On a spring day in 1846, the Reed family and the Donner family left their comfortable homes in Springfield, Illinois, and started the long trek to California. It was quite a caravan, made up of many wagons—not the least of which was the comfortable well-stocked "palace wagon" which James Reed had built to house the family's treasures.

Carefree and gay, confident of success, the travelers never dreamed that their wagon train was headed for stark disaster.

Virginia Reed and her little sister Patty were among the survivors, and it is from Virginia's point of view that Margaret Sutton has dramatically told the history of the ill-fated Donner party. Mrs. Sutton has studied the survivor's letters and journals, as well as the writings of many other people of the time, to recreate this tale of indomitable courage on the American frontier.

From the book