A Tenderfoot In Montana. Reminiscences of the Gold Rush, Vigilantes and the birth of Montana Territory. Frank Thompson's Lively memoir details his experience in the upper Missouri country at the beginning of the Montana gold rush. A young man at the outset of the Civil War, Thompson supported the Union cause but realized that military life was not for him. Turning to the frontier, he headed west aboard a steamboat from St. Louis in 1862, arriving at Fort Benton, in what would later become Montana Territory. Thompson also formed a relationship with controversial sheriff Henry Plummer. Thompson vividly describes one of the deadliest incidences of vigilante justice in U.S. history. By Francis M. Thompson, Intorduced by Kenneth N. Ownes. 292 pages.