54-40 or Fight by Emerson Hough

54 - 40 or Fight by Emerson Hough is a somewhat fanciful version of American History.  Very readable and a great education for those who love adventure and history.
The Oregon boundary dispute or the Oregon Question was a controversy over the political division of the Pacific Northwest of North America between several nations that had competing territorial and commercial aspirations over the region.
Expansionist competition into the region began in the 18th century, with participants including the Russian Empire, the United Kingdom, Spain and the United States. By the 1820s, both the Russians, through the Russo-American Treaty of 1824 and the Russo-British Treaty of 1825, and the Spanish, by the Adams–Onís Treaty of 1819, formally withdrew their territorial claims in the region. Through these treaties the British and Americans gained residual territorial claims in the disputed area. The remaining portion of the North American Pacific coast contested by the United Kingdom and the United States was defined as the following: west of the Continental Divide of the Americas, north of Alta California at 42nd parallel north, and south of Russian America at parallel 54°40′ north; typically this region was referred to by the British as the Columbia District and the Oregon Country by the Americans. The Oregon dispute began to become important in geopolitical diplomacy between the British Empire and the new American republic, especially after the War of 1812.
In the 1844 U.S. presidential election, ending the Oregon Question by annexing the entire area was a position adopted by the Democratic Party. Some scholars have claimed the Whig Party's lack of interest in the issue was due to its relative insignificance among other more pressing domestic problems. Democratic candidate James K. Polk appealed to the popular theme of manifest destiny and expansionist sentiment, defeating Whig Henry Clay. Polk sent the British government the previously offered partition along the 49th parallel. Subsequent negotiations faltered as the British plenipotentiaries still argued for a border along the Columbia River. Tensions grew as American expansionists like Senator Edward A. Hannegan of Indiana and Representative Leonard Henly Sims of Missouri, urged Polk to annex the entire Pacific Northwest to the 54°40′ parallel north, as the Democrats had called for in the election. The turmoil gave rise to slogans such as "Fifty-four Forty or Fight!" As relations with Mexico were rapidly deteriorating following the annexation of Texas, the expansionist agenda of Polk and the Democratic Party created the possibility of two different, simultaneous wars for the United States. Just before the outbreak of the Mexican–American War, Polk returned to his earlier position of a border along the 49th parallel.
The 1846 Oregon Treaty established the border between British North America and the United States along the 49th parallel until the Strait of Georgia, where the marine boundary curved south to exclude Vancouver Island and the Gulf Islands from the United States. As a result, a small portion of the Tsawwassen Peninsula, Point Roberts, became an exclave of the United States. Vague wording in the treaty left the ownership of the San Juan Islands in doubt, as the division was to follow "through the middle of the said channel" to the Strait of Juan de Fuca. During the so-called Pig War, both nations agreed to a joint military occupation of the islands. Kaiser Wilhelm I of the German Empire was selected as an arbitrator to end the dispute, with a three-man commission ruling in favor of the United States in 1872. There the Haro Strait became the border line, rather than the British favored Rosario Strait. The border established by the Oregon Treaty and finalized by the arbitration in 1872 remains the boundary between the United States and Canada in the Pacific Northwest.

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