A Forlorn Hope

A story of heroism, sacrifice, and the simple refusal to give in.The terrible fate of the Donner Party has long been part of the folklore of the American West. A wagon train of emigrants, delayed in their passage across the continent by a series of mishaps, became stranded among the peaks of the Sierra Nevada by unseasonably heavy snowfalls.Forced to camp where they were, their food soon ran out, and they were obliged to eat the hides of their animals and, eventually, the bodies of their dead comrades. Meanwhile, a small band - the Forlorn Hope - made a desperate bid for freedom, trekking for weeks through ferocious storms and waist-high snow to bring news of their plight to the outside world.This is the story of that tragedy. Pieced together from the diaries and memoirs of the survivors, and from previous historical research, it brings to life the characters and situations, and reveals the truth behind the often tarnished image.