Broken-hearted 20-year-old Edward Washington McIlhany (Mac) decided a way to heal his disappointment in love was to strike out west to the fabled 1849 gold rush in California. Leaving family and friends behind, with no assurance he'd ever see them again, he paid $300.00 to join a company formed for prospecting. In his autobiography, written sixty years later, he tells of losing friends on the perilous trip across the plains, meeting Indians, gun fights, getting scurvy, and the wild frontier of a mining town. McIlhany's book is a valuable resource on the prices of goods and services at the time, as well as a rip-roaring true tale of a time before the West was settled. He even sailed on the ill-fated Central America the year before it sank with over 550 souls on board.