salt Lake valley in 1846, a year before the Mormon pioneers. Since I'm most familiar with that area, it was fun to envision the route they took and the challenges they faced in creating new roads.

Having been persuaded to try a new "cutoff" route to get to California quicker, the Donner party fell victim to underestimation of the time and challenges required. They had great struggles across the Salt Flats in Utah and the Nevada desert, losing oxen and supplies along the way, suffering greatly from lack of water, and constantly facing delays.

The description of their winter suffering in the high Sierras is heart-breaking and gripping. Those who came to rescue from California suffered and sacrificed greatly as well. It's quite a story, especially as you try to analyze how people react in extremity and try to imagine yourself in that setting.

[Gerald Curtis · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’m really glad I read this detailed historical account, because I found out I had a lot of ignorant, naïve conceptions. For example, I had assumed the gist of their story and difficulties were when they got snowed in before they could make the pass to California. But I found out they had many life-threatening difficulties along the way, which were so serious that they almost didn’t even make it to the mountains where they became the famous “Donner Party.”

I also assumed that they and their tragedy were not known or discovered until the next spring, when, in fact, they were known and several rescue attempts were made over the pass. (With the snow as much as thirty feet deep) So devastating were these attempts that men died in the attempt, and those that did finally make it through were so exhausted and starved themselves, that they proved to be of little aid to the stranded pioneers. This story was way more complex than I had imagined. I was also surprised to learn that the cannibalism did not start at the stranded camp, but in the attempt of one of the rescue parties to return over the pass back to California.

This was an excellent account, not just relating the history, but detailing the character and personalities of the people involved and helping to account for choices made.

[Dan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great read. As technology approaches the point where you will probably be able to order drone delivered Taco Bell anywhere on the planet with your phone it's astonishing to read such a story. Most of us first world dwellers, rich poor and all in between don't know what hardship really is. This book made me realize how much we take for granted.

On the other hand this book also made me realize how, even at that time, we often bring hardship on ourselves FOR NO GOOD REASON!!! Most of (if not all) members of this party did not NEED to go to California. They were not escaping famine, totalitarian governments, oppressive dictators or a flood, they were drawn there for a "better life" "opportunity" etc etc. But the two head honchos; James Reed and George Donner, already had a great life. The rest of the party was in much the same situation. They were respected and fairly well to do members of their communities back home in Illinois. I will draw a conclusion that other great lit also validates : Americans if not all humans in pursuit of greater freedom, wealth and a "better" life often create as many problems (if not more) than they solve. Ahhhhhh yet another justification to just sit on my butt and read!