 The Revenant is a major new Regency and 20th Century Fox movie starring Leonardo DiCaprio as Hugh Glass. The movie has won 2016 Golden Globe Awards for Best Picture, Best Actor, and Best Director. It's a fictionalized account inspired by the story of the Hugh Glass-Grizzly attack, his survival, and the search for revenge. It's not intended to tell the real story of Hugh Glass. The storylines are significantly different than the real story of Hugh Glass, but the movie touches on many aspects of the real history of the Rocky Mountain Fair trade in Hugh Glass, and raises questions that are interesting to explore. Was Hugh Glass real, and did he get mauled by a grizzly bear? Yes, Hugh Glass was a mountain man and beaver fur trapper in the American West in the 1820s and 1830s. On his first trip up the Missouri River in 1823, he was severely mauled by a grizzly bear, left for dead by his companions, survived, and struggled on his own for about six weeks and 200 miles back to Fort Keowa. This feat was legendary among his peers almost immediately, and the story has been retold and elaborated on ever since. Did Hugh Glass have an Indian wife and son? No. The major storyline of the Revenant movie is Hugh Glass' quest for revenge on John Fitzgerald for killing his half-ponny son, Hawk. There is no evidence Glass had an Indian wife or mixed-race son. According to one contemporary, Glass lived with a ponny before his fur trade career. While this cannot be verified, it is at least plausible. If Glass did live with a ponny, it's possible he had a ponny wife and child. However, that is pure speculation. He certainly had no son on the Henry expedition, and at most, Glass lived for three to four years with the ponny, so he would not have had a son of Hawk's age by 1823. Was Hugh Glass the expedition guide? No. Hugh Glass was probably one of the older men in Andrew Henry's 1823 expedition, but he was one of the rookies on the expedition. Andrew Henry and several other men, including young Jim Bridger, had been at the Missouri River a year earlier. Henry was older than Glass and had been up and down the Missouri River many times, starting 14 years earlier in 1809. If Glass had lived for a few years with a ponny, he likely had an incredible wilderness experience, but it's unlikely he would have known anything about the route they were taking to the Yellowstone River. What happened to Hugh Glass? How did he die? It's amazing that during a one-year period from the summer of 1823 to the summer of 1824, in addition to the grizzly attack, Hugh Glass was involved in at least four separate Indian skirmishes where some of his companions were killed, but he survived them all. Glass continued in the fur trade for the next ten years and was eventually killed by the Arakara Indians in 1833 on the Yellowstone River. Who was Fitzgerald and did Hugh Glass kill him? Glass did not kill or fight Fitzgerald. Very little is known about John Fitzgerald. However, he was a real person, was on the Henry expedition, and was probably one of the two men who abandoned Glass after the grizzly attack in the summer of 1823. After leaving Glass, Fitzgerald and a second man, maybe Jim Bridger, caught up with Andrew Henry on the Yellowstone River in what is now North Dakota. Later in the fall of 1823, Fitzgerald accompanied Moses Harris downriver to Fort Atkinson near what is now Omaha, Nebraska. Interestingly, they probably unknowingly passed Hugh Glass on his way upriver on a quest to find Fitzgerald. On April 19, 1824, John Fitzgerald enlisted in the army at Fort Atkinson and served until his commission expired five years later. Hugh Glass eventually caught up with Fitzgerald at Fort Atkinson in June of 1824, but did not kill him, likely because Fitzgerald was now a soldier. But Glass did get his gun back, which Fitzgerald had taken when he abandoned Glass. Who was Andrew Henry and was he killed by Fitzgerald? Fitzgerald did not kill Andrew Henry. Shortly after Lewis and Clark returned, sparking interest in the fur trade of the West, Henry led a brigade from 1809 to 1811 through unknown parts of Montana, Idaho, and Wyoming. In 1822, Andrew Henry and William Ashley formed a company to trap and trade for beaver on the Upper Missouri River. At the time, Henry was one of the most experienced mountain men and field leaders, especially on the Upper Missouri River. Henry was leading a brigade from Fort Keowa to Fort Henry on the Yellowstone River overland in 1823 when Hugh Glass was attacked by the Grizzly. Henry spent two years in the field learning the partnership on the Upper Missouri River from 1822 to 1824 before retiring from the fur trade. Who was Jim Bridger? How young was he and what happened to him? Jim Bridger was one of the original 100 enterprising young men that William Ashley and Andrew Henry assembled in 1822 to fur trap and trade on the Upper Missouri River. This was the start of what would become the Rocky Mountains fur trade, mountain men, rendezvous era that lasted until 1840 and opened the American West. At 18, Bridger was probably the youngest of that initial group, although most of the others were just in their early 20s. By the time Hugh Glass came up the river in 1823, Bridger had already had a year of experience in the wilderness. He would go on to become one of the most famous mountain men and is thought to be the only one to attend all 16 annual mountain rendezvous. He stayed in the mountains almost his entire life and died in Missouri in 1881 at age 77. Did Jim Bridger abandon Hugh Glass? Maybe. Jim Bridger was on the Henry expedition when Glass was mauled by the Grizzly and he could have been one of the two men left to take care of Glass. However, the two men left with Glass are not named until Edmund Flag identified them as Fitzgerald and Bridges in 1839. Jim Bridger is not identified with the incident until Haram Chittenden names him in 1902, 79 years after the attack. Did the real events of the Revenant take place in the mountains during the winter? Hugh Glass was attacked by the Grizzly Bear on the Grand River in what is now South Dakota. The brigade continued on to Fort Henry on the Yellowstone River in what is now North Dakota and then on to Big Horn River in what is now Montana by September. Hugh Glass went down river to Fort Keowa in what is now South Dakota arriving in early October. So most of the events took place in the summer and along the river in the open plains, not in the high mountains. However, Glass did go back up river to find Fitzgerald and arrived at Fort Henry on the Big Horn on January 1st, 1824. So he would have traveled in the winter and possibly through snow, but not over high mountains. At Fort Henry, Glass was told Fitzgerald had already returned to Fort Atkinson. So Glass left Fort Henry on February 29th, 1824, traveling up the Powder River and down the Platte River to Fort Atkinson in what is now Nebraska. The early part of this trip would have been over some rugged country in winter, but nothing like what is shown in the Revenant. Was there a fight with the Arakara and who were the rea? Yes, in 1823, the Arakara Indians, often called rea by the mountain men, had earth lodged villages on the banks of the Missouri River. A few miles up river from the mouth of the Grand River. From their location on a big bend, the Arakara could control up river travel. In June 1823, William Ashley camped near the Arakara villages to trade for horses. Before Ashley could leave, a fight ensued with 14 Ashley men killed and 11 wounded. Arakara losses are thought to be 5 to 8. Hugh Glass was wounded in the leg. Once the survivors got to the boats, they drifted downstream to the Grand River and eventually backtracked to Fort Kioa. They did not abandon the boats as shown in the movie. When Henry arrived from up river, Ashley and Henry decided to send Henry back up river to Grand River and over land to Fort Henry to avoid the Arakara.