From Thomas Jefferson's birth in 1743 to the California Gold Rush in 1849, America's westward expansion comes to life in the hands of a writer fascinated by the way individual lives link up, illuminate one another, and collectively impact history. Jefferson, naturalist and visionary, dreamed that the United States would stretch across the North American continent, from ocean to ocean. The account of how that dream became reality unfolds in the stories of Jefferson and nine other Americans whose adventurous spirits and lust for land pushed the westward boundaries. Morgan uses his skill at characterization to give life to the personalities of ten Americans who inspired their countrymen and without whom the United States might well have stopped at Arkansas. Their stories -- and those of the nameless thousands who risked their lives to settle on the frontier, displacing thousands of Native Americans -- form an extraordinary chapter in American history leading directly to the cataclysm of the Civil War. - Jacket flap.