ORDEAL BY HUNGER: The Story of the Donner Party

See page 41 for report on the epic poem, Snow Covered Wagons dealing with the same subject. It's a tragic and dramatic chapter in American history, and seems within the past year, to have caught the imagination of writers. This is non-fiction, but reads like a first hand account, secured from a survivor. Almost a day-by-day account, making real the various members of the party, with their fortitude and their failures, the trips through canyons and across deserts, the tortuous winding trail, the dying cattle, the abandoned wagons, the rising tension, thirst, hunger, fear. And then the snow, which proved their final enemy. Factual material -- important for reference and good adventure as well.