The Indifferent Stars Above: The Harrowing Saga of the Donner Party

by Daniel James Brown

Charles Stanton probably died psychologically before he died physiologically. As John Leach points out in Survival Psychology, science has long recognized that under some circumstances people are able “to die gently, and often suddenly, through no organic cause.” In other words, we are able, sometimes, to will ourselves to death, or at least to cease willing ourselves to live.