Across America-The Lewis & Clark Expedition

Across America:The Lewis and Clark Expedition

MAURICE ISSERMAN

JOHN S. BOWMAN and MAURICE ISSERMAN

General Editors

]

D I S C O V E R Y E X P L O R A T I O N&

Across America: The Lewis and Clark Expedition

Copyright © 2005 by Harry S. AndersonMaps © 2005 by Facts On File, Inc.Captions copyright © 2005 by Facts On File, Inc.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Isserman, Maurice.Across America : the Lewis and Clark expedition / Maurice Isserman.

v. cm. —(Discovery and exploration)Contents: Monticello and Lemhi Pass, August 12, 1805—Search for the North-

west Passage—Preparing the way, March 1803–May 1804—Up the Missouri,May–October 1804—“The most perfect harmoney”: winter at Fort Mandan—“This little fleet”: up the unknown Missouri—To the Missouri headwaters—Onfoot and on horse across the Rockies—“Ocean in view!”: to the Pacific—Home-ward bound.ISBN 0-8160-5256-5

1. Lewis and Clark Expedition (1804–1806)—Juvenile literature. 2. West(U.S.)—Discovery and exploration—Juvenile literature. 3. West (U.S.)—Des-cription and travel—Juvenile literature. [Lewis and Clark Expedition(1804–1806) 2. Explorers. 3. West (U.S.)—Discovery and exploration. 4. West(U.S.)—Description and travel.] I. Title. II. Series.F592.7. I87 2004917. 804'2—dc22 2003025130

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For David Weintraub,

who for 30 years has been Lewis to my Clark,

and Clark to my Lewis.

]

Note on Photos{Many of the illustrations and photographs used in this book are old,historical images. The quality of the prints is not always up to currentstandards, as in some cases the originals are from old or poor qualitynegatives or are damaged. The content of the illustrations, however,made their inclusion important despite problems in reproduction.

Introduction ix

1 MONTICELLO AND LEMHI PASS: AUGUST 12, 1805 1Thomas Jefferson’s Other Explorers 4

2 SEARCH FOR THE NORTHWEST PASSAGE 7Alexander Mackenzie’s Expedition across Canada 15United States, 1802 17

3 PREPARING THE WAY: MARCH 1803 TO MAY 1804 20Lewis and Clark’s Traveling Library 23Lewis’s Map Collection 27Route of the Corps of Discovery, August 31, 1803–May 21, 1804 32

St. Louis: Gateway to the West 34

4 UP THE MISSOURI: MAY TO OCTOBER 1804 38The “Barking Squiril” 45Lewis’s Air Gun 49Route of the Corps of Discovery, May 21–September 28, 1804 51

Route of the Corps of Discovery, September 28, 1804–April 7, 1805 54

5 “THE MOST PERFECT HARMONEY”: WINTER ATFORT MANDAN 57Smallpox and the Fate of the Mandan Tribe 61Fort Mandan and Neighboring Mandan and Hidatsa Villages,

November 1804–April 1805 and August 1806 64

Contents{

The Trading Network of the Plains Indians 66Members of the Corps of Discovery 74

6 “THIS LITTLE FLEET”: UP THE UNKNOWN MISSOURI 76The Buffalo and the Plains Indian Economy 78Encounters with a Grizzly 82Route of the Corps of Discovery, April 7– July 30, 1805 84

7 TO THE MISSOURI HEADWATERS 87The Many Names of Sacagawea 89Portage around the Great Falls, June–July 1805 92

The Rocky Mountains 96Route of the Corps of Discovery, July 30–August 12, 1805 100

8 ON FOOT AND ON HORSE ACROSS THE ROCKIES 102Bitterroot Mountains (Lolo Trail), September–October 1805

and May–July 1806 113

The Nez Perce Horses 116

9 “OCIAN IN VIEW!”: TO THE PACIFIC 118The Columbia River Salmon Culture 122Fort Clatsop and Its Indian Neighbors, 1805–1806 125

Route of the Corps of Discovery, August 12–November 7, 1805 127

Campsites and Selected Sites near the Mouth of the Columbia River, November 15, 1805–March 23, 1806 132

10 HOMEWARD BOUND 136Route of the Corps of Discovery, March 23–July 3, 1806 139

Route of Lewis’s Party and Route of Clark’s Party, July 3–August 12, 1806 144

Mountain Men and the Fur Trade 150Route of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, August 1803–

September 1806 151

Given Up for Lost? 152Route of the Corps of Discovery, August 12–September 23, 1806 153

Epilogue PUTTING THEIR NAMES ON THE MAP 155

Glossary 165Further Information 167Index 171

ix

On April 7, 1805, Captain MeriwetherLewis dipped his pen in ink and madean entry in a red leather-bound note-

book. Since the previous May, he and the menunder his command had traveled 1,600 milesby boat up the Missouri River. They wereknown as the Corps of Discovery. They hadspent the winter of 1804–05 in a little woodenfort that they constructed at a site near pres-ent-day Bismarck, North Dakota. The ice onthe river had finally melted, and they werepreparing to resume their journey. As Lewissurveyed the six small canoes and two largerboats called pirogues that would carry hisparty westward to the farthest reaches of theMissouri River, he voiced a deep sense of satisfaction. “This little fleet,” Lewis wrote inhis journal that day, “altho’ not quite so ris-pectable as those of Columbus or Capt. Cook,were still viewed by us with as much pleasureas those deservedly famed adventurers everbeheld theirs. . . .”

Two hundred years later, Lewis and Clark’s“little fleet” is itself “deservedly famed” in theannals of exploration and discovery. LarryMcMurtry, a Pulitzer prize–winning novelist,recently described the journey of the Corps ofDiscovery as “our first really American adven-ture,” and its record in the pages of the jour-nals kept by Meriwether Lewis and his

co-commander William Clark as “our onlyreally American epic.”

What places Lewis and Clark in the firstrank of American explorers? They led the first

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Introduction{

A U.S. Army captain, Meriwether Lewis left activemilitary duty to assist President Jefferson in secretarial tasks. His acute awareness and attentionto detail were an asset to the president and proveduseful again in Lewis’s journal entries and drawings. (Library of Congress, Prints and PhotographsDivision [LC-USZ62-10609])

x B Across America: The Lewis and Clark Expedition

exploration party ever officially sponsored bythe government of the United States. Theywere the first white men, and very likely thefirst men ever to cross the entire North Amer-ican continent through the territory thatwould soon become the western UnitedStates. They were the first white men to travelon the Missouri River in the territory that wasto become the state of Montana, and thus thefirst to see the Great Falls of Montana, theGates of the Rockies, the Three Forks of the Missouri, and the river’s headwaters in theRocky Mountains. They were the first whitemen to cross the Continental Divide south ofCanada, the first white men to explore thelength of the Yellowstone River, the first whitemen to see the Clearwater and Snake Rivers,and the first white men to sail down theColumbia River to the sea. They were the firstwhite men to make direct contact with andlearn something about the life of theShoshone, the Flathead (Salish), and the NezPerce Indian tribes. They discovered and werethe first to describe for scientific purposes 122species of western birds and animals and 178plants. They left their names, and the namesof the members of the Corps of Discovery, onhundreds of hills, rivers, creeks, and citiesthroughout the Great Plains and PacificNorthwest regions of the United States.

But beyond the many “firsts” that can belisted next to their names, Lewis and Clarkdeserve their ranking among the greatest ofAmerican explorers because of the personalqualities that they displayed on their expedi-tion. They were exemplary explorers. It is not just that they were men of “undauntedcourage,” as historian Stephen Ambrosecalled them, though they certainly were that.Their greatest virtues as explorers proved tobe their power of observation and their rarelywaning enthusiasm for, as Lewis put it, the“scenes of visionary enchantment” that they

encountered on their long journey to thePacific and back.

Biologist Paul Cutright wrote in Lewis andClark, Pioneering Naturalists that MeriwetherLewis possessed an ability “effortlessly andspontaneously” to see the “little things sooften overlooked, even by the well-trainednaturalist.” Historian James Ronda, in Lewisand Clark among the Indians, praised Lewis’sabilities as an ethnographer (someone whostudies human cultures and races); Lewis,Ronda wrote, had “the naturalist’s ability todescribe objects with almost photographicfidelity. [He] brought to ethnography thepracticed eye of one who delighted in describ-ing and cataloguing the creatures of the natu-ral world.” Mapmaking, or cartography, is acraft that depends upon close observationand measurement: Geologist John LoganAllen wrote in Lewis and Clark and the Imageof the American Northwest that William Clarkproved himself “a cartographer of unusualskill” whose maps of the Missouri and Colum-bia basins were “cartographic masterpieces.”

Lewis and Clark were also, as historianDonald Jackson once famously noted, the“writingest explorers.” Among the tons of sup-plies the explorers carried with them were, aslisted in their inventories “6 papers of inkpowder” and “4 metal pens brass or silver.”Following instructions given to Lewis by Pres-ident Thomas Jefferson, Lewis, Clark, and atleast six other members of the expedition keptjournals. Taken together, these journals allowpeople today to reconstruct on a day-by-daybasis, from May 14, 1804, to September 23,1806, where the explorers were, how far theytraveled, what they were doing, what theywere eating, how their health was holding up,and the state of their morale.

Lewis and Clark were the most prolific ofthe journal-keepers: Between the two ofthem they produced 200,000 words in the

Throughout the journey, Lewis and Clark encountered many unfamiliar plantsand animals. They carefully described their findings in their journals and demonstrated great talent in cartography (mapmaking) and drawing. This illustration is one Clark made of the sage grouse, a bird Lewis dubbed “mountaincock,” “heath cock,” and “cock of the plains.” (Missouri Historical Society)

xii B Across America: The Lewis and Clark Expedition

time it took them to make the round-tripfrom St. Louis, Missouri, to the Pacific Ocean.When one thinks of the Lewis and Clark expe-dition, one tends to remember the greatmoments of discovery: Lewis standing atopLemhi Pass on the Continental Divide, Clarkrecording his joy at his first view of thePacific, both men marveling at the sight ofthousands of buffalo spread out across theGreat Plains landscape, and so on. To thoseimages another should be added: the cap-tains sitting with their little portable woodendesks spread out on their laps after a long,hard, and often dangerous day’s travel, sittingby the campfire and writing, writing, writingin their journals.

It is not only the quantity but the quality of their writing that makes the Lewis andClark journals a continuing source of fascina-tion to Americans, an “American epic,” inLarry McMurtry’s words. Though Lewis andClark had no intention of creating great litera-ture when they set down the record of theexpedition, in McMurtry’s opinion, “by theforce and immediacy of the expression, theyaccomplished the one essential thing thatwriters must do: they brought the readeralong with them, up that meandering riverand over those snowy peaks.” And, as Lewis’sbiographer Stephen Ambrose commentedwith equal admiration, “On virtually everypage they reveal something of their personal-ities.” The words that Lewis and Clark andother members of the expedition recordedbetween 1804 and 1806 lie at the heart of thenarrative that follows. All quotations, exceptwhere otherwise noted, come from Lewis’s orClark’s pen.

A note on spelling: By Larry McMurtry’sestimate, William Clark found 22 differentways to spell the word Sioux in the journals.He probably came up with almost as manyvariations in spelling the word mosquito.

Lewis came closer to standard spelling, but ashis rendering of the word “rispectable” [res-pectable] in the sentence that describes his“little fleet” suggests, he was not always suc-cessful. In the account that follows, the origi-nal spelling has been left intact in thequotations. Where the meaning of a word maybe unclear, the version set down by Lewis andClark will be followed by the correctly spelledword in brackets. The quotations from thejournals are all taken from Gary Moulton’srecent and definitive edition of The Journalsof the Lewis and Clark Expedition, publishedin 13 volumes by the University of NebraskaPress.

William Clark joined the expedition when hereceived the offer directly from fellow Virginian andfellow officer Meriwether Lewis. (Library of Congress,Prints and Photographs Division [LC-USZ62-105848])

The president of the United States,Thomas Jefferson, was spending thesummer of 1805 at Monticello, his

stately hilltop home in Virginia’s Piedmontregion. There, amid the tranquil beauties ofhis plantation’s flower and herb gardens, hewas able to escape for a while the pressures ofoffice, as well as the heat, humidity, dust, anddisease that the summer months brought tothe nation’s new capital in Washington, D.C.So Jefferson was not at the White House on Monday, August 12, 1805, when a long-expected wagonload of wooden boxes, trunks,and cages arrived there for him.

The shipment included animal skins, skele-tons, antlers and horns, minerals, seeds, driedplants, a tin box containing insects and mice, abuffalo robe painted with the scene of a battlefought by American Indian tribes, an Indianbow and quiver of arrows, a live magpie, and asomething described on the list accompany-ing the shipment as a “living burrowing squir-rel of the praries” (better known today as a

prairie dog). This odd assortment had beenpackaged and sent to Jefferson four monthsearlier by his young friend and former aideCaptain Meriwether Lewis of the U.S. Army.

Lewis had dispatched the shipment fromhis temporary base at Fort Mandan on theupper Missouri River, near the junction of theMissouri and the Knife Rivers in the present-day state of North Dakota, a place that in thewinter of 1804–05 had represented the west-ernmost outpost of the authority of the gov-ernment of the United States. From FortMandan, the boxes and crates had followed acircuitous route to their final destination atJefferson’s official residence. They were car-ried by boat down the Missouri River to St.Louis, then down the Mississippi River to NewOrleans, then by sea to Baltimore, and finallyby wagon to the White House.

President Jefferson did not have a chanceto examine the contents of Lewis’s shipmentfor several months, but he was delighted tohear of their arrival. He instructed his servants

1

Monticello and Lemhi PassAugust 12, 1805

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at the White House to make sure that the skinsand furs were well preserved and that themagpie and prairie dog were looked after(they were still alive when he got back toWashington in October). He also looked for-ward to the day when he would be able to hearfirsthand from Captain Lewis about hisadventures, but he knew it would be manymonths, perhaps even a year, before thatwould be possible. For Meriwether Lewis andthe small party of explorers that he led were atthat moment somewhere deep in the Ameri-can western wilderness, traversing a blank

place on the existing maps of the North Amer-ican continent, where non-Indian Americanshad never before ventured.

THAT SAME DAY, ABOUT1,850 MILES WEST OFMONTICELLO . . .On August 12, 1805, Lewis awoke early. He wasan impressive-looking man, more than six feettall, lean and well muscled, his skin deeplytanned by the sun. He was camped with threeother men by a small stream near the westernborder of the present-day state of Montana, astream that he believed would lead them in aday or so to the headwaters of the MissouriRiver. The rest of his expedition, laden withsupplies that they were transporting in dugoutcanoes, was following more slowly 20 or somiles behind Lewis and the advance party.Lewis and his companions were travelinglight, on foot, with no provisions but whatthey could carry on their back. They had notent and slept under the stars, wrapped intheir blankets. But they did have an Americanflag, which flew over their small camp on awooden pole that Lewis stuck in the groundthe night before.

At first light Captain Lewis sent GeorgeDrouillard, a civilian hunter, one of the mostcompetent men under his command, to lookfor the trail of an Indian whom they had spot-ted the day before. Lewis hoped that thisIndian was a Shoshone and could lead themto the rest of his tribe. Ever since their depar-ture from Fort Mandan in April they hadlooked forward to meeting the Shoshone,because they had heard it was a tribe rich inhorses. Lewis and his party would need horsesto carry their supplies over the Rocky Moun-tains to the headwaters of the Columbia River,which they believed lay just on the other side.

2 B Across America: The Lewis and Clark Expedition

Thomas Jefferson held many important politicalpositions in his life, most notably that of the thirdpresident of the United States. But he was also aninventor, a naturalist, a linguist, an architect, theauthor of the Declaration of Independence, and thefounder of the University of Virginia. Jeffersonworked to organize the exploration of a NorthwestPassage for 20 years before finally succeeding.(National Archives [NWDNS-208-PU-104HH(4)])

Once they were on the Columbia they couldbuild new canoes and sail down to the PacificOcean, their ultimate goal.

It was still early morning when Drouillardreturned. The rain the night before made ithard to find the Indian’s trail. Still theydecided to press on up a gentle valley that ledthem to a high wooded hillside. The streamthey had camped along branched into smallerrivulets. As always, Lewis kept his eyes openfor unfamiliar plant and animal life, whosedistinguishing features he carefully noted inhis journal. He noted “several large hawks”that flew overhead, “nearly black in color”(possibly red-tailed hawks, or Swaison’s

hawks). Later he saw a large animal “of the foxkind” (probably a wolverine). There were alsosigns of Indian presence; the ground by thestream had been dug up by Shoshone search-ing for edible roots. Later in the morningLewis and his party stopped to rest and break-fasted on the last of the dried deer meat thatthey were carrying in their packs; they had noother food with them except a small amountof salt pork and some flour.

They had found an Indian path that ledthem up the valley, until it turned “abruptly tothe West through a narrow bottom betwen themountains.” The path was getting steeper, butthey pushed on, their excitement mounting.

Monticello and Lemhi Pass B 3

Thomas Jefferson designed this stately home for himself in 1768. Monticello stands near Charlottesville, Virginia, and is a popular tourist attraction for visitors to the area. (Library of Congress, Prints and PhotographsDivision [LC-USZ62-107586])

“[T]he road was still plain,” Lewis wrote in hisjournal soon afterward, “I therefore did notdispair of shortly finding a passage over the

mountains and of taisting the waters of thegreat Columbia this evening.” Up and up theywalked, four more miles, until finally they


Thomas Jefferson’s Other Explorers =

Lewis and Clark’s lasting fame, although certainly justified, has obscured theefforts of the other explorers who headed west in the years of Thomas Jefferson’spresidency. Jefferson saw the Lewis and Clark expedition as just one part of amultipronged and coordinated effort to learn more about the vast region of west-ern North America. When Jefferson reported in February 1806 on Lewis andClark’s progress up the Missouri (based on information the two expedition lead-ers had sent back to Washington from their first winter encampment in NorthDakota), he did so in a document entitled “Message from the President of theUnited States Communicating Discoveries Made in Exploring the Missouri, RedRiver, and Washita, by Captains Lewis and Clarke, Doctor Sibley, and Mr. Dunbar.”

At Jefferson’s request, William Dunbar, a Mississippi planter, and GeorgeHunter, a Philadelphia chemist, led an expedition up the Ouchita River throughnorthern Louisiana into present-day Arkansas in fall 1804. In spring 1805 a sec-ond Jefferson expedition set off up the Red River, this one led by Thomas Free-man, a civil engineer and surveyor, and Thomas Custis, a medical student. Dr.John Sibley joined them en route. Their 40-man expedition pushed up the RedRiver into present-day Texas, then part of the Spanish empire in the New World.On July 29, Spanish troops intercepted the American explorers at a spot on theRed River known ever since as Spanish Bluff, about 30 miles northwest of pres-ent-day Texarkana, Texas. The Spanish commander bluntly told them that theyhad to return to where they came from or be taken into custody.

After Lewis and Clark, the best-known explorer of Jefferson’s era wasundoubtedly another army officer, Lt. Zebulon Montgomery Pike. Pike was bornin Lamberton, New Jersey, in 1779, the son of an American military officer. Fol-lowing his father’s example, Zebulon joined the U.S. Army at the age of 15, andhe served on the Ohio frontier in the 1790s. In July 1806 Pike led an expeditionaryparty west from St. Louis, up the Missouri River, then along the Arkansas River,and finally, on horseback, crossing the Kansas plains into Colorado. There theywere the first Americans to encounter the Front Range of the Colorado Rockies.(One of those peaks has since been known as Pike’s Peak.) Like the Freemanexpedition, Pike’s party ran into Spanish troops, who put them under arrest fortrespassing onto Spanish lands. Pike and some of his men were released to U.S.authorities in Louisiana on June 30, 1807. Other members of the party were laterreleased. “Language cannot express the gaiety of my heart when I once beheldthe standards of my country waved aloft,” Pike said of his return.

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came to the spring bubbling up from theground that fed the little stream (present-dayTrail Creek) they walked alongside. This, Lewisbelieved, was “the most distant fountain ofmighty Missouri in surch of which we havespent so many toilsome days and wristlessnights.” One of his men, Hugh McNeal, stoodwith one foot planted “on each side of this lit-tle rivulet and,” Lewis noted, McNeal had“thanked his god that he had lived to bestridethe mighty & heretofore deemed endless Mis-souri.” As for Lewis, his joy knew no bounds: “Ihad accomplished one of those great objectson which my mind has been unalterably fixedfor many years . . .” He asked any future read-ers of his journal to “judge then of the pleas-

ure I felt in allaying my thirst with this pureand ice cold water,” the headwaters or originof the Missouri River.

It was another half-mile to the summit.The pass ahead, later to be known as LemhiPass, crossed the Continental Divide. On theeastern side of the mountains, all watersflowed east or southward, eventually to endup in the Mississippi River and the Gulf ofMexico. On the western side, which they wereapproaching, all waters would eventually flowby one means or another to the Pacific. Andthat included the Columbia River, whoseheadwaters Lewis fully expected to find on thefar slope. No non-Indian American had everbefore stepped across the Continental Divide.

Monticello and Lemhi Pass B 5

Painted in 1988 by Robert F. Morgan, At Lemhi shows Lewis joined by three other members of the expedition, taking a moment’s rest as they searched for the Shoshone Indians in July 1805. (Montana Historical Society, Helena)

Finally they were at the top, 7,373 feet abovesea level, with a broad vista opening up to thewest. And there, “from the top of the divideingridge,” there was no sign of the ColumbiaRiver and the easy water route that they haddreamed of finding to the Pacific. Instead, as

Lewis wrote, “I discovered immence ranges ofhigh mountains still to the West of us withtheir tops partially covered with snow.” Theywere at the farthest boundary of the UnitedStates. They had a long, hard way to go beforethey would see the Pacific Ocean.


7

The New World that ChristopherColumbus encountered in 1492 repre-sented both an opportunity and an

obstacle to European explorers and to the sol-diers, missionaries, traders, and settlers whowould follow in their paths. Columbus hadbeen searching for an old, not a new, conti-nent. He had hoped to find a passage to theriches of Asia, an ocean crossing to replace thelong, difficult land route that in past centurieshad brought a mere trickle of trade goodsfrom India and China to European markets.Instead, he stumbled upon the Americas—two continents previously unknown to Euro-peans, home to tens of millions of Nativepeoples whose civilizations would in time beswept aside by the conquering powers fromacross the Atlantic. There were riches in theAmericas: gold, silver, and timber; rich fishinggrounds off the coasts; endless lands whereEuropean settlers could grow cotton, rice,wheat, and corn; and pastures and plainswhere they could graze their sheep, cows, andhorses. But for all the potential bounty of the

New World, the Americas also stood in the wayof the realization of the European quest tofind a waterborne trade route to Asia, to Indiaand China—fabled and distant lands of silksand spices.

Nevertheless, the dream of what the Euro-pean explorers called the “passage to India”proved hard to kill. It took new form in thebelief that, somewhere, the American conti-nents must be pierced by a water route—astrait, or perhaps a great inland sea thatdrained to both the Atlantic and the Pacific, or,failing that, a system of rivers that could belinked together by short portages where smallboats could be carried across land from onebody of navigable water to the next. For thenext three centuries after Columbus’s landingin the New World, generation after generationof European explorers sought that elusivewater route across the Americas.

In the course of the 16th century, Spanishand Portuguese explorers were able to estab-lish that neither South nor Central Americaoffered such a route. That left North America.

Search for the Northwest Passage

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Unlike the regions to the south that had beenclaimed by Spain and Portugal, the interiorregions of North America and its westerncoastline remained largely unexplored andunsettled by Europeans and their Americandescendants century after century. The entic-ing possibility of finding a “Northwest Pas-sage” through the Arctic regions of the NorthAmerican continent or through some combi-nation of rivers, lakes, and inland seas in theinterior of the continent, excited the imagi-nation of European explorers such as JohnCabot, Giovanni da Verrazano, Jacques Car-tier, Samuel de Champlain, and Henry Hud-son in the 16th and 17th centuries. They neverfound the opening to the Pacific that theysought so diligently, but the discoveries theymade in the course of their search for theNorthwest Passage helped lay the groundworkfor the great rival North American empires ofBritain and France.

THE MISSOURI: Key to the Northwest Passage?In the 17th and 18th centuries, the Frenchaccomplished many of the boldest and mostsuccessful journeys of exploration in theNorth American interior. In 1673, French-Canadian explorer Louis Joliet and Jesuit mis-sionary Jacques Marquette, accompanied byfive voyageurs (boatmen skilled in wildernesstravel), sailed from Canada down the Missis-sippi River as far south as present-dayArkansas. Along the way they came upon themouth of a large river that emptied into theMississippi, a river previously unknown toEuropeans. This river, eventually named theMissouri after a local Indian tribe, proved tobe the principal tributary of the Mississippi.

After his return to Canada, Father Mar-quette would describe the Missouri as a river“of considerable size, coming from the north-

west, from a great distance.” How great a dis-tance, he could not tell, but later explorerswould establish its length some 2,464 milesfrom its headwaters to its mouth, making itthe longest river in North America. The Mis-souri drains a river basin of more than 500,000square miles, and it includes among its owntributaries such mighty and fabled Americanrivers as the Yellowstone, the Grand, the Heart,the Judith, the Knife, the Milk, the Cheyenne,the White, the Platte, the Kansas, and theOsage.

Marquette and Joliet knew nothing of the geography of that great western riverdrainage system. But they did believe that inthe Missouri River they had found the key tothe Northwest Passage. If the waters of theMissouri flowed eastward from some highpoint of land in the far west of the NorthAmerican continent down to the Mississippi,they reasoned, then other waters must beflowing westward from the same height ofland, down the rest of the way across the con-tinent to empty somewhere into the PacificOcean.

The mountains from which the Missouriflowed were thus imagined long before theywere seen by Europeans or non-Indian Amer-icans. By the 18th century some geographerswere describing these mountains (known atvarious times as the “Shining” or the “Stony”and, finally, “Rocky” mountains) as represent-ing a “Continental Divide,” separating thecontinent’s principal water drainage systemsin two. From the Rockies’ eastern slopes, itwas understood, all waters flowed into theMissouri and the Mississippi River basins, andeventually down to the Gulf of Mexico. Fromthe Rockies’ western slopes, all waters mustdrain to the Pacific.

In 1743, some 70 years after Marquette andJoliet discovered the mouth of the Missouri,Jane Randolph Jefferson gave birth to a son,

Search for the Northwest Passage B 9

Thomas, on the family farm in the ruralcounty of Goochland (later AlbermarleCounty), in the British colony of Virginia.Thomas Jefferson’s father, Peter Jefferson, asurveyor and mapmaker, owned thousands of acres of good Virginia land. But his hungerfor land was unsatisfied. Like many wealthyplantation owners of the era, he was also aland speculator who hoped to profit from the steady westward movement of settlersseeking new lands for farming. In 1749 he wasone of the founders of the Loyal Land Com-pany, a partnership speculating in westernlands (west, that is, of the Alleghenies, thechain of inland mountains that marked the

farthest boundary of settlement for the Britishcolonies).

Peter Jefferson died in 1757 when Thomas,his eldest son, was 14 years old. Thomasinherited his father’s property and become aprominent figure among the wealthy elite ofplantation owners who ruled 18th century Vir-ginia. But before he did so, he was sent off tostudy with Reverend James Maury of Freder-icksville, Virginia, another Loyal Land Com-pany member, who had a strong interest ingeography, an interest he passed on to his stu-dent. Shortly before Peter Jefferson died, theReverend Maury had written a friend describ-ing a plan the Loyal Land Company was devis-

This photograph shows the Missouri River, as it can be found now, in a quiet, undisturbed moment. Lewisand Clark hoped that the river would lead them to the Northwest Passage. (Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division [LC-USZ62-309152])

ing for a western venture: “Some persons wereto be sent in search of that river Missouri . . . inorder to discover whether it had any commu-nication with the Pacific Ocean. . . .” Tensionson the frontier, leading in a few years to theoutbreak of the French and Indian War, madethe plan impractical. Jefferson’s father and hisfriends and associates would never realizetheir dream of finding a Northwest Passage.That task would be left to the next generation.

A NEW NATION IN THE NEW WORLDJefferson’s own generation would see theworld into which it was born turned upsidedown. First one empire, and then another,would be thrown down in North America. TheFrench and Indian War of 1754–1763 saw theend of New France, the French empire on theNorth American continent. All lands east ofthe Mississippi River, with the exception ofSpanish Florida, came under the rule of theBritish Crown. France lost control of Canadato the British, as well as the long-disputed ter-ritory it had claimed in the Ohio valley. Andthat part of New France known as Louisiana,which stretched northward up the MississippiRiver from New Orleans, and westward to thefarthest reaches of the Mississippi’s water-shed, was handed over to Spain.

The collapse of New France meant that the13 British colonies stretched along theAtlantic seacoast no longer feared attack fromthe French and their Indian allies. Far fromfeeling grateful to Great Britain for freeingthem from this threat, the colonists began toresent demands from the king and Parliamentin faraway London that they should pay taxesto support the continued British military pres-ence in North America.

What happened next is well known, as thecolonists’ discontent led to colonial rebellion,

British retaliation, and finally to the Revolu-tionary War of 1775–1783 that establishednational independence. Thomas Jefferson wasat the center of these world-shaking events, asrepresentative to the Continental Congressfrom Virginia, as principal author of the Dec-laration of Independence adopted by Con-gress on July 4, 1776, and as wartime governorof Virginia. Following the war, he served thenew American nation as congressman, U.S.minister to France, U.S. secretary of state inGeorge Washington’s first presidential cabi-net, vice president of the United States underJohn Adams, and finally as the third presidentof the United States, elected in 1800 andreelected in 1804.

THOMAS JEFFERSON’SSEARCH FOR ANEXPLORERJefferson is best remembered for his politic-al achievements, but he once declared thatthe “tranquil pursuits of science” were his“supreme delight.” He sought to increase his own knowledge and the knowledge of hiscountrymen in fields including agriculture,astronomy, cartography, geography, mathe-matics, meteorology, and natural history. Hewas fascinated by American Indians, theircustoms, and their languages. He was an avidcollector of books on scientific and other top-ics, and the collection he sold to Congressafter leaving the White House would form thebasis of the Library of Congress. He was alsothe principal founder of the University of Virginia. The only book he published in hislifetime, Notes on the State of Virginia, whichappeared in 1787, included a survey of thestate’s geography, climate, plants, animals,and mineral wealth. Whenever he could—whenever political duties permitted—he


devoted himself to his far-ranging scientificinterests.

Among the most compelling of those inter-ests was search for the Northwest Passage. Itwas not a task he could undertake himself; hewas not a frontiersman and would, in fact,never venture further west than Harper’sFerry, Virginia (later West Virginia). But heintended to do all he could to encourage oth-ers to take up the search. Late in 1783 Jeffer-son wrote to his friend and fellow Virginian,revolutionary war hero George Rogers Clark,asking if he would be interested in leading anexpedition westward to explore the region“from the Mississippi to California.” Jeffersonwas worried that if the Americans did notundertake the exploration of the unknownwestern half of the continent, the Britishwould, in order to further their ambitions of“colonising into that quarter,” as he put it.Clark, who had led American soldiers in thefight against the British and their Indian alliesin the Ohio valley, found the prospect of whathe described as “a tour to west and North westof the Continent” to be “Extreamly agreable,”but had to decline Jefferson’s offer. His servicein the Revolutionary War had left his financesin disarray, and he could not take the timeaway from family responsibilities to lead arisky venture such as Jefferson proposed.

Soon afterward, Jefferson sailed to Francewhere he served for five years as ambassadorto the United States’s most important Euro-pean ally. But he did not stop thinking of theNorthwest Passage. In Paris he met John Led-yard, a native of Connecticut who had been amember of British captain James Cook’sfamous third expedition exploring the Pacific.In the years between 1776 and 1780 CaptainCook sailed around the tip of Africa to theIndian Ocean, from there to the South Pacific,onward to the Hawaiian Islands, and then tothe Pacific Northwest coast of North America.

Cook died before completing the expedition,but Ledyard and others survived to tell thetale. Ledyard published a book in 1783 enti-tled A Journal of Captain Cook’s Last Voyage tothe Pacific Ocean . . . in the Years 1776, 1777,1778 and 1779, describing his experiences.Ledyard was probably the first non-IndianAmerican ever to visit the Pacific Northwest,which made him seem an authority on theregion. Ledyard’s speculations about the


James Cook set an impressive precedent when heexplored the Pacific, including the West Coast ofNorth America. Jefferson met with a member ofCook’s expedition, John Ledyard; both men hadhopes of Ledyard’s undertaking an expedition insearch of the Northwest Passage. (Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division [LC-USZ62-100822])

lucrative possibilities of establishing a Pacifictrade route, where sea otter furs gathered inthe Pacific Northwest could be traded inChina for luxury goods, greatly interested Jef-ferson, and he was pleased when the explorer

sought him out in Paris in 1785. He listenedsympathetically while Ledyard described anambitious plan to find the Northwest Passage.

Ledyard’s plan had an interesting twist.Rather than making his way westward up the


This 1874 steel engraving of Granville Perkins’s painting Harper’s Ferry by Moonlight shows a peaceful aspectat the place where Lewis acquired weapons and an experimental iron boat for the long trip. (Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division [LC-USZ62-051189])

Missouri, the trip Jefferson had encouragedGeorge Rogers Clark to undertake, Ledyardproposed tackling the problem of finding awater route across the continent from an-other direction altogether. He would set out

heading eastward from Europe, crossing Rus-sia by land, sailing across the Pacific on aRussian trading vessel to the West Coast ofNorth America, and then, somehow, aloneand on foot, find his way eastward across theContinental Divide to the Missouri River andeventually all the way to the Mississippi. Itwas a harebrained scheme, but Jefferson was sufficiently intrigued to provide somefinancial support for it and tried to secure apassport for the explorer from the Russiangovernment. Little came of the plan. Ledyardset out across Russia in 1788 but was arrestedby the Russian authorities before he washalfway across the country and was forced toreturn to Europe.

Jefferson returned to America in 1789 andtook on new duties as U.S. secretary of state.When he was not busy with his official duties,he played a prominent role in the activities ofthe privately organized American Philosophi-cal Society. Founded by Benjamin Franklinand based in Philadelphia, the AmericanPhilosophical Society sought to promote sci-entific and practical knowledge: Among otherprojects it hoped to sponsor an expedition tofind the Northwest Passage.

André Michaux, a French botanist living inthe United States, came to the American Phi-losophical Society in 1792 with a proposal tolead an expedition for that purpose. Jeffersonwould probably have preferred an Americanexpedition leader, but he was impressed byMichaux’s scientific credentials and undertookfund-raising for the proposed expedition(George Washington was among those contri-buting). He also wrote out a detailed set of in-structions for Michaux in 1793, specifying that“the chief objects of your journey are to find theshortest & most convenient route of communi-cation between the US & the Pacific ocean . . .”Before Michaux could set out up the Missouri,he got mixed up in a shady international


conspiracy to reestablish French influence inthe Louisiana Territory, which brought plansfor the expedition to an abrupt halt. The dreamof finding the Northwest Passage had run intoanother dead end. But before the project fellthrough, an 18-year old U.S. Army officernamed Meriwether Lewis had written to Jeffer-son asking if he could be a member of the expe-dition. Jefferson, who knew Lewis and hisfamily from Virginia, kept his name in mind forfuture service.

THE DISCOVERY OF THE COLUMBIA RIVERIn his 1793 letter of instructions to Michaux,Jefferson noted in passing that “the latestmaps” suggested that “a river called Oreganinterlocked with the Missouri for a consider-able distance & entered the Pacific Ocean. . . .”For nearly 30 years, there had been specula-tion in America and Britain about the exis-tence of a river variously called the “Ouragon,”the “Oregan,” or the “Oregon,” emptying intothe Pacific somewhere north of California,with its headwaters in the Rocky Mountainssomewhere near those of the Missouri. RobertRogers, the commander of Roger’s Rangersduring the French and Indian War, had triedunsuccessfully after the war to interest theBritish government in sponsoring him on anexpedition to discover this river. The existenceof an Oregon River was pure hypothesis on thepart of explorers and geographers because nowhite man had ever actually seen, let alonesailed upon it. Captain Cook’s exploration ofthe Pacific Coast had turned up no evidence ofits existence.

Where the explorers failed, a private busi-nessman succeeded. In the late 18th centuryan increasing number of merchant ships wereprowling the coast of the Pacific Northwest,trading rum, muskets, beads, and other man-

ufactured goods to the coastal Indian tribes inexchange for furs, especially the highly valuedfur of the sea otters found in those waters. AsJohn Ledyard had predicted, there were for-tunes to be made carrying the sea otter furs toChinese ports, where they could be traded forspices, silks, and other luxury goods, whichcould then be sold for huge profits in Londonor Boston. In 1792 an American sea captainnamed Robert Gray, sailing out of Boston tothe Pacific Northwest on just such a fur-trad-ing voyage, discovered the mouth of a greatriver emptying into the Pacific. The OregonRiver really did exist, and the dream of findinga Northwest Passage now seemed closer thanever to being realized.

Gray, however, did not call the river by thename Oregon. Instead he named it theColumbia River, after his ship the ColumbiaRedivivia. The discovery of the Columbia byan American gave the United States a some-what tenuous claim to the Oregon territory.The Stars and Stripes was the first nationalflag to fly over the Columbia estuary. But Graywas just a private sailor in a merchant ship,acting without any official connection to theU.S. government. Moreover, he generouslyshared information about the location of theColumbia’s mouth with a Royal Navy captainnamed George Vancouver who was on a mis-sion of exploration in the same region, and itwas Vancouver who actually announcedGray’s discovery to the world. Vancouver sentone of his subordinates, Lieutenant WilliamBroughton, on an exploratory journey up theriver in a longboat. Broughton and his mensailed 100 miles inland, much farther thanGray had gone. At a point of land just past thesite of present-day Portland, Oregon, Brough-ton stepped ashore and declared the sur-rounding lands to be the possession of theBritish Crown. Broughton also named some ofthe most prominent geographical features vis-


ible from the river, including two of the snow-capped volcanoes of the Cascades range,Mount Hood and Mount St. Helens. ThomasJefferson was among those who carefully readGeorge Vancouver’s 1798 book, A Voyage ofDiscovery to the North Pacific, which includeddetailed charts of the mouth of the ColumbiaRiver and the surrounding lands.

With the long-standing Spanish claim toCalifornia, and the new if less well-establishedBritish claim to the Oregon territory, the entire

Pacific coast of the North American continentseemed likely to end up as the permanentpossession of European colonial powers.Taken together, Spanish and British control ofmuch of the Pacific coast (along with Russiancontrol of Alaska) might well shut U.S. tradersout of the increasingly lucrative trade in furswith the coastal Indians. And it would meanthat if there were such a thing as a NorthwestPassage, its western terminus would be in thehands of a foreign power. At the end of the


Alexander Mackenzie’s Expedition across Canada =

In 1802 Jefferson read a book entitled Voyages from Montreal . . . through theContinent of North America, to the Frozen and Pacific Oceans, published in Lon-don in the previous year. Its author was a Scottish-born explorer named Alexan-der Mackenzie who was an employee of the fur-trading North West Company.Voyages from Montreal recorded Mackenzie’s journey by canoe and by footacross western Canada to the Pacific Ocean and back in 1792–93.

With a party of nine companions Mackenzie traveled up the Peace River bycanoe to the foot of the Rocky Mountains and then crossed the ContinentalDivide on foot. He made it sound easy—the canoe trip had taken only amonth, and he described the pass that led him across the Rockies as “abeaten path leading over a low ridge of land,” a mere 3,000 feet in elevation.From there he and his companions made their way to the Pacific Ocean byriver part of the way, and then by land. When he reached the ocean, hepainted on a cliff face the words “Alexander Mackenzie, from Canada, by land,the twenty-second of July, one thousand seven hundred and ninety three.”Although he had not discovered the Northwest Passage, he had crossed theNorth American continent, the first time it had been done by a non-Indian, andperhaps by anyone. Mackenzie’s book outlined a plan for further explorationof the Pacific Northwest, emphasizing the economic importance of establish-ing British control over the newly discovered Columbia river. “By opening thisintercourse between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans,” Mackenzie suggested,“and forming regular establishments throughout the interior . . . as well asalong the coasts and islands, the entire command of the fur trade of NorthAmerica might be obtained.” Voyages from Montreal proved a wake-up call to Jefferson. If Americans did not act quickly to find their own Northwest Passage, they might well find themselves forever shut out of the PacificNorthwest.

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18th century, it thus seemed unlikely that theinfant republic of the United States, whosewesternmost territory then came to an end onthe eastern bank of the Mississippi River,would ever become the nation whose landsextended “from sea to shining sea.”

PRESIDENT JEFFERSONFINDS HIS EXPLORERShortly before his inauguration as third presi-dent of the United States in the late winter of1801, Thomas Jefferson wrote a letter to Meri-wether Lewis, the man who eight years earlierhad volunteered to go along on the ill-fatedAmerican Philosophical Society expedition.Lewis was now 26 years old and a captain inthe U.S. Army. “Dear Sir,” Jefferson wrote,“The appointment to the Presidency of theU.S. has rendered it necessary for me to havea private secretary.” He thought the youngarmy officer would prove the ideal man for thejob, even though Lewis had never been toWashington, D.C., or served in any adminis-trative post in the government. “Your knolegeof the Western country, of the army and of allit’s interests & relations has rendered it desire-able for public as well as private purposes thatyou should be engaged in that office,” hewrote. While helping Jefferson with his officialcorrespondence and other matters, Lewiscould retain his rank as a captain in the U.S.Army. “Dear Sir,” Lewis wrote in reply to thepresident on March 10, “I most cordiallyacquiesce, and with pleasure accept theoffice . . .”

In March 1801 Lewis was veteran of a half-dozen years of uneventful military service inPennsylvania and Ohio, the U.S. frontier in the1790s. Born on August 18, 1774, on a planta-tion called Locust Hill in Albermarle County,Virginia (not far from Monticello), he was theson of William Lewis and Lucy Meriwether

Lewis. Like so many of their countrymen, theLewis family found its fortunes dramaticallychanged by the American Revolution, whichbroke out when Meriwether was a toddler.Shortly after he turned five years old in 1779,his father, a lieutenant in the Continentalarmy, died while returning to the war from aleave to visit his family. Meriwether Lewis didnot grow up with any fondness for the Britishor their colonial ambitions in North America.

Meriwether’s mother soon remarried, andfor a few years the family lived in Georgia, onsome of his stepfather’s lands. But the boy wassent back to Locust Hill for schooling at age13, where he wound up studying with ParsonMatthew Maury, the son of Thomas Jefferson’sschoolmaster James Maury. Unlike Jefferson’s,Lewis’s education stopped while he was ateenager. After his stepfather’s death hismother and her other children moved back to the family plantation in Virginia. Lewislearned the skills necessary for a Virginiaplanter: riding, overseeing slaves, and keepingaccount books. His mother was noted for herskills in herbal medicine, and she may havegiven him an eye for plants and their uses,which would later prove extremely useful.

Lewis proved to have an adventurousstreak that could not be satisfied by the seden-tary life of a Virginia planter. In 1795 heenlisted in the Virginia militia and marchedoff to the frontier to help put down a back-woods rebellion sparked by frontiersmen whoresented paying federal taxes (known as theWhiskey Rebellion). It was not much of a re-bellion, and all the excitement was over be-fore Lewis got there. But he found that heliked the soldier’s life, and transferred to theU.S. Army. The regular standing army was avery small outfit in the 1790s, starved by Con-gress for men and supplies, and mostlydevoted to guarding western settlers againstIndian attacks.


As it turned out, Lewis never heard a gunfired in anger over the next six years of frontierduty. In 1801 he was serving as paymaster forthe U.S. Army’s First Infantry Regiment,whose headquarters were in Pittsburgh. Hewas a capable officer but may well have won-dered about his future; the military being sosmall and so inactive, there was not muchscope for promotion. All things remainingequal, Lewis might well have lived his life outin obscurity, the command of a backwoodsmilitary outpost the greatest achievement ofhis life. Or, worse, he might have beencashiered (dishonorably discharged) from thearmy for drinking and returned to Virginia in

disgrace because he had a growing fondnessfor alcohol that was already getting him intotrouble with his superior officers.

All that changed in March 1801 when theletter from Jefferson arrived. As Lewis wrote toa friend and fellow soldier a few days later, “Icannot withhold from you my friend theagreeable intelligence I received on my arrivalat this place [Pittsburgh] by way of a verypolite note from Thomas Jefferson, the newlyelected President of the United States, signify-ing his wish that I should except [accept] theoffice of his private Secretary . . .” Lewis con-fessed that the unexpected offer “did not failto raise me somewhat in my own estimation,”


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Pittsburgh

Washington,D.C.

Philadelphia

Boston

EAST FLORIDA

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CANADA(British)

IndianaTerritory

OhioTerritory

Mississippi Terr.

OREGON COUNTRY(Area later claimed by Spain,

Great Britain, and U.S.)

SPANISHTERRITORY

MD

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CT RI

MA

NY

PA

VA

KY

TNNC

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GA

ME(Mass.)

NHVT

LOUISIANA(ceded to France by

Spain in 1801)

WEST FLORIDA(Sp.)

ATLANTICOCEAN

Gulf ofMexico

PACIFICOCEAN

GreatSaltLake

Lake Superior

LakeErie

LakeOntarioLakeOntario

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NashvilleRaleigh

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VincennesCincinnati Marietta

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Philadelphia New YorkProvidence

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Montreal

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Detroit

KaskaskiaSt. Louis

United States, 1802

coming as it did from “a man whose virtue andtalents I have ever adored . . .” Within the weekLewis was en route to Washington, arriving atthe start of April. For the next two years helived as part of Jefferson’s household in theofficial residence that was then called thePresident’s House and would later be knownas the White House. Lewis had a room on thesecond floor in the east wing of the building;Jefferson lived in the west wing. When Jeffer-son went home to Monticello for summervacation, Lewis accompanied him. His tasks,for the most part were routine; he conferredwith Jefferson on military and politicalappointments, carried messages to Congressfor the president, and wrote letters on officialbusiness. But the company could not havebeen better.

Despite the difference in their ages (Jeffer-son was then in his 60s, Lewis in his 20s), thetwo men grew close. Lewis had lost his fatherat an early age, and Jefferson had no sons, so itwould not be surprising if there was a trace ofa father-son bond in their friendship. Norwould it be surprising if, sometime soon afterLewis’s arrival in Washington, their conversa-tion turned to the subject of their shareddream of finding the Northwest Passage,though there is no record of just when thattopic first arose.

Sometime during those two years theyspent in each other’s company, most likely insummer or fall 1802, Thomas Jeffersondecided that Meriwether Lewis was the manfor whom he had long searched to lead anAmerican expedition up the Missouri. Jeffer-son regretted that the young army officer wasnot trained as a scientist. Nonetheless, hecould see qualities in Lewis that were proba-bly more important to the success of such adaring undertaking than a thorough scientificeducation, qualities that, as he later wrote,included “firmness of constitution & charac-

ter, prudence, habits adapted to the woods, &a familiarity with the Indian manners andcharacter . . .” Jefferson believed that Lewishad a remarkable gift for “accurate observa-tion” that would allow him to “readily singleout whatever presents itself new to him” in thenatural world, a habit of mind valuable toboth the scientist and the explorer.

In December 1802 Jefferson asked theSpanish minister (or ambassador) in Washing-ton, Carlos Martínez de Yrujo, if his govern-ment would have any objection if a smallparty of American explorers traveled up theMissouri River through the Louisiana Terri-tory, controlled by Spain, on what hedescribed as a purely “literary” (meaning sci-entific) expedition. Martínez correctly sus-pected that the U.S. president was not beingcompletely honest about the purposes of theproposed mission. Jefferson, Martínez wroteto his superiors in Madrid, was “a lover ofglory” as well as “a man of letters,” and proba-bly intended “to discover the way by which theAmericans may some day extend their popu-lation and their influence up to the coasts ofthe South Sea [the Pacific].”

Jefferson ignored the unfriendly Spanishresponse. He would have liked to havesecured a Spanish passport for Lewis, but ifnone was forthcoming the expedition up theMissouri would take place anyway. Havingmade up his mind that the time was right to realize his long-held dream of finding theNorthwest Passage, he acted decisively, ifstealthily, to prepare the way for Lewis. On January 18, 1803, he sent a confidentialmessage to the U.S. Congress. “The river Mis-souri, & the Indians inhabiting it,” the pre-sident declared, “are not as well known as is rendered desireable by their connectionwith the Mississippi, & consequently withus.” Jefferson proposed a remedy for thisproblem:


An intelligent officer with ten or twelve cho-sen men, fit for the enterprize and willing toundertake it, from our posts, where theymay be spared without inconvenience,might explore the whole line, even to theWestern ocean, have conferences with thenatives on the subject of commercial inter-course, get admission among them for ourtraders as others are admitted, agree onconvenient deposits for an interchange ofarticles, and return with the informationacquired in the course of two summers.

In his dealings with Congress, as with theSpanish ambassador, Jefferson was being less than completely honest. His emphasis onthe benefits the expedition might yield forAmerican merchants, although certainly aconcern of Jefferson’s, was not the main pur-pose of the expedition. He said nothing of thescientific observations that he hoped his“intelligent officer” would carry out enroute—he rather doubted whether as presi-dent he had the authority under the Consti-tution to launch an expedition for thatpurpose. And the possibility that the expedi-tion might find a route all the way to the“Western ocean,” was mentioned almost asan afterthought. Any implications such a dis-

covery might have for the expansion of Amer-ican territory westward to the Pacific wereleft unspoken. In any case, candid or not, Jef-ferson’s message to Congress produced theresults he wished for. In February Congressauthorized the expedition, with an appropri-ation for the sum he asked to pay for it(although the $2,500 that Congress appropri-ated turned out to be about one-sixteenth ofthe eventual cost).

The public was not informed of any of this.Jefferson was quietly exultant and let a fewclose associates from the American Philo-sophical Society in on the exciting news.“What follows in this letter is strictly confiden-tial,” Jefferson wrote in February to BenjaminSmith Barton, professor of botany at the Uni-versity of Pennsylvania:

You know we have been many years wishingto have the Missouri explored & whateverriver, heading with that, runs into the West-ern ocean. Congress, in some secret pro-ceedings, have yielded to a proposition Imade them for permitting me to have itdone: it is to be undertaken immediately,with a party of about ten, & I haveappointed Capt. Lewis, my secretary, toconduct it.


20

In spring 1803 Meriwether Lewisgrappled with the daunting questionof determining what a dozen or more

explorers need to bring with them whencrossing thousands of miles of wilderness onriver and by foot, across plains, throughforests, and over mountains, exposed to sum-mer’s heat and winter’s cold, uncertain of theroute and the reception they might receivefrom the Native inhabitants.

SEEKING SUPPLIES AND ADVICEAmong the things Lewis and his men certainlywere going to need were firearms, both todefend and feed themselves. So in mid-MarchLewis left Washington and traveled to the fed-eral arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia. Noparty traveling west of the Mississippi Riverhad ever carried as impressive a set ofweaponry as the rifles that Lewis acquired atHarpers Ferry. These were .54 caliber Model

1803 short rifles, the first the arsenal had everproduced, easier to load and considerablymore accurate than the then standard infantrymusket. Lewis ordered 15 of the rifles; heshould have ordered more, but he had not yetmade up his mind just how large an expedi-tion he would lead up the Missouri. (In theend, most of the men carried other weapons;Lewis, for instance, was armed with a longKentucky rifle, a civilian weapon.)

He also acquired knives, tomahawks, andpistols at Harpers Ferry. And he had a specialrequest for the skilled blacksmiths at the arse-nal. He asked them to fabricate an iron framefor an experimental portable boat of Lewis’sown design. The entire iron frame for the 30-foot-long vessel could be broken down into 10sections, each weighing about 22 pounds. Ifthe expedition should come to a difficultportage, either along the Missouri or when itreached the Rockies, and was forced to aban-don its boats, he believed that the frame couldbe lugged overland and down to the next nav-

Preparing the WayMarch 1803 to May 1804

3{

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Preparing the Way B 21

igable water, then reassembled and covered inanimal skins. Lewis believed it would prove ariver-worthy craft, capable of carrying up to8,000 pounds in passengers and supplies. Hedid not, however, have time to test his theorybefore ordering the frame to be shipped west-ward.

In mid-April, Lewis rode on to Lancaster,Pennsylvania. There, Jefferson had arrangedfor him to be schooled in the art of makingcelestial observations by the eminent as-tronomer Andrew Ellicott, another of thepresident’s associates in the American Philo-sophical Society. Ellicott’s lessons would helpLewis plot his location by the position of thestars, establishing a record of longitude andlatitude as he moved up the Missouri.

In the first week of May Lewis moved on toPhiladelphia, where he would spend the nextmonth. He divided his time between meetingswith more of Jefferson’s scientific friends andsecuring supplies for the expedition. Lewiswould serve as the expedition’s doctor as wellas its commander, and his Philadelphia men-tors included the most famous physician inAmerica, Benjamin Rush. However, most ofRush’s advice would prove less than usefulwhere it was not actually harmful to thepatients under Lewis’s care. It was Rush’s con-sidered belief, for example, that powerful lax-atives were the first line of defense againstdisease. While in Philadelphia Lewis stockedup on 600 doses of “bilious pills,” or laxatives,for his medical kit. The herbal lore Lewislearned from his mother would, in the actual

Astronomer Andrew Ellicott corresponded frequently with Jefferson and was asked by the president to teach Lewis the art of celestial navigation. (Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division [LC-USZ62-098345])

Dr. Benjamin Rush instructed Lewis in basic medicine in preparation for the expedition.(Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division [LC-USZ62-97104])

Lewis and Clark left for their mission supplied with an assortment of gifts for potential encounters with Indians. Among these items were trade goods such as ribbon and colored beads. By the time they reachedthe Pacific, they ran desperately low on these supplies. (National Archives [NWDTI-92-NM81E225-LEWIS3])


event, prove far more beneficial than the pillsthat the soldiers on the expedition wouldcome to call “Rush’s Thunderbolts.” Rush alsosuggested that in the case of the “least indis-position” on the trail, the explorers should“not attempt to overcome it by labor ormarching. Rest in a horizontal position.” Ifthat advice had been taken literally, it isdoubtful that the expedition would have everreached the Pacific.

Among the other supplies Lewis pur-chased in Philadelphia were scientific andnavigational instruments, including achronometer (an accurate clock set to Green-wich Mean Time, necessary for calculatinglongitude), for which he paid $250. He spent$102.46 on iron goods, $34.15 for copper ket-tles, $114.42 for shirts, and $25.37 on fishingtackle. From Israel Wheelen, a Philadelphiamerchant, he bought 80 “pocket Lookingglasses,” 72 pieces of striped silk ribbon, and30-odd pounds of white, yellow, red, and bluebeads, all intended as presents or for barteringwith the western Indians. By the time Lewisleft Philadelphia, he had spent nearly all themoney that he and Jefferson had told Con-

gress would be necessary to pay for the entireexpedition, and he had yet to purchase any ofthe boats he would need to carry his men upthe Missouri River.

JEFFERSON’S ORDERSBy June 7, Lewis was back in Washington. Overthe next few weeks, he and the presidentdoubtless spent many hours together in theWhite House going over their plans. Jeffersonhad received advice from his scientific friendsin Philadelphia as to the kinds of informationLewis should seek out while on his voyage ofdiscovery. On June 20, Jefferson issued his finalinstructions for the expedition. “The object ofyour mission,” Jefferson wrote to Lewis,

is to explore the Missouri river, & such prin-cipal stream of it, as by it’s course and com-munication with the waters of the Pacificocean, whether the Columbia, Oregan, Col-orado or any other river may offer the mostdirect & practicable water communicationacross this continent for the purposes ofcommerce.

Lewis and Clark’s Traveling Library =

Tucked in among the tons of food, clothing, ammunition, medical supplies,and trade goods on the keelboat and pirogues, Lewis and Clark carried a trav-eling library with them on the expedition. Jefferson helped Lewis select a col-lection of books that might prove useful to the explorers. These included workson botany, mineralogy, astronomy, and medicine. Lewis and Clark also mayhave carried with them a copy of Alexander Mackenzie’s Voyages from Mon-treal, which they made references to in their journals. They even carried a his-tory book, Antoine Le Page du Pratz’s The History of Louisiana, or the WesternParts of Virginia and Carolina, first published in London in 1763. Lewis hadborrowed the book from Dr. Benjamin Smith Barton of Philadelphia in 1803,and returned it to him in 1807, with an inscription noting it had been carriedacross the continent.

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Lewis was to keep careful notations of lati-tude and longitude of all distinguishing fea-tures of the Missouri and Columbia Rivers andthe landscape through which the great riverspassed, “especially at the mouths of rivers, atrapids, at islands, & other places & objects dis-tinguished by such natural marks & charactersof a durable kind, as that they may with cer-tainty be recognised hereafter.” And, mostimportant, he was to employ his new skills infixing longitude and latitude to determine thelocation of the “interesting points of theportage between the heads of the Missouri, &of the water offering the best communicationwith the Pacific ocean. . . .”

Jefferson insisted that Lewis take everypossible precaution to ensure that the infor-mation he gathered be carefully recorded andpreserved. “Several copies of these,” Jeffersonordered in reference to Lewis’s geographicalrecords, “as well as of your other notes shouldbe made at leisure times & put into the care ofthe most trustworthy of your attendants . . .”

As for what those “other notes” should in-clude, Jefferson specified that Lewis was tomake note of the “names of the [Indian] nations& their numbers” he encountered en route, aswell as observations of their relations withother tribes, their languages, their economy,their society, their culture, and their religions.

Nor was that all. Jefferson made a long listof “other objects worthy of notice” for Lewisand the expedition:

The soil & face of the country, it’s growth& vegetable productions, especiallythose not of the U.S.

The animals of the country generally, &especially those not known in the U.S.

The remains or accounts of any whichmay be deemed rare or extinct;

The mineral production of every kind. . . .Volcanic appearances;

Climate, as characterised by thermome-ter, by the proportion of rainy, cloudy,& clear days, by lightning, hail, snow,ice, by the access & recess of frost, bythe winds prevailing at different sea-sons, the dates at which particularplants put forth or lose their flower, orleaf, times of appearance of particularbirds, reptiles or insects.

Returning again to the necessity for guar-anteeing that a copy of his notes survive, Jef-ferson urged Lewis to take advantage of anycircumstances that would allow him to sendback to Washington, perhaps by friendlyIndian couriers, or by any merchant ship theymight encounter on the Pacific coast, “a copyof your journal, notes & observations of everykind. . . .” This was the only time Jeffersonused the word journal in his instructions toLewis, and then only in passing, but it is aword that will always be linked with the expe-dition. In carrying out President Jefferson’sorders, Captain Lewis was required, not onlyto be an explorer and a military commander,but also a writer. And in this last endeavor, heproved to have gifts that even Jefferson, hisintimate companion and great admirer, neversuspected. The journals that Lewis kept overthe next several years would prove his greatestsingle legacy to subsequent generations ofAmericans.

LEWIS FINDS A CO-COMMANDERPresident Jefferson closed his list of instruc-tions to Captain Lewis by reminding him ofone final duty: “To provide, on the accident ofyour death, against anarchy, dispersion, & theconsequent danger to your party, and totalfailure of the enterprize, you are herebyauthorized . . . to name the person among



them who shall succeed to command on your[death]. . . .”

Jefferson and Lewis had, in fact, alreadyagreed on their candidate for second in com-mand. “Dear Clark,” Lewis wrote on June 19,1803: “From the long and uninteruptedfriendship and confidence which has sub-sisted between us I feel no hesitation in mak-ing to you the following communicationunder the fulest impression it will be held byyou inviolably secret . . .” The man to whomhe was writing was a former army officernamed William Clark, with whom Lewis hadserved on the western frontier eight years ear-lier. Lewis described at some length the mis-sion he had been given to explore theMissouri “as far as it’s navigation is practica-ble,” and from there by land to “pass over tothe waters of the Columbia or Origan Riverand by descending it reach the WesternOcean. . . .” Lewis ended with a personal pleato Clark: “If therefore there is anything underthose circumstances, in this enterprise, whichwould induce you to participate with me init’s fatiegues, it’s dangers and it’s honors,believe me there is no man on earth withwhom I should feel equal pleasure in sharingthem as with yourself.”

Lewis had first met Clark in 1795 at FortGreenville, Ohio. There he served underClark’s command in an army rifle company forsix months. Like Lewis, Clark was a Virginianby birth. He was born August 1, 1770, in Caro-line County, Virginia, the ninth child in a fam-ily of 10 children. One of his older brotherswas George Rogers Clark, a hero of frontierfighting during the American Revolution, andthe man who Jefferson had first asked to leadan expedition in search of the Northwest Pas-sage back in 1783. When William was 14, hisfamily moved to a plantation near the Falls ofthe Ohio in Indiana territory, across the riverfrom present-day Louisville, Kentucky. He

joined the Kentucky militia in 1789 and trans-ferred to the U.S. Army in 1792. Like Lewis, hewas an accomplished woodsman, and he wasan impressive commanding figure, more thansix feet tall. Among his distinguishing featureswas his hair color; some of the Indians whomet him would call him the “Red-HeadedChief.” Unlike Lewis, he had actually beeninvolved in fighting the Indians, including thedecisive Battle of Fallen Timbers in 1794 thatsecured the Ohio valley for white settlement.Clark resigned his commission in the army in1796 to look after family business. Lewis hadoccasional contact with Clark in the years thatfollowed, but despite the warm words thatended Lewis’s letter, they had not been closepersonal friends.

It took a month for Lewis’s letter to reachClark at his home in Kentucky, and it tookhim but a day to make up his mind. “DearLewis,” he wrote on July 18, 1803: “I receivedby yesterdays Mail, your letter of the 19th . . .The Contents of which I received with much pleasure. . . . This is an undertakingfraited [freighted] with many difeculties, butMy friend I do assure you that no man liveswhith whome I would perfur to undertakeSuch a Trip &c. as your self . . .” Lewis hadassured Clark that although Lewis would benominally in command, they would in factfunction on the expedition as co-commanders,and that Clark could resume his former army rank of Captain. What had started out as the Lewis expedition was now to beknown to posterity as the Lewis and ClarkExpedition.

THE LOUISIANA PURCHASEIn his letter inviting Clark to join the expedi-tion, Lewis shared a piece of confidentialinformation then known to only a few people

in Thomas Jefferson’s administration, namelythat “the whole of that immense countrywartered [watered] by the Mississippi and it’stributary streams, Missouri inclusive, will bethe property of the U. States in less than 12months from this date. . . .” When Jeffersonhad first discussed with Lewis the possibilityof sending him up the Missouri in search ofthe Northwest Passage, both men had knownthat this involved a venture not only into thewilderness but into foreign territory. Themoment that Lewis and his party of explorersleft the east bank of the Mississippi to crossover to the mouth of the Missouri, they wouldbe leaving U.S. soil. Added to the dangers ofthe wilderness, and of possibly hostile Indiantribes, Lewis might well find himself chal-lenged and detained by unfriendly Spanishauthorities.

The Louisiana Territory, including the cityof New Orleans at the mouth of the Missis-sippi River, had been ceded by France to Spainin 1762, near the end of the French and IndianWar. The Spanish were well pleased with thedeal because they could use the Louisiana Ter-ritory as a buffer zone between their long-established colonies in Mexico and theSouthwest, and the British colonies on theAtlantic Coast.

Spain had been the center of Europe’smost powerful empire in the 16th and 17thcenturies. But by the late 18th century itspower was waning in Europe and in the NewWorld. The Spanish flag flew over New Orleansand the little frontier outpost far uprivercalled St. Louis, but most of the European res-idents of the territory remained French-speaking. After the American Revolution,land-hungry American settlers were pouringinto the Ohio and Mississippi valleys; somewere crossing the Mississippi and enteringSpanish-controlled territory. Given time, U.S. leaders expected, the Spanish would

inevitably be pushed aside in the LouisianaTerritory by the pressure of migrating Ameri-can settlers.

Expectations that the United States wouldone day inherit the lands west of the Missis-sippi were badly shaken by events abroad in1800–01, when Spain agreed to a proposalfrom French emperor Napoleon Bonaparte toswap the Louisiana Territory for land he con-trolled in northern Italy. After a 40-yearabsence, it looked like France was comingback to North America.

Jefferson was determined to head off thetransfer of New Orleans to France. The UnitedStates could live with a decaying Spanish em-pire as a neighbor, but not an aggressive,expansive French empire with a chokehold onthe Mississippi. “There is on the globe one spot,the possessor of which is our natural and habit-ual enemy,” Jefferson wrote to American diplo-mat Robert Livingston in 1802. “It is NewOrleans, through which the produce of three-eighths of our territory must pass to market . . .”

Livingston was in Paris, trying to negotiatethe purchase of New Orleans from Napoleon’sgovernment. Negotiations were not going well.Napoleon planned to send an army of thou-sands of French soldiers to New Orleans assoon as they finished suppressing a slave re-bellion in the French-controlled island ofSaint-Domingue (present-day Haiti and theDominican Republic) in the Caribbean. But theFrench army on Saint-Domingue met a fatefulsetback, decimated by yellow fever and by theattacks of the rebellious slaves. Napoleon sud-denly decided that he had more pressing busi-ness beating the British in Europe, and inspring 1803 ordered his negotiators to offer theAmericans not just New Orleans but all of theLouisiana Territory, the entire region of theMissouri watershed that stretched from theMississippi to the Rocky Mountains. For thebargain price of $15 million, the American



Lewis’s Map Collection =

Lewis needed to know what to expect in his search for the Northwest Passage.He needed maps. He got one of them from Nicholas King, surveyor for the newlyfounded city of Washington, D.C. At the request of Albert Gallatin, secretary ofthe treasury, King prepared a map for Lewis, drawing on the best availableknowledge of western geography. The King map gave a fairly accurate repre-sentation of the Mississippi River, of the first few hundred miles of the MissouriRiver, and the Pacific coast around the mouth of the Columbia River. But inbetween those points, what little detail was given was labeled “conjectural”—which meant it was anybody’s guess as to what actually would be found.

Lewis also had a map that Aaron Arrowsmith, a British mapmaker, had pub-lished in 1802 and that was advertised as “Exhibiting All the New Discoveries inthe Interior Parts of North America.” Arrowsmith’s map showed AlexanderMackenzie’s discoveries in Canada, as well as details of the upper Missouri pro-vided by Hudson’s Bay Company fur traders. Like the King map, Arrowsmithdepicted the Rocky Mountains as a single and not very impressive mountainrange.

When they reached St. Louis, Lewis and Clark were also able to obtain copiesof maps drawn by James Mackay and John Evans, who had explored the Mis-souri as far as villages of the Mandan Indians in the 1790s on behalf of a Span-ish-chartered fur-trading company. Although neither Evans or Mackay hadtraveled west of the Mandan villages, their maps provided useful details aboutthat region, such as the location of the mouth of the Yellowstone River, as wellas the location of a great falls along the Missouri. Their maps also suggestedthat the Rockies might prove a more formidable barrier than the single-ridgeline usually depicted.

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negotiators in Paris added 565 million acres tothe territory of the United States. The LouisianaPurchase brought into U.S. possession the ter-ritory that would over the course of the 19thcentury become the states of Louisiana,Arkansas, Missouri, Iowa, Minnesota, NorthDakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Okla-homa, and Montana, as well as about half thefuture states of Wyoming and Colorado.

Although unofficial reports of the impend-ing sale reached Washington in early June; Jefferson did not receive formal confirmationof the Louisiana Purchase until July 3. Lewis

now had the welcome assurance that hewould be traveling through U.S. territory untilhe crossed over the Rockies. On July 5 Lewisleft Washington heading westward. Before heleft, he wrote a good-bye letter to his motherin Virginia: “[M]y absence will probably beequal to fifteen or eighteen months,” he toldher. “[T]he nature of this expedition is by nomeans dangerous. . . . I go with the most per-fect preconviction in my own mind of return-ing safe and hope therefore that you will notsuffer yourself to indulge in any anxiety for mysafety.” Lewis’s estimate of the trip’s dangers

On April 30, 1803, the United States purchased the Louisiana Territory from France, doubling its size. The cost per acre averaged only four cents. Lewis and Clark were thefirst American citizens to cross the new territory. (National Archives, Old Military and CivilRecords [NWCTB-11-ITAPI159E9-TS(EX)86B])


was clearly intended to reassure his motherand may not have reflected his own soberjudgment of what he faced in the westernwilderness. But his estimate of the trip’s dura-tion probably did reflect his thinking in 1803.As it turned out, his estimate was off by nearlya year. It would be two years, five months, and25 days before he would return to Washington,D.C., to report to President Jefferson.

FROM THE OHIO TO THE MISSISSIPPILewis’s first stop after departing Washingtonwas Harpers Ferry, to check on the supplies hehad ordered from the federal arsenal. He then

rode on to Pittsburgh, where he had con-tracted with a local boatbuilder to construct alarge keelboat. One wagonload of supplieswould follow him to Pittsburgh from HarpersFerry; another was already en route fromPhiladelphia. Eight soldiers from the fort atCarlisle, Pennsylvania, would also join Lewisin Pittsburgh, to take the keelboat down theOhio River. They would not accompany theexpedition up the Missouri; Lewis was torecruit his expedition members from armyposts they would pass while traveling en routeto St. Louis.

Lewis arrived in Pittsburgh on July 15. Afrontier outpost in the 18th century, Pitts-burgh had grown into a city of about 2,400inhabitants by 1803, a regional transportationhub whose future growth was insured by itslocation at the junction of the Monongahelaand Allegheny Rivers. The city was alsobecoming a center of American manufactur-ing, with boatyards and a nail factory.

Lewis looked forward to seeing the keel-boat, which according to the assurances hehad received from the builder would be readyto launch by July 20. The craft was to be 55 feetlong, eight feet wide, with a 32-foot mast, acabin in the stern, and capable of carrying 10tons of supplies and a crew of two dozen. Itcould be propelled by its sails, by 22 oars, bypoles, or by towropes, depending on condi-tions the expedition met along the Missouri.

Lewis was in for a disappointment. Theboatbuilder much preferred drink to work,and it would be nearly the end of Augustbefore the keelboat was completed. For thenext six weeks all Lewis could do was show upat the boatyard and see to it that the builderstayed reasonably sober and attentive to histask. While he waited, he took delivery of thesupplies from Harpers Ferry and Philadelphia,and he took command of seven of the eightsoldiers who were supposed to accompany

France’s emperor repossessed the Louisiana Territory from Spain in 1801 only to sell it in itsentirety to the United States in 1803. Lewis andClark were in St. Louis when it passed from Frenchto American possession. (Library of Congress, Printsand Photographs Division [LC-USZ62-121171])

him down the Ohio (one deserted beforereaching Pittsburgh). Clark’s letter acceptinghis offer of co-command caught up withLewis while he was in Pittsburgh, which cameas welcome news. Lewis also recruited twovolunteers, George Shannon and John Colter,who were to become part of the permanentexpedition party.

Lewis had originally planned to reach St.Louis by the end of summer and to head upthe Missouri some 200 or 300 miles beforemaking winter camp. But fall was coming on,and he still had 1,100 miles to travel by riverjust to reach the mouth of the Missouri.Finally, on August 31, Lewis and his crew of 10or possibly 11 men (the seven soldiers, two or


This sketch, made by Clark, illustrates the 55-foot-long keelboat designed by Lewis and modified byClark. (Yale Collection of Western Americana, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library)


possibly three new recruits, and a pilot whowas to help them navigate the Falls of theOhio) set off down the Ohio River. Seaman, ablack Newfoundland dog that Lewis hadbought for company in Pittsburgh for $20,accompanied them. There were now twoboats in Lewis’s little fleet: the keelboat and apirogue that he also purchased in Pittsburgh(the pirogue, as Lewis used the term, was aflat-bottomed open boat that could be rowedor rigged with a sail).

Because of the shallow water in late sum-mer, Lewis did not want to overload the boats.Some of the expedition supplies were sentoverland by wagon to Wheeling, Virginia (nowWest Virginia), where the river deepened.Even with the lightened load, the men fre-quently had to get out, unload and portage thecargo downriver, and then drag the boatsthrough shallow places in the river. They hadother troubles as well, further slowing theirprogress. Rain was rusting their rifles, toma-hawks, and knives and spoiling the supply ofbiscuits, forcing them to halt to dry theirgoods and repackage them. The pirogue Lewisacquired in Pittsburgh leaked, as did areplacement craft he picked up en route a fewdays later. In Wheeling on September 9 Lewispurchased a larger pirogue that served thembetter. It is difficult to keep track of the expe-dition’s boats, but somewhere along the wayen route to the Mississippi that fall, Lewisseems to have acquired both the red and thewhite pirogue that would carry his men up theMissouri.

Lewis was already keeping his eyes openfor interesting natural phenomena that hecould report to Jefferson. On September 11 hesaw something that astonished him: a largenumber of grey squirrels swimming “light onthe water” across the Ohio River. He was at aloss to explain the mass migration, since bothsides of the river were equally well supplied

with nut-bearing trees. Lewis’s interests in theswimming squirrels as a naturalist soon gaveway to another interest: satisfying his ap-petite. He sent Seaman the Newfoundlanddog into the river to kill some of the squirrelsand fetch them back to the boat. “[T]hey werfat,” Lewis wrote contentedly in the journal hewas starting to keep, “and I thought themwhen fryed a pleasant food.” Two days later,the squirrels were still to be seen crossing theriver. He also mentioned seeing a flock of pas-senger pigeons flying southward—somethingthat did not surprise him, because passengerpigeons, extinct by the beginning of the 20thcentury, were known in Lewis’s time for pass-ing overhead in such huge numbers that theydarkened the skies.

Lewis stopped writing in his journal onSeptember 18; the first of many gaps in hisjournal-keeping on the expedition; he wouldresume writing in it on November 11; but onlyfor two weeks. Why Lewis chose to disregardJefferson’s instructions about record-keepingfor long periods between 1803 and 1806remains one of the unresolved mysteries ofthe expedition.

In the meantime, he continued hisprogress down the Ohio. Stopping in Cincin-nati on September 28, Lewis took some timeoff from the journey to explore a local siteknown for its fossil remains. Lewis may havedecided the delay was worthwhile because heknew how much Jefferson was fascinated bythe science of paleontology. He packed up abox of bones, including some that he thoughtwere remains of wooly mammoths, andshipped them back to Washington (they werelost en route, to Jefferson’s disappointment).

On October 14, a month and a half aftersetting off from Pittsburgh, Lewis and his menreached Clarksville, in Indiana Territory,where William Clark lived with his older andailing brother George Rogers Clark. The expe-

dition was now beginning to take shape. AtLewis’s request, Clark had been busy lining uprecruits, and he introduced Lewis to sevenyoung volunteers from Kentucky: WilliamBratton, George Gibson, John Shields, CharlesFloyd, Nathaniel Pryor, and brothers Reubenand Joseph Field. They were sworn into thearmy along with Shannon and Colter. By thestandards of the U.S. military in the early 19th century, these men were to be well com-pensated for their service. To attract qualifiedrecruits, Lewis secured double pay for themen on the expedition ($10 a month forenlisted men, instead of the standard $5), plusthe promise of early discharge on their return,

and a western land bounty of several hundredacres for each man who went along. One man who joined the expedition at Clarksvillewould not be paid anything at all, however:That was York, an African-American slaveowned by William Clark. York was a powerful,heavyset man with “short curling hair” aboutClark’s age, who had been his companionsince childhood.

On October 26, after spending two weeksresting and refitting in Clarksville, Lewis andClark and their men set off down the Ohio,passing through present-day Illinois. OnNovember 11 they reached Fort Massac, an oldFrench fortification located on a commanding


Meriwether Lewis leaves Pittsburgh with the keelboat on August 31, 1803, and joins William Clark in Clarksville on October 15. The keelboat arrives in Cahokia on December 7. On May 14, 1804, the Corps of Discovery leaves Camp Dubois to journey up the Missouri River. They reach St. Charles two days later and depart on May 21.

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promontory above the Ohio that had beenrestored by the Americans. There they addedtwo new recruits to the expedition’s roster,John Newman and Joseph Whitehouse, plus acivilian, George Drouillard (in their journalentries, the captains would refer to him as“Drewyer”). Drouillard brought valuable skillsto the expedition, including his ability to inter-pret the sign language that allowed Indians ofmany different tribes and spoken languages tocommunicate among themselves. He was alsoa first-rate hunter and trail finder. He wouldprove well worth the $25 a month he was paidfor his services. Among Lewis’s qualities as aleader was the fact that he was a good judge ofmen and could quickly size up who should beentrusted with important tasks. He immedi-ately dispatched Drouillard on a mission to an-other army post, South West Point, Tennessee,to find eight soldiers who were waiting there tojoin the expedition. When they finally caughtup with the expedition five weeks later, Lewisrejected four of the men as unfit for wildernesstravel.

From Fort Massac, the expedition saileddown the Ohio to its junction with the Missis-sippi River, near present-day Cairo, Illinois.They spent six days there, while Lewis andClark familiarized themselves with their navi-gational instruments and practiced the vitaltask of determining longitude and latitude.On November 20 they set off northward up theMississippi, the river that the AlgonquianIndians called “the Father of Waters” and thatdrains the water from 40 percent of the conti-nental United States. Although the Missis-sippi’s course was well known by this point,Clark began to record the river’s twists andturns, with compass bearings, perhaps prac-ticing the record-keeping he would need tokeep along the Missouri.

As they headed northward, they were trav-eling between the separate countries. The Illi-

nois Territory, part of the United States,formed the east bank of the river, the Louis-iana Territory, which was still officially gov-erned by the Spanish, and not scheduled tobe handed over to the United States until thefollowing spring, lay to the west. After twodays, they passed by a U.S. settlement on theSpanish side of the river where 15 Americanfamilies were already established, the ad-vance guard of thousands who would soon bepouring into the territory. They also passedkeelboats heading up the river with dry goodsand whiskey to sell to American settlers onthe Illinois side, and other keelboats headingdown to New Orleans loaded with furs. Theyreached the U.S. Army military post FortKaskaskia on the Illinois side of the river, on November 28, where they added at leastsix more volunteers to the expedition’sstrength.

THE EXPEDITION’S FIRST WINTERWinter was coming on, and they would soonneed to make a permanent encampment forits duration. At Fort Kaskaskia, Lewis andClark split up. Lewis borrowed a horse androde north along the Illinois side of the river,arriving at the American settlement at Caho-kia, across the river from St. Louis, on Decem-ber 7. He crossed the river to the city thefollowing day. In 1803 St. Louis was celeb-rating the 40th year since its founding. It wasstill a very small community of about 1,000 residents huddled along the banks of the Missouri.

On December 8, Lewis met with the Span-ish governor of the city, Colonel CarlosDehault Delassus. Colonel Delassus was notoverly welcoming. He had as yet received noofficial notification of the Louisiana Purchase,and he reminded Lewis that as an American

he was still a guest on foreign territory. And hemade it clear that Lewis could not begin hisexploration of the Missouri that winter—aplan that the captains had already abandonedin any case.

Lewis received a friendlier reception fromthe city’s wealthy fur-trading merchants,including Manuel Lisa and half-brothersAuguste and Pierre Chouteau. The merchantsknew that their own economic futures werebound up now with the westward expansionof the United States, and they were eager toingratiate themselves with the new rulers ofthe Louisiana Territory, as well as to sell theAmerican captain the goods he would needto outfit his ever-expanding expeditionaryforce. They proved useful sources of informa-tion on both the geography and the Indiansof the Missouri, at least along its first fewhundred miles as it stretched westward fromSt. Louis. Antoine Soulard, a Frenchmanemployed by the Spanish governor as sur-veyor-general for Upper Louisiana, provided

Lewis with a copy of a map he had drawn,showing in detail the course of the Missouriup to the Mandan villages, and offering aspeculative depiction of what lay furtherwest.

While Lewis was attending to business inSt. Louis, Clark led the rest of the expeditionup the river, past St. Louis to the mouth of theWood River. Here they would make their win-ter camp, at a site directly across the Missis-sippi from the mouth of the Missouri. What isknown of the winter at Camp Wood (a namegiven the site by historians of the expedition,not one used by Lewis and Clark themselves)comes almost entirely from Clark’s journal.Lewis’s silence as a writer would last, withbrief exceptions, until April 1805. Clark wasnow the principal day-to-day recorder of theexpedition’s fortunes and progress. He tendedto be terse and matter-of-fact at first, provid-ing few details beyond the orders he gave themen and the weather. Thus the entry forDecember 13 read, in its entirety:


St. Louis =GATEWAY TO THE WEST

Had France not lost its war with Britain and the American colonies, St. Louiscould have cemented French power on the Mississippi and the Missouri. But thelittle village community with its prime strategic location passed under the con-trol of the Spanish authorities, who neglected its potential. Instead it was leftto the Americans, along with some well-established French traders like RenéAuguste Chouteau and his half-brother Jean-Pierre Chouteau, to fully realize St.Louis’s importance as “Gateway to the West.”

The American writer Washington Irving visited the city soon after theLouisiana Purchase, and he described it in the moment of transition: “Here andthere were new rich houses and ships, just set up by bustling, driving, andeager men of traffic from the Atlantic states; while, on the other hand, the oldFrench mansions, with open casements, still retained the easy, indolent air ofthe original colonists.”

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fixed on a place to build huts Set the men toClearing land & Cutting logs—a hard windall day—flying Clouds, Sent to the negh-bourhood, Some Indians pass.

It snowed on December 15. By December22, Clark was recording that the Mississippiwas “[C]overd with running Ice.” At Christ-mas, they were finishing up their winter huts. “[T]he men frolicked and hunted allday,” Clark noted, coming back with severalturkeys shot in the neighboring woods forChristmas dinner. But some of them wentoverboard in their celebration. Clark re-corded, “Some of the party had got Drunk (2fought.)” The drinking and the brawling wereindications of the poor morale and boredomoften to be found in an army winter camp.There was not enough for the men to do, andthey seemed to feel little in the way of loyaltyto each other or to their leaders. On NewYear’s Day Clark sponsored a shooting contestbetween the soldiers and some local menwho had come to the camp to visit, offering adollar to the winner (the soldiers lost to thecivilians); there was also more drunkennessin the camp. Three days later there wasanother fight in the camp; the men “bruse

themselves much,” Clark complained in hisjournal.

Gradually, Clark’s journal-keeping grewmore inventive and interesting. In addition tothe record of turkeys shot and fights betweenthe men, Clark began to insert sketches in hisnotebook, including a several of the keelboatand one of the white pirogue. (Both Clark andLewis turned out to have a gift for line draw-ings, which greatly enrich the stock of visualimages of the expedition.) When the men fin-ished building the huts, Clark put them towork improving the keelboat. Modificationsincluded the building of storage lockers alongthe sides, which came equipped with heavywooden lids that could be raised to provideprotection for men in the boat in case ofattack. They also mounted a swivel gun, asmall cannon that could fire either a smallcannonball or a load of musketballs, on thebow of the keelboat, and two blunderbusses,heavy, shotgunlike weapons with a bell-shaped mouth, mounted at its stern. Each ofthe two pirogues the expedition would take upthe Missouri also had a blunderbuss mountedon its stern.

After a long absence in St. Louis andCahokia, Lewis briefly rejoined the expedition


Captain Lewis bought an air gun at Harper's Ferry in 1803 at his own expense. According to the expeditionjournals, the firing of the air gun never failed to "astonish" Native American viewers. Lewis hoped that this display of technological prowess would make the Indian tribes all the more willing to trade withwhite Americans in the future. (VMI Museum, Lexington, VA)

in February. Clark got a welcome chance tocross the river to St. Louis and enjoy a little ofits social life. (Camp life had not agreed withClark that winter; “I was unwell” was a recur-ring entry in Clark’s journal throughout Jan-uary and early February.) Lewis spent only a few days at Camp Wood. For most of Febru-ary both captains were in St. Louis, leavingSergeant John Ordway in command. The cap-tains’ prolonged absences did not help thecamp’s disciplinary problems. The men mayhave resented the fact that their officers weregetting to spend the winter enjoying the com-forts of St. Louis, while they were stuck out inthe woods, in freezing temperatures, withnothing to look forward to beyond theirevening ration of whiskey. At times it seemedas if mutiny threatened the success of theexpedition. Reuben Field refused to take histurn at guard duty, and other soldiers loudlyand belligerently took his side. John Shieldsand John Colter defied Ordway’s orders andthreatened to kill him. Lewis could be a strictdisciplinarian, but he decided not to dis-charge the troublemakers (possibly becausethere were too many of them). As thingsturned out, some of the worst offenders thatwinter proved to be among the most devotedand competent soldiers once the expeditionset off up the Missouri.

“WE PROCEEDED ON . . .”On March 10, 1804, the Stars and Stripes wasraised over St. Louis. Lewis was there as theofficial representative of the U.S. governmentfor the ceremony that saw the Louisiana Terri-tory handed over, first from Spain to France,and then from France to the United States.They were no longer on foreign soil when theystood on the west bank of the Mississippi.

That was certainly good news. So was thearrival of spring shortly thereafter. By March

20 frogs could be heard croaking, by March 26Clark was recording the weather as “worm andfair,” by April 1 the spicewood was in bloom,followed soon after by apple and peach trees,and by the noisy passage of flocks of waterfowlflying northward. Lewis and Clark planned toget an early start up the Missouri. Clark calcu-lated that they would travel 1,500 miles toreach the Mandan villages, the last well-described location on their maps. His calcula-tions were only about 100 miles short of theactual distance. He further calculated that itwould be 1,550 miles from the Mandan vil-lages to the Pacific Ocean. There he erred sig-nificantly; his calculations were 1,000 milestoo short. Making 10 or 12 miles a day, Clarkfigured the expedition should be able to travelas far as the headwaters of the Missouri in theRocky Mountains by September 1804, andthen push on the following spring to reach thePacific in summer 1805.

Departure was set for April 18. With thehelp of the Chouteau brothers, the expeditionhired seven French boatmen, known asengagés, who had experience sailing up theMissouri as far as the Mandan villages. But inthe end, they were delayed. Lewis neededmore time to lay in last-minute supplies, andhe also had to make complicated arrange-ments for Pierre Chouteau to lead a delega-tion of Osage Indians to Washington, D.C., tomeet their new “great white father,” ThomasJefferson.

By the time everything was sorted out,necessary supplies gathered and packed inthe expedition’s three boats, it was mid-May.Meanwhile, Clark had received disappointingnews from Washington. Despite Lewis’s prom-ise that Clark would hold rank equal to hisown, Jefferson had secured him a commissiononly as a lieutenant. Clark was angry, andLewis sympathized completely. The two offi-cers agreed they would make no mention of


the difference in rank to their men, andthroughout the expedition Lewis referred toClark as “Captain Clark,” as most historianshave done ever since.

There was more last-minute packing to do.Clark took the loaded keelboat out onto theMississippi on a test cruise. The men wereissued ammunition for their weapons: 100rounds each for the men carrying rifles, twopounds of buckshot for the men carrying

muskets. Finally, on May 14, 1804, it was timeto go. Lewis was in St. Louis, still tending tothe Osage delegation. He would join the expe-dition after a few days. Clark was in commandof the keelboat and the two pirogues, and on the evening of May 14 he wrote in his journal: “I set out at 4 oClock P.M. in the pres-ence of many neighboring inhabitents, andproceeded on under a jentle brease up theMissouri. . . .”


38

Sometime toward the end of their stayat Camp Wood, William Clark wrote anote to himself calculating the num-

ber of men in “our party.” His list included: “2Capts. 4 Sergeants, 3 Intptrs. [Interpreters], 22Amns [Americans]. 9 or 10 French, & York also1 Corpl. & Six in a perogue. . . .” One of the“Capts,” Meriwether Lewis, was in St. Louis, sohe was not on board with the rest of the menwhen they set sail up the Missouri on May 14.“Intptr” George Drouillard was also away onan errand, and the other two interpreters onClark’s list may have been men who hadarranged to join the expedition a few dayslater.

Lewis, Clark, the three sergeants—Ordway,Floyd, and Pryor (Clark’s “4 Sergeants” seemsto have been a slip of the pen)—along with the22 “Amns” (Americans), the three interpreters,and Clark’s black servant York—31 men alltold—constituted the expedition’s permanentparty, the men who were intended to go all theway to the Pacific and back. They would travelon the keelboat. The “9 or 10 French” (a later

list of Clark’s would account for only eight)were the engagés, the hired boatmen, whowould accompany the expedition only as far asthe Mandan villages. They traveled in the 41-foot-long red pirogue. And the “Corpl. and Sixin a perogue” were Corporal Richard Warfing-ton and his detachment (a later list by Clarkwould account for only five men serving underWarfington), who were to travel some distanceup the Missouri with the permanent party butto return before winter set in to St. Louis. Theywere assigned the smallest vessel, the 35-foot-long white pirogue. Clark’s somewhat unde-pendable count of expedition members hasled historians to varying conclusions as to justhow many men actually set sail on May 14,with estimates ranging between 43 and 48.

LAST CONTACTS WITHWHITE SETTLEMENTSDeparting in the late afternoon, the men ofwhat Jefferson had dubbed the “Corps of Dis-covery” made modest progress that first day.

Up the MissouriMay to October 1804

4{

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They crossed the Mississippi and pushed ashort way up the Missouri. They camped thatnight by a small creek near Fort BelleFontaine, in present-day North St. Louis. Themen probably missed their snug cabins atCamp Wood, as it rained so steadily they couldnot keep their campfires burning. These firstdays of travel were useful as a shakedowncruise. Some of the cargo was getting wetbeneath its covers. The keelboat was havingproblems on the river, snagging on floatinglogs, and riding too high at its bow; some ofthe goods stowed in the stern of the boatwould have to be moved forward to balancethe load. One of the other vessels, probablythe white pirogue with Corporal Warfington’sdetachment, was, as Clark noted, “not Suffi-ciently maned [manned] to Keep up.”

On May 16 they reached the little village ofSt. Charles, located on the north bank of theriver, about 21 miles upriver from the mouthof the Missouri. With its 450 inhabitants, St.Charles was the last substantial white settle-ment they would encounter until theirreturn. Clark and the men spent five daysthere, waiting for Lewis to finish his businessin St. Louis and join them. It was their lastchance to enjoy some familiar pleasures: Pri-vate Joseph Whitehouse reported in the jour-nal he was beginning to keep that it was“verry agreeable dancing with the frenchladies, &c.”

It was not all play. Clark had the menreload the keelboat and one of the piroguesand pack in some last-minute supplies(including an additional 136 pounds of to-bacco). Clark had to convene a court-martialfor three expedition members who committedvarious offenses in St. Charles; one of them,John Collins, was accused of behaving in an“unbecomeing manner” at a dance as well as“Speaking in a language . . . tending to bringinto disrespect the orders of the Commanding

officer,” infractions that earned him a sen-tence of 50 lashes on his bare back.

Two new members joined the expeditionat St. Charles, although they may have beenrecruited earlier. One was Pierre Cruzatte,who would play a prominent role in many ofthe events to follow. Half French and halfIndian, he was an experienced boatman.Although blind in one eye and able to seenone too well out of the other, he would usu-ally take up the important position of bow-man on the keelboat, guiding the boatthrough the many hidden dangers the riverheld. He was also valued by other expeditionmembers for his skill in playing the fiddle. Theother new recruit was François Labiche, alsohalf French and half Indian, who would serve

Up the Missouri B 39

Although Lewis and Clark passed the settlement towhich Daniel Boone had moved in 1799, they didnot meet Boone. (Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division [LC-USZ62-112549])

the expedition as a translator in addition tohis regular duties.

Lewis rejoined the party on May 20, andthe following day, at half past three, the expedition pushed off up the Missouri. Oncemore they “procceded on under a jentleBreese”—at least for a mile, until they foundthemselves engulfed in “a Violent rain withWind from the S.W. . . .” Over the next fewdays they passed a few small farms scatteredalong the riverside, including the settlementin present-day St. Charles County, Missouri,where Daniel Boone, the legendary Americanfrontiersman, had moved in 1799. On May 25the expedition came to the last white settle-ment along the Missouri, La Charrette, nearpresent-day Marthasville, Missouri. Sevenfamilies lived there, who depended on tradewith the Indians for their livelihood. Theyobtained corn and eggs from the local in-habitants, and according to Clark also ob-tained “a good Deel of information” aboutupstream Indian tribes from French traderRegis Loisel.

Even these first days of travel, still so closeto white settlements, were not without theirdangers. In fact, the expedition might havecome to an abrupt end on May 23, when Lewisdecided to explore the edge of a rockyembankment towering some 300 feet abovethe Missouri. He lost his footing at its very topand slid 20 feet downward before catchinghimself by jamming his knife into a crack inthe rock. A few more feet and he would havegone tumbling down to the rocks and waterbelow, and the Corps of Discovery, if it “pro-ceeded on” after losing its leader, would nothave gone down in history as the Lewis andClark Expedition. Thomas Jefferson once saidof Captain Lewis that he was the possessor of“courage undaunted,” which was certainlytrue. But his courage occasionally shaded offinto a darker quality in his character. Though

he kept it in check much of the time, Meri-wether Lewis had a reckless streak.

SETTLING INTO ROUTINEThe Corps of Discovery averaged about 15miles a day on the Missouri that summer.Each day Clark noted in his journal the direc-tion the river traveled through its many twistsand turns, and the distance covered. Clarktended to underestimate distances traveled byriver, and overestimate distances traveled byland, but on the whole the records left in thejournals proved remarkably accurate whenrechecked by geographers and historians inlater years.

The men were usually up at first light,about 5 A.M. They would eat a hasty breakfast,strike their tents, and be on the river soonafter. On most days that they were traveling,Clark would stay with the boats, while Lewisusually roamed the shore on foot. Sometimesthey got lucky and their sails could propelthem upstream: “The wind favourable today,”Clark noted happily on May 26, “we made 18miles.” Sometimes a back eddy in the river’scurrent would carry them upstream, while themen rested from their efforts. But usually theirprogress came at the expense of hard humanlabor: rowing, poling, or even getting out andpulling the boats upstream with towropes,while the Missouri’s fast-flowing waters triedto sweep them back down the river to St.Louis. After a day’s travel, they would halt, bya convenient creek if they could find one,unload the goods they needed for the night,pitch their tents, and prepare the one hotmeal they would enjoy during the day.

Game was abundant, and they ate heartily,consuming as much as eight or nine pounds a day per man. The deer steaks, antelopesteaks, buffalo steaks, or whatever meat thehunters happened to bring in the day would


be supplemented by grapes, plums, berries,and greens picked along the way, flat breadmade from cornmeal or flour, and salt pork if the hunters were not successful. For his 34th birthday, on August 1 Clark ordered aspecial meal to be prepared, consisting of “aSaddle of fat Vennison, an Elk fleece & a Bev-ertail to be cooked and a Desert of Cheries,Plumbs, Raspberries Currents and grapes of a Supr. [superior] quallity.” Some nights thecaptains would issue each man a four-ounceration of whiskey and, despite their weari-ness, the men would celebrate with dancingwhile Cruzatte played his fiddle. On theFourth of July in 1804, which they celebratedin present-day Atchison County, Kansas, nearthe mouth of the Kansas River, they marked

the occasion not only with whiskey but alsowith cannon fire. Generally, however, theevenings were times of quiet relaxation andearly bedtimes. Everyone knew that anotherday’s hard labor awaited them when the Sunrose in the morning.

Lewis and Clark had carefully selected themen who made up the Corps of Discovery,weeding out those who they felt might not beup to the rigors of wilderness travel. Butwithin a month or so after St. Louis, many ofthe men were feeling the worse for wear. Theaches and pains of hard physical labor weremade worse by the unremitting assault ofstinging insects. Lewis had had the foresightto include mosquito netting in the expedi-tion’s supplies, and the men smeared grease


Charles M. Russell’s work Nature’s Cattle (1899) is of antelope and buffalo grazing, two animals that the Corpsof Discovery depended on for nourishment and hides. (Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division [LC-USZ62-115203])

over their exposed skin to keep off bloodsuck-ing pests, but such preventive measures wereonly partially successful. “The Ticks & Mus-quiters are verry troublesome,” Clark reportedon June 17, in what became a constant refrainin his journal. Other ailments added to themisery of aches, pains, and mosquito bites,with many suffering from boils on their skin or stomach troubles. Clark in his journalattributed such ills to drinking the river water, but they were probably the product ofbadly preserved meat and too few fruits andvegetables in their diet. Clark had difficultyshaking a bad cold and sore throat he devel-oped in mid-June.

The worst medical crisis the expeditionwould face came in late summer. SergeantCharles Floyd had not been feeling well forseveral weeks. Then on August 19, Clark notedin his journal that “Serjean Floyd is taken verrybad all at once with a Biliose Chorlick [a ‘bil-ious colic,’ a term then used to describemalaria].” Clark stayed up most of that nightwith Floyd, ministering to him as best hecould (probably with some of Dr. Rush’s laxa-tives). The following day, he had sad news torecord in his journal: “Sgt. Floyd died with agreat deal of composure; before his death heSaid to me, ‘I am going away. I want you towrite me a letter.’” Floyd’s “bilious colic” wasin all likelihood a ruptured appendix, a condi-tion that was untreatable in the early 19thcentury, even by skilled doctors. Floyd, anative of Kentucky, was among the first to jointhe Corps of Discovery and was, in Clark’s esti-mate, “[a] man of much merit.” He was just 22years old when he died. He was buried withfull military honors on a hill overlooking theMissouri River in present-day Sioux City, Iowa.The men called it “Floyd’s Bluff,” the name bywhich it is still known. Private Patrick Gasswas elected by the men to take Floyd’s place asa sergeant.

The disciplinary problems that hadplagued the expedition in winter camp werestill evident those first months on the river.The way that Lewis and Clark dealt with suchproblems serves as a reminder that the Corpsof Discovery was a military unit movingthrough hostile territory and not a group offriends out on an extended camping trip. OnJune 29, the captains convened a court-mar-tial to hear the case of Privates John Collinsand Hugh Hall, accused of tapping the expe-dition’s whiskey barrel the night before, withthe result that Collins was drunk while onguard. The court was made up of SergeantPryor and five enlisted men. Collins, who hadbehaved badly at St. Charles just six weeksearlier, was sentenced to 100 lashes, whileHall got 50 lashes. The entire party assembledat 3 P.M. to watch the sentence carried out.The beaten men had to go right back to work,with their bloody backs, rowing, poling, andhauling the keelboat upstream. It was a harshpunishment, but one that must have seemedjust to the rest of the Corps of Discovery: Adrunken guard endangered all their lives.They also knew that there was going to be no tavern along the next several thousandmiles where they would be able to replenishtheir supply of whiskey when it ran out;Collins and Hall had enjoyed themselves at the expense of their fellow expeditionmembers.

Private Alexander Willard faced a court-martial July 12 after Sergeant Ordway had discovered him lying asleep while on guardduty the previous night. The accusationagainst Willard was so serious that, unlike pre-vious courts, made up of enlisted men, Lewisand Clark themselves served as the court;under the military’s Articles of War, Willardcould have been sentenced to death by firingsquad. The two captains found Willard guiltyas charged and sentenced him to 100 lashes


on his bare back. Private Moses Reed desertedon August 4. He had told the captains he hadleft a knife behind at the previous night’scampsite and would go and fetch it and thenreturn. When he had not returned four dayslater, the captains sent out a party consistingof Drouillard and three other men to find Reedand bring him back dead or alive. He wasbrought in alive on August 17, sentenced torun the gauntlet four times (which meantbeing beaten with willow switches by theentire party), and removed from the perma-nent party in disgrace. (Private Robert Frazer,part of Corporal Warfington’s detachment,later signed on as a member of the permanentparty, to replace Reed.) One of the engagésalso deserted but was never caught. Finally,Private John Newman was court-martialed on October 13 for statements “of a highlycriminal and mutinous nature,” found guilty,and sentenced to 75 lashes and dishonorabledischarge from the army and the expedition(though he, like Moses Reed, would, of ne-cessity, accompany them to the winterencampment).

THE GREAT PLAINSEvery few days, Lewis and Clark noted some-thing that was new to them. In June theybegan to see white pelicans along the river.Clark killed one in August, and as an experi-ment he had his men fill its bill and neckpouch with water; it held five gallons.

The landscape was no less strange than thewildlife. Whether they had grown up in Vir-ginia, like Lewis and Clark, in Kentucky, likeSergeant Floyd, or in New Hampshire, likeSergeant John Ordway, the men of the Corpsof Discovery were most familiar with hilly oreven mountainous landscapes covered withdense forests. Where there was open land, itwas land that had been cleared, either by Indi-

ans or white settlers. Since leaving CampWood in May, however, the Corps of Discoveryhad entered a region of grasslands, very differ-ent than the landscape they knew at home.This was an open country, level or with lowrolling hills, with views that stretched formiles, and the openness was not the productof human design.

Still, there were similarities with the worldthey had left behind. Both the wooded hills ofVirginia and New England and the prairie


After seeing what seemed to them acres covered byflocks of pelicans, Lewis and Clark named the islandwhere they saw the massive amounts of birds Pelican Island. (Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division [LC-USZ62-95232])

grasslands of Missouri were the recipients ofregular rainfall. There were tall, luxuriantgrasses on the prairie, and both the river bot-toms and the bluffs along the river were oftenheavily wooded with cottonwoods, sycamore,

and hickory trees, as well as an underbrush ofgrapevines and rushes. The Corps of Discov-ery could easily imagine farmers and theirlivestock following in their wake. Writing onJuly 4, Clark noted that “[t]he Plains of this


According to Lewis’s journal, the Great Plains were covered by herds of game in 1804. By 1870, when thisphotograph was taken, overhunting by settlers, railroad workers, and game hunters had greatly diminishedthe source of food. (National Archives [NWDNS-57-HS-348])

countery are covered with a Leek green Grass,well calculated for the sweetest and mostnourishing hay . . .”

Americans were used to thinking of land inthis way—a fertile, bountiful resource waitingto be dug up and planted, a Garden of Eden in


The “Barking Squiril” =

The strangeness of the animal population on the Great Plains added to theexplorers’ sense of wonder as they encountered this new landscape. On Sep-tember 7, Lewis and Clark came across a burrowing animal unlike any they hadever seen before. It lived in what Clark described as a “village” containing“great numbers of holes on the top of which those little animals Set erect . . .”When Lewis and Clark approached them, they made “a Whistleing noise” beforeslipping into their holes. Lewis called this creature a “barking squiril,” but it wasSergeant John Ordway who came up with the name for them that would catchon: prairie dogs. The Corps of Discovery spent the better part of the day tryingto capture one by flushing out its burrow with kettles of water. They finally suc-ceeded, and the “barking squiril” miraculously survived and was sent east to beviewed by Thomas Jefferson in the White House a year later.

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This black-tailed prairie dog was unfamiliar to the Corps of Discovery when themen first encountered it. John Ordway gave the burrowing animal the name bywhich it is known today. (U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service)

a Promised Land. But the landscape changeddramatically when they passed north of themouth of the Platte River in late July andmoved into the semiarid region of the GreatPlains. The tall grass of the central lowland ofthe lower Missouri gave way to short grass ofthe upper Missouri. Trees grew scarcer, apartfrom the cottonwoods that still sprang upalong the river bottoms. Strong winds blewacross the treeless plains, with nothing tobreak their force. The alkaline soil left a whitepowdery deposit on its surface and gave a bit-ter taste to the water flowing down the creeksinto the Missouri.

The farmers in the Corps of Discovery mayhave looked out over the Great Plains andshaken their heads doubtfully. But for thehunters, the region was still a land of bounty.In the woodlands of the east a herd of deer orother game animals might consist of a dozenor so members. Here the term took on an-other dimension entirely. In one of his rarejournal entries in 1804, Lewis reported onSeptember 17 how, at a site near the mouth ofthe White River, he had come across “im-mence herds of Buffaloe deer Elk and An-telopes which we saw in every directionfeeding off the hills and plains. I do not thinkI exagerate when I estimate the number ofBuffaloe which could be compreed [compre-hended] at one view to amount to 3000.”Throughout that summer and fall the expedi-tion encountered numerous animals newboth to them and to science, not all of whomended up in their cooking pots. Theseincluded white-tailed jackrabbits, mule deer,coyotes, and badgers (the last creature longknown to Europeans, but until Lewis andClark encountered them along the Missourinot known to live in North America).

The abundant game did the expedition’syoungest member, George Shannon, littlegood when he accidentally got separated from

the main party at the end of August. The expe-dition brought four horses with it (all lost,stolen, or dead by September). Shannon hadgone out to look for two stray horses. Con-fused, he headed north up the Missouri think-ing that the party was ahead of him, when infact it was still behind him, coming up theriver. He continued heading north day afterday, and the search parties sent out by theexpedition could find no trace of him. Shan-non, Clark wrote in his journal, was not “a firstrate Hunter,” and the captains feared hewould starve to death on his own. He almostdid. Running out of bullets, he managed to killa rabbit by shooting a stick out of his rifle;other than that, all he had to eat for more thantwo weeks was wild grapes and plums hefound along the river. Finally it occurred tohim to try heading south, rather than contin-uing north, and after 16 hungry days on hisown, he stumbled upon the Corps of Discov-ery. “Thus a man had like to have Starved todeath in a land of Plenty,” Clark noted in hisjournal on September 11.

INDIAN DIPLOMACYIn his letter of instructions to Lewis in June1803, Thomas Jefferson had assigned manymissions to the Corps of Discovery. Beyondfinding the Northwest Passage, none was asimportant as the assignment to establishfriendly relations with the Indian tribes livingalong the Missouri River and beyond. BeforeLewis and Clark’s journey was over, theywould come in contact with nearly 50 differ-ent Indian tribes, some of whom had neverbefore seen a white man, let alone an Ameri-can soldier.

Men who make good soldiers are notalways the same men who make good diplo-mats. In his letter to Lewis, Jefferson tookpains to impress on the young infantry officer


that he was to keep in mind his diplomaticresponsibilities. He was going west to talk, notto fight. “In all your intercourse with thenatives,” Jefferson wrote, “treat them in themost friendly & conciliatory manner whichtheir own conduct will admit; allay all jeal-ousies as to the object of your journey, satisfythem of it’s innocence, make them acquaintedwith the position, extent, character, peaceable& commercial dispositions of the U.S., of ourwish to be neighborly, friendly & useful tothem. . . .”

Among his other duties, Lewis was alsoinstructed to act as a sort of tour director forprominent Native Americans. Jefferson be-lieved that a visit to Washington, D.C., would

persuade Indian leaders of the value of coop-erating with the expanding American repub-lic: “If a few of their influential chiefs, withinpracticable distance, wish to visit us, arrangesuch a visit with them. . . .”

The American West was a blank slate as faras white-Indian relations were concerned.Although neither western Indians nor whiteAmericans had proven themselves especiallypeace-loving in the past, there had never beenan armed conflict between the groups. If ini-tial contacts were properly handled, Jeffersonhoped, there never need be one. On the otherhand, no one could predict how the west-ern Indian tribes would react to the appear-ance of white strangers, however “friendly &


Daniel A. Jenks drew the Platte River and two covered wagons being ferried across it in 1859 upon arriving at a camp (also drawn) in central Wyoming. (Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division [LC-USZ62-128883])

conciliatory” their manner. If faced with su-perior force, Jefferson urged Lewis to returnhome rather than risk the loss of his own lifeand the life of his men in a losing battle: “Inthe loss of yourselves, we should lose also theinformation you will have acquired. . . . wewish you to err on the side of your safety . . .”

The expedition did not actually meet anyIndians, friendly or otherwise, until the end ofJuly, soon after they passed the mouth of thePlatte River. Lewis and Clark knew from theinformation they had been given before set-ting out that once they reached the Platte theycould expect to find villages of Otoe (Oto),Missouri, and other Indian tribes livingnearby. On July 28, George Drouillard met aMissouri Indian, who told him that a mixed

village of Otoe and Missouri could be found afew days travel inland. The captains dis-patched the French engagé named La Liberté,the only Otoe speaker on the expedition, toestablish contact with the village.

Two days later the Corps of Discoverycamped below a high bluff overlooking theMissouri, at a site near present-day Fort Cal-houn, Nebraska. They raised an American flagon a pole and waited there with mountingimpatience for the Otoe whom La Liberté wassupposed to bringing back. What they did notknow was that La Liberté had taken advantageof his orders to abandon the expedition. Even-tually, Private George Gibson was dispatchedto see what had become of La Liberté and theIndian delegation.


This medal is one of many distributed by the U.S. government to American Indian leaders as gestures of“peace and friendship.” One side is a profile portrait of Thomas Jefferson, and the other shows claspedhands and a crossed tomahawk and peace pipe. (American Numismatic Society, New York)

Finally at sunset on August 2, a Frenchtrader named Mr. Fairfong arrived at the expe-dition’s camp, accompanied by a party of Otoeand Missouri Indians. “Capt. Lewis & myselfmet those Indians,” Clark noted, “& informedthem we were glad to See them, and wouldSpeak to them tomorrow, Sent them Som ros-ted meat Pork flour & meal, in return they sentus Water millions [melons].”

The next day they met the Indian chiefs onthe embankment that Lewis and Clark namedCouncil Bluff. With Fairfong serving as trans-lator, the captains went through a round ofdiplomatic gestures that would soon becomeroutine. First they offered the Indians pres-ents, “in perpotion [proportion] to theirConsiqunce,” as Clark would write. The biggerthe chief, in other words, the better the pres-ent. Since Indian rank was not always as obvi-ously established as military rank, this couldcreate problems if the captains misjudged justwho was the biggest chief, but on this occa-sion they seemed to have guessed right. Therewas one important Otoe chief missing, namedLittle Thief. They sent him a bundle of cloth-

ing, an American flag, and a Jefferson peacemedal (a small medallion, specially producedfor the expedition, which showed Thomas Jef-ferson’s likeness on one side, and two claspedhands superimposed on the words “Peace andFriendship” on the other.) They smoked apeace pipe with the Indian chiefs, and offeredeach a drink of whiskey. And Lewis fired off hisair gun, which much “astonished the nativs,”according to Clark.

The main event, however, was Lewis’sspeech, his first chance to try out whatbecame a standard oration. “Children,” Lewisproclaimed, establishing his claim to superiorauthority in his opening line:

Commissioned and sent by the Great Chiefof the Seventeen great nations of America[the United States], we have come to informyou, as we go to inform all the nations of redmen who inhabit the borders of the Mis-souri, that a great council was lately heldbetween this great chief of the seventeennations of America, and your old fathers thefrench and the Spaniards; and that in this


Lewis’s Air Gun =

Time and again Lewis would report that the Indians they met along the waywere “much astonished” by the firing of his air gun. When a weapon was firedin the early 19th century, everyone around could hear and see the results. Therewas a loud crack and a puff of black smoke as the gunpowder detonated. TheIndians thus had good reason to be astonished when Lewis shot his speciallydesigned weapon, and there was no noise beyond a little click and a whishingsound. Lewis’s novelty weapon was built for him by a gunsmith named IsaiahLukens in Philadelphia. Its butt was a metal chamber designed to hold compressed air, pumped in beforehand with a device Lewis carried. The airpressure could be released by pulling the trigger, and its release projected a.31-caliber bullet out the barrel of the rifle with enough force to kill small gameat close range.

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great council it was agreed that all the whitemen of Louisiana, inhabiting the waters ofthe Missouri and Mississippi should obeythe commands of this great chief; he hasaccordingly adopted them as his children . . .

What was true for the white inhabitants ofthe Louisiana Territory also applied to theIndians, even though they had had no part inthe deliberations of the “great council” thathad wound up switching an old for a newfather figure:

Children. From what has been said you willreadily perceive, that the great chief of theSeventeen great nations of America, hasbecome your only father; he is the onlyfather; he is the only friend to whom youcan now look for protection . . . The greatchief of the Seventeen great nations ofAmerica, impelled by his parental regard forhis children on the troubled waters, hassent us out to clear the road, remove everyobstruction, and to make it the road ofpeace between himself and his red childrenresiding there. . . .

Lewis went on in that vein at some length,with the French trader Fairfong translating,promising peace, friendship, trade, and pros-perity, if the Otoe and Missouri would just heedthe good advice of the representatives of thegreat chief of the Seventeen American nations.What Lewis’s listeners made of this speech ishard to tell, but the captains perceived thatthey were in full agreement with its sentiments.“Those people express great Satisfa[ct]ion atthe Speech Delivered,” Clark wrote in his jour-nal that evening, his own sense of satisfactionwith the day’s proceedings very evident.

On August 19, further up the Missouri, theymet another party of Otoe and Missouri, thistime including Little Thief, who had been miss-ing on August 3, and a Missouri chief named

Big Horse. Once again Lewis gave his speechand showed off the airgun. The present-givingdid not work out quite as well this time, how-ever: Big Horse felt he had been given lessrecognition by the whites than had Little Thief.The captains explained patiently that the realrewards were yet to come, when a peaceabletrade network of all the Indian tribes was estab-lished stretching up the Missouri. The Otoe andMissouri were more concerned with the hereand now than the golden future that the cap-tains promised. They wanted to know howmuch of the rich treasure trove found in theexpedition’s three boats would be passed on tothem before the white men left and distributedthe remaining goods to other Indian tribes whothey regarded as rivals if not enemies. Clark’sdescription of the outcome of this council wasless glowing than the one he had written twoweeks before. The Indians, obviously dis-pleased, hung around the camp long after thecaptains had politely suggested they go awayand “beged much for wishey [whiskey].”

On August 30, at Calumet bluff, near thepresent-day site of Gavins Point Dam inNebraska, they held their third council, thistime with chiefs of the Yankton Nakota Siouxtribe. The Sioux (Dakota, Lakota, Nakota)Indians’ formidable reputation on the plainshad spread all the way to Washington, D.C.President Jefferson had stressed the impor-tance of making “a friendly impression” on theSioux, “because of their immense power.” TheSioux were composed of the Dakota, Lakota,and Nakota, each of which was made up ofbands. Collectively and historically they wereknown as the Sioux but this was not the namethe group used for themselves. The Sioux—especially the Lakota who lived farther westthan the Dakota—were renowned as buffalohunters and as mounted warriors. Many of theimages that define popular memory in theUnited States of the Indians and their way oflife, including the tipi and feathered head-


dresses, comes from the practices of theLakota, as well as other nomadic tribes wholived further to the west like the Comancheand the Cheyenne.

The Sioux were divided into numerousgroups or bands speaking separate dialects.The Yankton Nakota occupied a regionbetween the Missouri River and Minnesota.Though buffalo hunters, they also maintainedsome semipermanent villages. They were welldisposed to white traders coming up the Mis-

souri and gave Lewis and Clark a friendlyreception. Pierre Dorion, a French trader whohad been traveling upriver with the expedi-tion since June, and who had lived among theYankton for many years, acted as translator.

The talk about one Great White Father tak-ing the place of another was probably just asconfusing to the Yankton as it had been to theother tribes who had already heard Lewis’sspeech. And, as had been the case at the lastcouncil with the Missouri and the Otoe, the


Route

Camp

Present-day city (provided for reference; these did not exist at the time of the expedition)

White settlement

Other important site

Note: Contemporary boundaries andstate names are provided for reference.

0 100 miles

0 100 km

N

After leaving St. Charles, the corps passes La Charette, the last non-Indian settlement on the Missouri, on May 21. As they journey upriver, they meet the Otoe, Missouri, and Yankton Nakota Indians. On September 25 they have a confrontation with the Teton Lakota, but they stay in the area another three days before proceeding on September 28.

St. Charles

Confrontationwith Teton Lakota


Route of the Corps of Discovery,May 21–September 28, 1804

IL

MO

IA

MN

SD

NE

KS

Missouri R.

M

issouri R.

Miss

issip

piR

Illin

ois R

.

Osage R .

Kansas R.

IndependenceCreek

RepublicanR.

Cheyenne R.

Big

Blue

PlatteR

.

N. Platte R.

S. Platte R.

Niobrara R.

James R.

Bad R.

White R.

Big

SiouxR.

Floy

dR.

North Loup R.

St. Charles

La Charette

Atchison

Sioux City

Ponca

VermillionYankton

Calumet Bluff

Camp WhiteCatfish

CouncilBluff

Sergeant Floyd’sgravesite

Confrontation withTeton Lakota

Yankton could not understand why the whiteswere so stingy in distributing the riches theycarried in their boats. The captains’ explana-tion that they came not as traders themselvesbut as explorers with a long way yet to traveldid not make much sense to their listeners. Butthe chiefs responded favorably to the promiseof the trade that would soon come their wayfrom St. Louis, and one of their chiefs agreed totravel east to Washington, D.C., with PierreDorion the following year to meet this GreatWhite Father that Lewis had spoken of soglowingly. Before the council ended, one of theYankton passed along a friendly warning toLewis and Clark about their cousins upstream,the Teton Lakota. According to Half Moon, aYankton chief: “I fear those nations above willnot open their ears, and you cannot, I fear[,]open them.” The captains quietly decided notto send Corporal Warfington and his detach-ment of soldiers back down the Missouri to St.Louis that fall as they had earlier planned.They might need every rifle they could musterin the weeks ahead.

When they embarked on their diplomaticmission, Lewis and Clark set off with an oversimplified understanding of how Indianeconomies functioned along the Missouri. TheIndians, they reasoned, had something thewhites wanted, which was furs; the whites hadsomething the Indians wanted, which wasmanufactured goods. Therefore, they believed,increased trade between whites and Indiansseemed to be in everyone’s interests, and that fact alone, once properly understood,should have been enough to ensure peacefulrelations between whites and Indians.

But things proved more complicated. AU.S. diplomat on the Missouri could no moreassume that the economic interests of the var-ious Indian tribes were identical than a U.S.diplomat in Europe could assume that those ofthe English, French, Dutch, and Spanish coin-cided. The Teton Lakota lived on both sides of

the Missouri and ranged far to the west acrossthe Plains in hunting and raiding parties. Atthe same time, they played a key role in thetrade system of the upper Missouri River. Theywere intermediaries in that system, acquiringmanufactured goods from other Dakota,Lakota, and Nakota groups who had directcontact with British traders in Canada andtrading those goods to the tribes of Indianswho lived a more settled existence as farmersalong the upper Missouri River. Unlike theYankton Nakota, the prospect of white traderscoming up the Missouri thus seemed to theTeton an economic threat, not a welcomesource of additional goods. Their own role inthe upper Missouri River trading system wouldbe undercut by an inflow of American manu-factured goods passing directly into the handsof tribes living along the Missouri such as theArikara, Mandan, and Hidatsa.

The Corps of Discovery had their long-anticipated and half-dreaded encounter withthe Teton Lakota on September 24 at themouth of the Bad River (near present-day FortPierre, South Dakota). The captains invitedthe Teton chiefs to come to a council on theriverside the next day. They hoped for thebest, but as Clark noted in his journal thatevening, they had “prepared all things forAction in Case of necessity.” The fact that theexpedition’s last remaining horse was stolenby some Teton warriors that day did not bodewell for what was to come.

The next morning, the expedition nerv-ously awaited their guests on a sandbar at themouth of the Bad River. The men had set up anawning to shade the captains and the chiefsduring the council, and they raised the Ameri-can flag on a pole stuck in the sand. By latemorning three Teton chiefs, Black Buffalo, thePartisan, and Buffalo Medicine, had arrived.There were also several hundred Teton whocame and looked down at the white men fromthe riverbanks. Pierre Cruzatte, whose com-


mand of the Teton dialect was distinctly lim-ited, acted as translator. Lewis gave his speech,and then the captains ordered their men toparade by, in their dress uniforms, with theirrifles on their shoulders.

Then it came time to hand out gifts to thechiefs. Having decided that Black Buffalo wasthe Teton’s most important leader, the cap-tains presented him with a lavish offering ofgifts. The other two chiefs, especially the oneknown as the Partisan, felt slighted by com-parison. The Partisan and Buffalo Medicinebecame surly. Black Buffalo, feeling that hecould not allow the other chiefs to outdo himin willingness to stand up to the whites, addedhis own voice to their demands that the expe-dition hand over more of its goods, perhapseven one of the pirogues. The captains werenot prepared to be quite that generous but,perhaps remembering Jefferson’s insistencethat they convey to the Indians how “neigh-borly, friendly & useful” the United Statescould be, invited the three chiefs and some oftheir men on board the keelboat, which wasanchored offshore. They also offered thechiefs a small glass of whisky each. Thatproved to be a mistake.

Pretending he was drunk, the Partisanbecame “troublesome,” in what Clark laterdescribed “as a Cloak for his rascally inten-tions.” With some difficulty, the captains man-aged to get the chiefs off the keelboat and onboard one of the pirogues, and he ferriedthem back to shore. Clark went along, whileLewis remained in command on the keelboat.As the pirogue touched land, three Teton war-riors grabbed hold of its bow cable, while thePartisan pushed up against Clark anddeclared that the whites could not proceedany further up river because “he had notreceved presents sufficent from us.” With that,Clark’s capacity for the diplomatic niceties hitits limit. He drew his sword. Sergeant JohnOrdway recorded what happened next:

Capt Clark spoke to all the party to Stand totheir arms. Capt Lewis who was on board[the keelboat] ordered every man to hisarms. The large Swivel loaded immediatelywith 16 Musquet balls in it, the two otherSwivels loaded well with Buck Shot [and]each of them manned.

The Indians watching from the riverbanksstrung their bows and took aim at the corps. Atthat moment Black Buffalo stepped in. Unlikethe Partisan, he did not seem eager for a fight.He ordered his warriors to release thepirogue’s cable, which he took in his ownhands. Clark, uncertain of Black Buffalo’sintentions, spoke sternly, warning him, asOrdway recounted, “that we must and wouldgo on . . . that we were not Squaws, but war-riors.” Black Buffalo replied that “he had war-riors too and if we were to go on they wouldfollow us and kill and take the whole of us bydegrees.”

The corps had the better weapons, butthey were badly outnumbered. At anymoment, anger, pride, or an itchy trigger fin-ger could have unleashed a hail of gunfire andarrows that would have left many men deadon both sides. It was Black Buffalo who foundthe way to defuse the confrontation. He sud-denly asked Clark if the women and childrenof his tribe would be able to visit the keelboat.Clark agreed, and, honor satisfied by this con-cession, Black Buffalo let go of the cable. Thetwo sides lowered their weapons and the cri-sis passed. Black Buffalo and two warriorscame along on the keelboat to spend thenight with the expedition. The Corps movedupriver to an island landing where most ofthem slept poorly. “I call this Island badhumered island,” Clark later wrote, “as wewere in a bad humor.”

The next day, at Black Buffalo’s invitation,they visited his village. Lewis went on shorewith some of the party, while Clark remained


on board the keelboat, anchored well offshorefor safety. Eventually deciding that Black Buf-falo’s intentions were friendly, for the momentat least, Clark joined Lewis in the village. Allthat day and long into the night there wasfeasting and speeches and dancing, and a pre-

tense on both sides that the unpleasantness ofthe day before had never happened. But it wasseveral days later before the expeditionstopped watching the shore nervously for aTeton ambush. The Teton Lakota, Clarkdeclared, were “the pirates of the Missouri,”


Continuing their journey, the corps meets the Arikara on October 8, 1804. They reach the Mandan villages on October 27, begin con-struction of Fort Mandan on November 2, and move into the fort on December 24. In the spring, after dispatching the keelboat down-river, the permanent party heads up the Missouri on April 7, 1805.



Ft. MandanFt. Mandan

N

Route

Camp

Indian village




0 50 miles

0 50 km

Route of the Corps of Discovery,September 28, 1804–April 7, 1805

Missouri R.

Missouri R.

Ch

eyenne R.

Moreau R.

Grand R.

Cannonball R.

Heart R.

Knife R.

LittleMissouri R.

SD

NDMT

Bismarck

On-a-SlantIndian village(abandoned)

Mandan villages

Arikara villages

Hidatsa villages Fort Mandan

Confrontation withTeton Lakota

and he foresaw nothing but trouble with themin the future until the United States madethem “feel a dependence on its will for theirsupply of merchandise.”

On October 8, near the mouth of theGrand River, the Corps of Discovery encoun-tered a tribe more to their liking. The Arikarawere farmers growing corn and tobacco. Theylived in earthen lodges in permanent settle-ments. For white explorers who were a longway from home, coming across such a villageoffered a reassuring glimpse of stability and apattern of life familiar to those who hadgrown up in rural Virginia and Kentucky. “AllTranquillity,” Clark recorded in his journalafter three days in the company of theArikara. Good relations were furthered bypresence of a good interpreter, Joseph Grave-lines, a French fur trader who had been livingwith the Arikara. Lewis gave his speech, giftswere distributed, peace pipes smoked. Someof the men in the expedition enjoyed evencloser relations with the Arikara women, who,as Clark observed in his journal without fur-ther comment, were “very fond of carressingour men.”

York’s presence on the expedition hadgone virtually unmentioned in the journalsuntil the Arikara noticed him and decidedthat he was by far the most fascinating member of the Corps of Discovery. “ThoseIndians wer much astonished at my Servent,”Clark noted on October 10, “they never Saw ablack man before, all flocked around him &examind him from top to toe, he Carried onthe joke and made himself more turribal than we wished him to doe.” York enjoyed theattention, especially from the younger Ari-kara, and pretended to be a bear in humanform. “The children would follow after him,”John Ordway wrote, “& if he turned towardsthem, they would run from him & hollow[holler] as if they were terrefied, & afraid of him.”

TO THE MANDAN VILLAGESOn October 12, the Corps of Discovery badefarewell to the Arikara and set off once againup the Missouri. The weather was turningcold. Clark, suffering from rheumatism, felt itseffects cruelly. Their late start that spring andthe frequent halts to hold councils with Indiantribes had put the expedition behind sched-ule. The captains decided that they would notbe able to travel farther than the known andmapped portion of the Missouri before mak-ing their winter encampment.

On October 24, it snowed a little in themorning. Clark’s rheumatism felt a bit im-proved, he reported in the journal. Later thatday, at a location along the Missouri north ofpresent-day Bismarck, North Dakota, Lewisand Clark met a Mandan chief named Sheheke,or Big White, who was out hunting along theriver. They met “with great Cordiallity & Ser-mony [ceremony].” They smoked a peace pipeon shore and later invited Sheheke and hisbrother aboard the keelboat “for a few minits.”

The next day, October 25, other Mandanrode downriver on horseback to marvel at thesight of the non-Indian newcomers. “Indeed,”Clark wrote in his journal, “they are contin-uelly in Sight Satisfying their Curriossities asto our apperance &c.” The trees along theriver were now bare of leaves.

On October 26 they arrived at Sheheke’svillage, known as Mitunka, and made theircamp. The Mandan were delighted at thearrival of the expedition. Never before hadsuch a large party of non-Indians come up theriver to the Mandan villages. “Many men wo-men Children flocked down to See us,” Clarkwrote in his journal. Clark’s rheumatism wasacting up again, and he stayed at the keelboatwhile Lewis walked to the village with She-heke. But other Mandan chiefs came tosmoke peace pipes with Clark and marveledat the men’s possessions, including a steel


mill they had brought along to grind corn.Clark noted the Mandan were also“delighted” at the sight of “my black Servent,”York. All in all, things were going well. TheCorps of Discovery had traveled 1,600 miles

up the Missouri since setting off under that“jentle brease” nearly five and a half monthsearlier. They could go no further in 1804. TheMandan would be their neighbors untilspring returned.


On their return journey, Lewis and Clark convinced Big White to go to Washington to meet Thomas Jefferson and discuss trade possibilities withthe United States. Clark gave Big White non-Indian clothing for this journey.Wi-Jun-Jon, an Assiniboine chief shown here, also wore white men’s clothingwhen he visited Washington in about 1837. (Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division [LC-USZC2-3313])

“The Most Perfect Harmoney”

Winter at Fort Mandan

57

5{

As Captains Lewis and Clark contem-plated the tasks that lay before themin settling their men into winter quar-

ters on the farthest western frontier everexplored by Americans, the man who had sentthem there, President Jefferson, was attendingto his official duties in the capital of theUnited States. They were more than 1,000miles and, seemingly, worlds apart. But it isworth noting that Lewis and Clark would havemore neighbors in their immediate vicinitythat winter than would Jefferson. Four thou-sand people lived in Washington, D.C., in1804; some 4,500 lived in the five villagesoccupied by members of the Mandan andHidatsa tribes. These villages were the centerof a vast trading network stretching acrossmuch of the northern half of the LouisianaTerritory, and as such they had long served asa magnet for French and British traders ven-turing south from Canada. Together, the vil-

lages constituted a frontier metropolis, a cen-ter of trade and diplomatic intrigue, and themost important permanent community ofNative Americans that the Corps of Discoverywould encounter on their journey across thecontinent.

THE MANDAN VILLAGESSince the early 18th century, the Mandan vil-lages had been one of the few geographicalreference points along the upper MissouriRiver known to Europeans and white Ameri-cans. A French explorer named Pierre LaVerendrye undertook several notable effortsin the 1730s to find a route across the NorthAmerican continent to the Pacific. He failed tofind an overland route on a 1731 expedition,but he was interested afterward to hear fromIndians of a river flowing from the west thatmight serve as a water route (he did not real-

\


By painting Hidatsa Indians as various as young male hunters, mothers carrying their children, an old manwith a rifle, and a bundled figure resting beneath a tree, Karl Bodmer was able to depict the condensed andeclectic population of the Hidatsa village in this 1833 painting entitled Winter Village of the Manitaries(Hidatsa) in Dakota Territory. (National Archives [NWDNS-111-SC-92845])

ize this was the same river whose mouth on the Mississippi had been discovered by his countrymen Marquette and Joliet a half-century earlier). In 1738 La Verendrye headedsouth from a fur trading post in the valley ofthe Assiniboine River in New France to see ifhe could find it. La Verendrye had also been

intrigued by rumors of a tribe of fair-skinned,“civilized” Indians living along river he sought.He found the Missouri, and with it nine popu-lous villages of Mandan Indians, then locatednear the mouth of the Heart River. La Ve-rendrye failed to discover the Northwest Pas-sage, but the journal of his trip provided

“The Most Perfect Harmoney” B 59

Europeans with their first glimpse of the Man-dan and their potential importance as tradingpartners along the Missouri.

As a group, the Mandan tribe was, in fact,paler-skinned and lighter-haired than manyother Indians, and Mandan also seemed more“European” to the explorers who encounteredthem than did other Plains Indians because oftheir preference for a sedentary, agriculture,and trade-based economy. In time, this gaverise to a myth that the Mandan were the likelydescendants of a legendary Welsh king whohad supposedly brought hundreds of his sub-jects to the New World centuries beforeColumbus’s arrival. Among his many other

instructions to Lewis, Thomas Jefferson hadurged him to determine whether there wasany truth to this tale of the Mandan’s sup-posed Welsh ancestry.

Mandan fortunes took a turn for the worsetoward the end of the 18th century, when thetribe’s numbers were greatly reduced bysmallpox epidemics. With a smaller popula-tion, the villagers could no longer easily fendoff raids by hostile nomadic tribes. For safety’ssake, the survivors abandoned their old vil-lages near the mouth of the Heart River whereLa Verendrye had found them and movedabout 60 miles further up the Missouri to theirpresent location near the mouth of the Knife

With their village looming on a cliff behind them, a few Hidatsa Indians are shown here in dugout canoes,probably fishing to bring food back to the tribe. (Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division [LC-USZ62-28804])


River. The Mandan now lived in just two vil-lages. The southernmost of these, located onthe west bank of the Missouri, was calledMitutanka. Its chief was Sheheke, or Big White(so called because he was both pale and fat);he was the Mandan chief whom Lewis andClark had met along with his hunting party onthe Missouri. Further up the river, on the eastbank, was the second Mandan village, Nup-tadi. Its chief was Black Cat. A little fartherwest, along the banks of the Knife River, laythree Hidatsa villages, whose important chiefsincluded Black Moccasin and Le Borgne, alsoknown as One Eye. (The Hidatsa were knownby various other names, depending on whichvillage they belonged to; Lewis and Clarkcalled some of them Minnetaree, and othersWattason or Ahaharway. To simplify things,they will all be referred to here as Hidatsa, thename that remains in current usage.)

To outward appearance there was notmuch to distinguish the villages occupied bythe two main tribes: Each consisted of a col-

lection of dome-shaped earthen lodges clus-tered together for protection within lowwooden palisades and surrounded by fieldsin which they grew corn and other crops. Butthe tribes spoke distinct languages, and dif-fered in other ways that would prove to havegreat significance to the future success ofLewis and Clark’s expedition. While the Man-dan rarely ventured far from their home vil-lages, Hidatsa warriors ventured out onraiding parties hundreds of miles to thewest—as far as the headwaters of the Mis-souri on the eastern slopes of a distantmountain range.

PROMISES OF PEACE AND TRADEAs always when they encountered new Indiantribes, the first thing Lewis and Clark did wasset up a formal council meeting. They hired alocally based French-Canadian trader, RenéJessaume, as interpreter; he had lived among

The Mandan Indians lived in earthen lodges like the one shown above in a photograph taken by Edward Curtis in the early 20th century. (Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division [LC-USZ62-114582])


the Mandan and Arikara for many years, andhe had a Mandan wife. (Jessaume and his wifewould move into the expedition’s quartersthat winter so that his services as an inter-preter would always be available.) The cap-tains scheduled the council meeting forOctober 28. But high winds and blowing sandsforced a postponement to the next day, and italso kept some of the most important Mandanand Hidatsa chiefs from attending. So themeeting was rescheduled.

On October 29, at a site on the easternbank of the Missouri across from the Mandanvillage of Mitutanka, Mandan and Hidatsaassembled to hear what the white strangershad to say. The captains made the usualspeeches and presented the usual medals.Lewis fired the air gun, which drew the usualastonished response. But, as had also hap-pened before, Lewis and Clark had a hard timepersuading their audience that an era ofpeaceful relations among the Missouri Rivertribes, guaranteed by the new Great WhiteFather in the East, was really at hand. An

Arikara Indian had come up the Missouri withLewis and Clark as a peace delegate, and, en-couraged by the captains, pledged his tribe’speaceful intentions for the future. The Man-dan, who generally avoided warfare unlessattacked, would have liked to believe theirsouthern flank was now secure from attack.But they remained skeptical about the value ofpromises offered by “liars and bad men” likethe Arikara.

If Lewis and Clark’s promises of peaceseemed overblown to their Indian listeners,their promises of trade goods coming up theMissouri from St. Louis sparked genuineenthusiasm, particularly among the Mandan.More traders bringing more goods in competi-tion with the British traders from the Hudson’sBay company and the North West Companywould work to the economic advantage of theMandan. Black Cat and Big White, the principalMandan chiefs, made it clear to Lewis andClark that they were welcome to spend thewinter. What it took the captains a while torealize was the Mandan were also angling to

Smallpox and the Fate of the Mandan Tribe =

Before the coming of the white men, North American Indian tribes suffered lit-tle from epidemic diseases. Smallpox, a contagious disease with a high mortal-ity rate, arrived with British settlers on the eastern seaboard in the 17th century.Smallpox, to which the Indians had no developed immunity as some Europeanshad, devastated many eastern tribes and followed white settlement inland. In1781 the Mandan had been hard hit by a smallpox epidemic spread by increas-ing contact with whites. But worse was to come in 1837, when a steamboat trav-eling up the Missouri carried a new round of infection. This time the Mandanpopulation was reduced to a mere 150 survivors. Other tribes suffered similarlosses. After the epidemic ran its course, remnants of the Hidatsa and Mandanbanded together in one village; later joined by the Arikara, they became knownas the Three Affiliated Tribes. Their descendants live today on the Fort BertholdReservation in North Dakota.

\


cut their closest Indian neighbors out of thedeal; the Mandan spread rumors among theHidatsa that the whites were up to no good,perhaps even planning an attack on their vil-lages in alliance with the Sioux. While Black Catand Big White frequently visited the captainsthat winter, the Hidatsa chiefs stayed away.

WINTER QUARTERSTheir council concluded, Lewis and Clarkturned their attention to the ever more press-ing task of getting their men under cover. ByNovember 3 the enlisted men were construct-ing the fort that would be their winter homeon the eastern bank of the Missouri acrossfrom Mitutanka and seven miles below themouth of the Knife River. Fort Mandan was a

triangular structure. Sergeant Gass, the expe-dition’s master carpenter, left a detaileddescription of its design and construction inhis journal:

The following is the manner in which ourfort and huts were built; the huts were in tworows, containing four rooms each, andjoined at one end forming an angle. Whenrasied [raised] about 7 feet high a floor of[split planks] were laid, and covered withgrass and clay; which made a warm loft. Theupper part [of the huts] projected a foot overand the roofs were made shed-fashion, ris-ing from the inner side, and making theouter wall about 18 feet high . . . In the angleformed by the two rows of huts we built tworooms, for holding our provisions and stores.

The expedition’s master carpenter, Sergeant Patrick Gass, included a detailed description and etching of theprocess of building a line of huts, perhaps Fort Mandan and adjoining shelter, in his journal. (Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division [LC-USZ62-19230])


The third side of the triangle consisted of ahigh log fence with a gate in the middle. Thefort would be home that winter to 35 soldiers:Lewis and Clark and 26 enlisted men whowould go west with them, plus Corporal Warf-ington and six soldiers who would accompanyhim in the keelboat back to St. Louis in thespring. There were also a number of civilianswho would live in the fort, including York andDrouillard, Jessaume and his Mandan wife,and others yet to arrive. The French engagéshad been discharged and paid off by the timeFort Mandan was under construction; a few

stayed at the fort, while others spent the win-ter with the Mandan and Hidatsa or headeddown the Missouri to stay at the Arikara vil-lages with a French trader, Joseph Gravelines.Another addition to the fort’s inhabitants wasa French trapper they met at the Mandan vil-lages, Jean-Baptiste Lepage, who on a previ-ous trapping expedition had traveled a fewdozen miles farther up the Missouri; the cap-tains persuaded him to enlist in the U.S. Army,and he became part of the permanent partythat would set out westward the followingspring.

This view into the interior of the hut of a Mandan chief shows a group of Indians sitting on buffalo robeswatching the central figure who is illuminated by the sunlight that sifts through a hole at the top of thelodge. To the left the artist included the horses, which were kept inside to protect them from inclementweather and thieves. (Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division [LC-USZ62-2086])


The men building the fort needed littleencouragement to work hard. By the lastweek of November, they were sleeping underthe roofs of their newly competed huts—justin time, as it turned out, because snow was by

now beginning to fall regularly. Clarkrecorded 13 inches on the ground November29. By the first week of December the Mis-souri River was covered with ice. The keel-boat and pirogues were frozen at the water’s

Fort

Indian village


Present-day city (provided forreference; these did not existat the time of the expedition)

Area of seasonal flooding

Major Indian leader’s name

Menetarra(One Eye)

0 4 miles

0 4 km

N

1.

2.

3.

“. . . half a mile lower down the river, began to clear a place for a camp and fort. We pitched our tents and laid the foundation of one line of huts.” —Patrick Gass, November 2, 1804

“The Indians in all the towns and camps treated Captain Lewis and the party with great respect, except one of the principal chiefs . . . Horned Weasel, Who did not chuse to be seen by the Capt., and left word that he was not at home, &c.” — William Clark, November 27, 1804

“. . . went up to the 1st village of Mandans to dance . . . carried with us a fiddle & a Tambereen & a Sounden horn, . . . So we danced in different lodges until late in the afternoon. then a part of the men returned to the fort. the remainder Stayed all night in the village.” —John Ordway, January 1, 1805

“About five o’clock this evening, one of the wives of Charbonneau was delivered of a fine boy. . . . her labor was tedious and the pain violent. . . . he administered two rings of [rattlesnake] to the woman, broken in small pieces with the fingers, and added to a small quantity of water. . . . she had not taken it more than ten minutes, before she brought forth.” —Meriwether Lewis, February 11, 1805

“We do not go on so rapidly as we did higher up the river: but having lashed our small canoes together, we go on very safe and can make fifty or sixty miles a day. Captain Lewis is getting much better and we are all in good spirits. . . . and we proceeded on, . . .” —Patrick Gass, August 19, 1806

4.

5.

Note: Original spelling and punctuation have been retainedfrom journal entries.

Fort Mandan and Neighboring Mandan and HidatsaVillages, November 1804–April 1805 and August 1806

Hidatsa villageMenetarra(One Eye)

Council site

Fort Mandan

Stanton

Mandan villageRooptahee (Black Cat)

Mandan villageMatootonha (Big White)

Missouri R.

Knife

R.

Fort Clark

Hidatsa villageMenetarra(One Eye)

Hidatsa villageMetaharta (Black Moccasin)

Hidatsa villageMahawha (Tatuckcopinreha)

Council site

Fort Mandan

Fort Clark

Hensler

Washburn

Sanger

Stanton

Mandan villageRooptahee (Black Cat)

Mandan villageMatootonha (Big White)

Missouri R.

Missouri R.

Knife

R.

5

4

3

1

2


edge (the captains’ failure to have the boatsdragged ashore before the freeze seems aserious misjudgment). If there had been anydoubt in the minds of the Corps of Discoveryas to how completely they were cut off from the world they had left behind the pre-vious May, the sight of the newly frozen rivermust surely have dispelled it. No matter whathappened, there was no retreat now untilspring came.

The days were short, and the brief appear-ance of the winter sun provided little warmth.On December 7 Clark recorded in his journalthat the temperature was 44 degrees “belowBreizing [freezing]” in the morning (or 12degrees below zero). Before the winter wasover it would get a lot colder, down to 42degrees below zero. With few trees to block thewind blowing down from the Canadianprairies, the windchill effect could havedeadly consequences. “Our rooms are verryclose and warm,” Sergeant Ordway wrote ofthe huts in the fort, “So we can keep ourselveswarm and comfortable, but the Sentinel whostood out in the open weather had to berelieved every hour. . . .” Any trip outside couldhave painful consequences. Toes, fingers, andears froze. The captains soon became expertat treating frostbite, and none of the menseem to have lost any vital body parts.

When the men were not on duty, theyrelaxed with the simple pleasures available tothem. They played backgammon or socializedwith the Indians (chiefly Mandan) who camein large numbers almost every day to witnessthe curious novelty of a large number of whitemen living together in their midst. Manytimes the Indian visitors would spend thenight. When darkness fell Cruzatte wouldbring out his fiddle to entertain the expeditionmembers and their guests; as Clark noted inhis journal toward the end of the winter, “fiewnights pass without a Dance.” The heavens

also provided some entertainment; the menwere treated to a display of the northern lightsin November, and a total eclipse of the Moonin January.

An army, it is often said, travels on itsstomach. In this case the army was sittingstill, but the men still needed to eat prodi-giously to keep up their energy in the bittercold. Fortunately, supplying food was nevermuch of a problem at Fort Mandan, espe-cially not in the early months of winter. Hunt-ing parties brought in buffalo, deer, andantelope, some killed within sight of the fort.The Corps of Discovery also traded with thelocal Indians for corn. The expedition black-smiths, John Shields and Alexander Willard,set up a forge with bellows and anvil just after Christmas, and they started to bothrepair and manufacture iron goods for trade.The Mandan particularly desired iron waraxes, for which they eagerly traded their dried corn.

Unlike the previous winter at Camp Wood,discipline was not a problem at Fort Mandan.The captains had established their authorityover the men and won their loyalty. There wasonly one court-martial, of a man who climbedover the wall of the fort rather than ask to beadmitted at the gate. Though he was sen-tenced to 50 lashes, the sentence was nevercarried out. That would prove the last court-martial Lewis and Clark convened. At winter’send Lewis would be able to write proudly toJefferson:

every individual of the party are in goodhealth, and excellent sperits; zealouslyattatched to the enterprise, and anxious toproceed; not a whisper of discontent ormurmur is to be heard among them; but allin unison, act with the most perfect har-money. With such men I have every thing tohope, and but little to fear.


While the enlisted men carried out theroutine tasks of garrison duty, the captainshad their own business to attend to. First ofall, they had to tie up some of the diplomaticloose ends left over from their council meet-ing in October. Lewis and Clark realized thatthe Hidatsa had felt slighted by them sincetheir arrival, and they worried that becauseso many British traders lived in their midst,the Hidatsa would favor the Hudson’s Bayand North West Companies over potentialU.S. rivals. In late November Lewis went upto the Hidatsa villages to win them over. Hehanded out gifts and assured the Hidatsa

chiefs that, notwithstanding the rumorspassed along by the Mandan, the expedition’sintentions were strictly peaceful. Trade withthe Americans, he assured the Hidatsa, wouldwork to the benefit of both the Mandan andtheir tribe. He also won a promise from someof the Hidatsa chiefs to make peace with theirwestern enemies, the Shoshone and Black-feet (a promise they were happy to offer tothe gift-bearing white men since it cost themnothing and in any case had little intention ofkeeping it).

At the Mandan villages Lewis and Clarkfaced a new diplomatic challenge: establish-

The Trading Network of the Plains Indians =

The tribes who lived in more or less permanent agricultural villages along theMissouri River, including the Mandan, Hidatsa, Arikara, Pawnee, Wichita, andOmaha, were linked to the nomadic, buffalo-hunting groups such as the Lakotaand Nakota in a vast and intricate trade network. The nomadic tribes would bringbuffalo hides to annual gatherings at the agricultural villages to trade for foodand tobacco, and for manufactured goods that came down from Canada and upfrom St. Louis. Just how far-reaching this trade extended became clear to thecaptains when they were returning from the Pacific in 1806 and found one of thebattle axes that John Shields had manufactured at Fort Mandan in the winter of1805 in the hands of the Nez Perce Indians, on the western side of the Rockies.

In the “Estimate of the Eastern Indians,” which the captains sent back toWashington in spring 1805, they offered a detailed description of how the Man-dan Indians fit in to the Plains trading network. The Mandan, they wrote,

live in fortified villages . . . and cultivate corn, beans, squashes and tobacco,which form articles of traffic with their natives the Assiniboin [a Canadian tribe]:they also barter horses with the Assiniboins for arms, ammunition, axes, kettles,and other articles of European manufacture, which these last obtain from theBritish establishments on the Assiniboin river.

The Mandan then bartered the European goods for horses and “leathertents” (by which they probably meant buffalo skins), from western Indiantribes, including the Crow and Cheyenne “who visit them occasionally for thepurpose of traffic.”

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ing and maintaining proper relations with theBritish traders from the Hudson’s Bay andNorth West Companies who came down fromCanada to do business with the Mandan andHidatsa. This was one area in which Jeffersonhad not provided any guidance in his 1803letter of instruction to Lewis, beyond express-ing the hope that any British traders they“may happen to meet” would be prepared toextend them “friendly aid.” He had not antic-ipated that the Corps of Discovery would set-tle down for its winter encampment in amajor trading center such as the Mandan vil-lages where they would have the opportunity

for extended conversations and interactionwith the British.

Lewis had a hard time disguising his deepand long-held anti-British sentiments; he hadnot forgiven them for his father’s death in theRevolution. But, along with Clark, he did hisbest to assure the British traders that, not-withstanding the transfer of the Louisiana Ter-ritory to U.S. control, they were still welcometo do business with the Indian tribes along theMissouri River. However, they did insist thatthe British should no longer hand out medalsor the British flag as gifts to the Indians,because that would only confuse the tribes as

European (and, increasingly, American) goods such as muskets, iron pots,metal fishhooks, and woven cloth made life easier for the Indians in this tradenetwork. But they also encouraged a new and more wasteful attitude towardnatural resources as Indians began to overhunt their territories for the animalhides and furs valued by the Europeans.

Buffalo hides were versatile assets in the trade network; they could be used as tipicovers, clothing, robes, and bedding. They were also used to transport familybelongings during travel. (Bureau of Land Management)


to which Great White Father they owed theirultimate allegiance. If Lewis and Clark hadanything to say on the matter, there would beno more Indian chiefs in the Louisiana Terri-tory bedecked in medals bearing the likenessof King George.

The British traders (a number of whomwere Frenchmen in the service of the Britishfur trading companies), offered no challengeto U.S. authority and indeed provided thecaptains with some valuable services. HughMcCracken of the North West Companyagreed to carry a letter from Lewis to theAssiniboine Indians and the traders who livedamong them at the North West Company out-post 150 miles away in Canada, advising themof the Louisiana Purchase and its implicationsfor the future of trade in the region.McCracken and other British traders also pro-vided Lewis and Clark with a great deal of use-ful geographical information. Clark noted inhis journal in mid-December that a tradernamed Hugh Heney had given them “SomeScetches of the Countrey between the Missis-sippi & Missouri,” and even more important,“Some Sketches . . . which he had obtainedfrom the Indins, to the West of this place.” SoAnglo-American diplomatic relations in thisremote corner of the Louisiana Territory couldbe described as proper that winter, even ifthey never were entirely friendly. “CaptainLewis could not make himself agreeable tous,” North West Company trader CharlesMacKenzie complained after visiting FortMandan in January 1805. “He could speak flu-ently and learnedly on all subjects, but hisinveterate disposition against the Britishstained, at least in our eyes, all his eloquence.”

TAKING STOCKThe captains now had the opportunity to setdown a detailed account of all that they had

learned on their journey thus far up the Mis-souri River. In spring Corporal Warfingtonand his detachment would take the keelboatback to St. Louis, the last chance Lewis andClark would have to communicate the won-ders they had thus far seen to President Jef-ferson, until their own return from thePacific.

Clark went back over his journal entriesand the reports he had gotten since from Indi-ans and British traders and drew up the mostaccurate map yet available of the wanderingtrail of the Missouri River between St. Louisand the Mandan villages. Lewis wrote out a“summary view of the rivers and creeks whichdischarge themselves into the Missouri . . .”which, in addition to describing the locationof the river junctions they had passed, con-tained a great deal of carefully observed ifsomewhat miscellaneous observations aboutthe character of the various rivers (“The riverPlatte does not furnish the Missouri with it’scolouring matter, as has been asserted bysome,” Lewis wrote, “but it throws into itimmence quantities of sand, and gives a celer-ity to it’s current, of which it does not abateuntill it joins the Mississippi”).

Lewis and Clark reported on and preparedto send back samples of 108 types of plantsand seeds they had gathered en route. Theyreported on and prepared to send back sam-ples of 68 types of minerals they had dug outalong the shoreline of the Missouri. Theylabeled and prepared to send back samples ofthe animals they had encountered thus far,including bones, horns, animal hides, and afew live specimens of smaller and more trans-portable creatures, including the prairie dog,which must have spent a boring winter in hislittle cage. They boxed up Clark’s journal andprepared to send it back as a record of theirown efforts since first proceeding on up theMissouri.

On February 19, 1806, Thomas Jefferson drafted a letter to the U.S. Congress informing the members ofthe discoveries of Lewis and Clark. (National Archives [NWL-46-PRESMESS9AE2-2])


Perhaps their greatest contribution to theknowledge of Americans about the newLouisiana Territory was a report they preparedand entitled “Estimate of Eastern Indians,”summarizing all that they had learned,through direct observation or from reports byothers, of dozens of Indian tribes and bandsliving along the Missouri. They reported onthe location of the various tribes, theireconomies, their customs, their attitudestoward whites, and their relations with otherIndians. There was much valuable anthropo-logical and historical information in this “esti-mate,” but as official representatives of theUnited States, Lewis and Clark obviouslyintended their report first and foremost toserve the trade and diplomatic purposes oftheir government, rather than the cause of sci-ence. The captains had their clear favoritesand villains among the Indians they de-scribed. Thus they drew a stark contrastbetween the character of two groups they hadmet on the Missouri, the Arikara and the TetonLakota: “Though they [the Arikara] be the old-est inhabitants [living along their territory onthe shore of the Missouri] they may properlybe considered the farmers or tenants at will ofthat lawless, savage and rapacious race theSioux Teton, who rob them of their horses,plunder their gardens and fields, and some-times murder them. . . . If these people werefreed from the oppression of the Tetons, theirtrade would increase rapidly. . . .”

Jefferson thought so highly of the “esti-mate” when he received it late in 1805 that he had it reprinted as an official report toCongress the following year. Lewis and Clark also prepared vocabulary lists of theIndian languages they had encountered thus far, as well as assembling for shipmentsamples of Indian material culture, includ-ing weapons, pottery, and buffalo robes (buf-falo furs).

RAIDS AND CELEBRATIONSThe winter routine at Fort Mandan was inter-rupted on several occasions by dramaticevents. The first occurred at the end ofNovember, when a Mandan crossed the riverfrom Mitutanka bringing news that LakotaSioux and Arikara warriors had attacked aMandan hunting party, leaving one dead, twowounded, and stealing nine of their horses.This was a grave challenge to U.S. diplomacyon the Missouri; it had only been a monthsince the captains had laid their prestige onthe line trying to broker a peace agreementbetween the Arikara and the Mandan andHidatsa tribes. Lewis and Clark decided that ashow of military strength was called for, sowith 21 armed men Clark set off across thefrozen Missouri to offer his services to theMandan in hunting down the Lakota Siouxand Arikara war party.

But the Mandan would have none of it.They knew better than Lewis and Clark what itmeant to go chasing out over the plainsthrough deep snow in the dead of winter. TheLakota Sioux and Arikara were well on theirway home by then, and vengeance could waituntil the spring. The Mandan pointed out thatthey had never had much faith in Arikarapromises of good behavior. Clark and his men,probably a little embarrassed by the wholeepisode, returned to the fort.

The next time the Lakota Sioux struck itwas the Americans who were their victims. OnFebruary 14 a four-man detachment from thefort, led by George Drouillard, headed southto bring in some meat killed by an earlierhunting party. They were set upon by a muchlarger band of Lakota Sioux (Drouillardreported there were 105 all told, although howhe made such an exact count remains a mys-tery) who stole two of their three horses aswell as a couple of knives. Such a large band of


Lakota Sioux could easily have killed the fourAmericans, if they had wanted to, and carriedoff their rifles as booty; it seems, however, thatthey just wanted to send a message about whoreally was in charge along the Missouri.

When Drouillard reported back to the fort,Lewis set out with a party of American soldiersand some Mandan warriors to attack theraiders, but after a fruitless pursuit over 30miles of frozen landscape they gave up thechase. The captains feared renewed LakotaSioux attack; as John Ordway noted in hisjournal, a French fur trader brought word thatthe Lakota Sioux “[s]ay if they can catch anymore of us they will kill us for they think thatwe are bad medicine . . .” But the Americanshad no more encounters with Teton LakotaSioux that winter, and when spring came theywould leave their territory far behind.

Christmas and the New Year brought hap-pier diversions from routine. On ChristmasEve Lewis and Clark distributed flour, driedapples, and pepper—rare treats to supple-ment the men’s usual diet of game and corn—for the next day’s holiday feast. On ChristmasDay, according to the account left by PrivateJoseph Whitehouse:

We ushred in the morning with a dischargeof the Swivvel [gun], and one round of Smallarms of all the party. then another from theSwivel. then Capt. Clark presented a glass ofbrandy to each man of the party. we hoistedthe american flag, and each man hadanother glass of brandy. the men preparedone of the rooms and commenced dancing.at 10 oC [O’Clock] we had another Glass ofbrandy, at one a gun was fired as a Signal fordiner. half past two another gun was fired toassemble at the dance, and So we kept it upin a jovel [jovial] manner until Eight oC[O’Clock] at night, all without the compy[company] of the female Seck [sex]. . . .

New Year’s Day brought another round ofcelebrations. The captains ordered the can-non fired at the fort to mark the occasion.Then, at the invitation of the Mandan inMituntaka, Clark and 16 of the expeditionmembers, bringing a fiddle, a tambourine,and a horn, visited the village. Moving fromone earthen lodge to the next, they dancedwith the Indians for much of the day (andsome continued the celebrations through thenight). The Indians “much admir’d” the men’sdancing, Private Whitehouse recorded, “fre-quently signifying their approbation by aWhoop they gave . . .” According to Clark, theMandan were “somewhat astonished” atYork’s dancing abilities, “that so large a manshould be so active.” (York was a source ofnever-ending fascination to the Indians thatthe Corps of Discovery encountered en routealong the Pacific. On another occasion duringthe winter at Fort Mandan, he inadvertentlyhelped the captains in their campaign tobuild better relations with one of the morealoof Hidatsa chiefs, Le Borgne. The chief,convinced that York was just a white manpainted a darker color, spat on his finger andrubbed it on York’s bare skin to see if the colorwould come off. When it did not, Le Borgnedecided that the black man was Big Medicineindeed, meaning that he had powerful magi-cal powers.)

Meanwhile, the celebration of the NewYear continued. On January 2, it was Lewis’sturn to take a group of soldiers over to the sec-ond Mandan village, Nuptadi, for more danc-ing. And from January 3 to January 5 theMandan invited the soldiers to join them at aBuffalo Calling Dance, a ritual celebration thatthey believed would bring big herds of buffalonear the villages for their hunters to kill. Thewhite men were particularly fascinated by onepart of the ritual, in which hunters offered thesexual services of their wives to other men,


believing that to do so would bring them luckin the hunt. Many of the young American sol-diers (although apparently not Lewis andClark themselves) eagerly took part in thispart of the festivities—several months later,Clark noted in his journal that “venerialsComplains” (sexually transmitted disease)was “verry Common” among the Corps’enlisted men. In any case, the ritual seemed towork; within a couple of days a herd of buffalowandered in off the plains and furnished vil-lagers and soldiers alike with a welcome sup-ply of fresh meat.

GETTING READY FOR SPRINGIn February Lewis and Clark began to giveserious thought to their spring departure. Themen chopped the boats free of the river icethat had imprisoned them since Novemberand hauled them ashore to make repairs. Atthe beginning of March they cut down andbegan hollowing out cottonwood trees tomake six dugout canoes, to replace the keel-boat that Corporal Warfington would takedownriver to St. Louis. By the end of Marchthe river ice was beginning to break up. Clarkwas impressed by the “extraordinary dexter-ity” of the Indians, as they jumped from oneice floe to another and as they pulled the car-casses of drowned buffalo from the river.

Lewis and Clark resolved to be on theirway westward the first week in April. Theyhad a much better idea of what to expectalong the way than they had when theyarrived in October, thanks to their Mandanand Hidatsa hosts. The Indians had sketchedmaps of the western Missouri for them,sometimes painted onto animal skins, some-times traced out on the earthen floors of thewinter lodges. The contributions of theHidatsa were particularly helpful, since they

had traveled as far west as the Rocky Moun-tains. Lewis and Clark understood for the first time that the Missouri did not simplytravel in a straight line west after leaving theMandan villages. That meant that they wouldhave more miles to travel along the actualwinding course of the river than they hadoriginally thought. Thanks to their Indianinformants, it would be a lot easier for themto calculate their progress to their final goal,for they now knew the approximate distanceto the various large rivers emptying into theMissouri they would find along the way. Soonafter leaving the villages they would come tothe Little Missouri River entering from thesouth, followed by the far more impressiveYellowstone River, also entering from thesouth. There would be two rivers entering theMissouri from the north, the White EarthRiver, a fairly small one, followed some dayslater by the only important northern tributaryof the Missouri, known to the Hidatsa as TheRiver Which Scolds at All Others. Then theywould find the mouth of the MusselshellRiver on the south, and a few days after thatthey would come to the most unmistakablelandmark of all, the Great Falls of the Mis-souri. They would have to leave the river atthat point for a portage around the falls—butthis detour, they were assured, was no morethan a half-mile.

Once past the Great Falls the Missouri bentto the southwest. As they neared the RockyMountains they would come to three forks inthe river. They were to take the westernmostfork, which would lead them up and over themountains, past the headwaters of the Mis-souri and over the Continental Divide. On theother side, after another short portage, theywould come to the headwaters of what wasdescribed to them as the south fork of theColumbia River, which would lead them to the main body of the Columbia and then to


the Pacific. Clark calculated that from theirportage across the Continental Divide to thePacific would be a water journey of no morethan 300 miles. He thought that meant that,with luck, they could make it to the Pacific andback to the Mandan village before the nextwinter set in.

There was one potential problem with thisroute, and that was getting across the Rockies.Even if, as they believed, it was only a fewmiles by land from the headwaters of the Mis-souri to the headwaters of the Columbia, andeven if, as they also believed, the Rockies wereonly a few thousand feet high, the expeditionstill had a lot of supplies it needed to transportover the mountains, including trade goods,weapons and ammunition, cooking gear,tools, and rations. That added up to a loadimpossible for the men to carry on their backs.They decided that it would be necessary, oncethey reached the end of the Missouri’s waters,to purchase horses from the Shoshone Indi-ans, a tribe they knew lived in that region.Unlike the Mandan and Hidatsa, however, theShoshone had never seen white men before.They spoke neither English nor French, andLewis and Clark, of course, spoke noShoshone. Establishing contact with theShoshone, explaining their mission to them,and bartering for horses might prove difficult.

SACAGAWEA JOINS THE EXPEDITIONBut, as fate would have it, the solution to theirproblem was waiting for them in one of theHidatsa villages. For there a 47-year-oldmixed-race (part French, part Indian) tradernamed Toussaint Charbonneau lived, alongwith his two Indian wives. Early in November1804 Charbonneau came to the fort, thenunder construction, to see if he could interestthe captains in his services as a translator. The

captains were interested, and they took himon at a salary of $25 a month. Considered onhis own merits, Charbonneau did little to earnhis pay; Lewis would later describe him as “aman of no particular merit,” and most histori-ans have subsequently agreed.

But Charbonneau did provide one invalu-able service and that was bringing his teenage

This monument in City Park, Portland, Oregon, is atribute to Sacagawea, shown here carrying her son.She joined the expedition as the wife of ToussaintCharbonneau and later proved indispensable to thecrew as a translator among the Shoshone. She wasintegral to a trade for horses that made the passageacross the Rockies possible. (Library of Congress,Prints and Photographs Division [LC-USZ62-93141])


wife Sacagawea (Sacajawea) along on the ex-pedition (he left his older wife in the Hidatsavillage). Sacagawea, whose name meant BirdWoman in Hidatsa, was about 15 years oldwhen Lewis and Clark met her. She was aLemhi Shoshone, born into a band thatroamed a territory straddling the ContinentalDivide in present-day southeastern Idaho andsouthwestern Montana. She had not come tolive among the Hidatsa by choice; five yearsearlier, as a girl of about 10, she had been kid-napped by Hidatsa raiders near the three forksof the Missouri River and carried back to theKnife River village as a captive. In 1803 Char-bonneau acquired her as a wife, either by buy-ing her or, according to some stories, winningher in a bet.

The captains may not have appreciatedjust how useful she was going to be when they

first invited Charbonneau and his young wifeto move into Fort Mandan, but during thecourse of the winter, her participation enteredmore and more into their plans and calcula-tions for the next year’s journey. With Saca-gawea as an unofficial part of the Corps ofDiscovery, when they found the Shoshonethey would have a much better chance ofobtaining those essential horses. Sacagaweacould translate from Shoshone to Hidatsa,Charbonneau could translate the Hidatsa intoFrench, and one of the other French speakerson the expedition could translate into Englishfor the captains to understand. Then the chainof translation could be reversed. It would be acumbersome system, but there were no betteroptions available.

There was one complication: Sacagaweawas pregnant, and on February 11, 1805, she

Members of the Corps of Discovery =

Captains Meriwether Lewis and William Clark

York, Clark’s servantTouissant Charbonneau, translatorSacagawea, wife of CharbonneauJean-Baptiste Charbonneau,

infant son of Sacagaweaand Charbonneau

George Drouillard, interpreter and hunter

Sergeant Patrick GassSergeant John OrdwaySergeant Nathaniel PryorPrivate William BrattonPrivate John CollinsPrivate John ColterPrivate Pierre CruzattePrivate Joseph Field

Private Reuben FieldPrivate Robert FrazerPrivate George GibsonPrivate Silas GoodrichPrivate Hugh HallPrivate Thomas P. HowardPrivate Francois LabichePrivate Baptiste LepagePrivate Hugh McNealPrivate John PottsPrivate George ShannonPrivate John ShieldsPrivate John B. ThompsonPrivate William WernerPrivate Joseph WhitehousePrivate Alexander H. WillardPrivate Richard WindsorPrivate Peter M. Wiser

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went into labor. The delivery did not go well.Lewis, who handled most of the expedition’smedical chores that winter, acted as her mid-wife. Finally, acting on the advice of René Jes-saume, Lewis offered the struggling mother adrink of water with the dried rattle of a rat-tlesnake crumbled in it. It seemed to do thetrick: Ten minutes after drinking the concoc-tion, Sacagawea had successfully deliveredher baby, a son named Jean Baptiste Charbon-neau, who became better known by his nick-name, “Pomp.”

Sacagawea had seven weeks to regain herstrength and nurse her new baby before it wastime to go. At the start of April 1805, the Corpsof Discovery—the party that would attempt tofollow the water route to the Pacific—had

taken final form. Some 40 men had sailed up the Missouri to the Mandan village in fall1804. One, Sergeant Floyd, had died en route.A half-dozen or so French engagés had beendischarged at the start of the winter. TrapperJean-Baptiste Lepage joined up at Fort Man-dan. Corporal Warfington and six soldiers(including the disgraced deserter Moses Reedand the court-martialed John Newman)would sail back on the keelboat to St. Louis,along with some of the engagés, and the inter-preter Joseph Gravelines acting as pilot.

Thirty-one men, one woman and aninfant, along with Lewis’s big black New-foundland Seaman, were about to sail up theunknown Missouri.

“This Little Fleet”Up the Unknown Missouri

At 4 P.M. on April 7, 1805, the Corps ofDiscovery proceeded on once again,this time heading up the Missouri,

toward territory that no white men had everseen. To mark the occasion, and for the firsttime since setting down a brief spate of jour-nal entries in September 1804, MeriwetherLewis started making regular daily entries inhis journal. Over the next few months hewould be inspired to compose some of themost famous passages in the literature ofexploration, including the following passagefrom April 7. “This little fleet,” he wrote,meaning the expedition’s white and redpirogues, plus the six new dugout canoes:

altho’ not quite so rispectable as those ofColumbus or Capt. Cook, were still viewedby us with as much pleasure as thosedeservedly famed adventurers ever beheldtheirs. . . . We were now about to penetrate acountry at least two thousand miles inwidth, on which the foot of civilized manhad never trodden; the good or evil it had in

store for us was for experiment yet to deter-mine, and these little vessels containedevery article by which we were to expect tosubsist or defend ourselves.

Despite the uncertainty about what wouldbefall the expedition as it headed into theunknown, Meriwether Lewis was sure of onething: “I could but esteem this moment of mydeparture as among the most happy of mylife.”

THE JOURNEY RESUMESFeeling the need for exercise, Lewis set outbriskly on foot along the shore that afternoonwhile the men maneuvered the clumsy newdugouts against the Missouri’s current. Hewalked all the way to the second Mandan vil-lage, Nuptadi, six miles from the fort, wherehe hoped to say goodbye to Chief Black Cat.The chief was not to be found in the village, soLewis walked back down the river to where theexpedition made its first night’s encampment,

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“This Little Fleet” B 77

a mere three miles from their starting point.Next day’s progress was little better, slowed bythe swamping of one of the canoes, and theneed to stop and dry in the sun a barrel ofgunpowder that had gotten soaked.

But by the third day the expedition hit itsstride, making nearly 24 miles upstream. OnApril 10 they made nearly 19 miles. By April 12they had reached the first major landmark theyhad been told to watch for by the Hidatsa, themouth of the Little Missouri River. During theirlast months on the river in 1804 they had beenheading northward on the Missouri; now, com-ing to the section of the river that wouldbecome known as the Big Bend, they were atlast heading more or less due west.

Lewis seemed pleased with everything hesaw. He described the country along thisstretch of the Missouri as “one continuouslevel fertile plain as far as the eye can reach,”and a little later on as “extensive and

extreemly fertile high plains and meadows.”Little grew upon that “fertile plain,” however,except short grass and sagebrush. Hardly atree was to be seen past the river’s edge. Thefarther west they traveled into the High Plainsregion, the drier the climate grew. Althoughthe captains said nothing in their journalsabout any disagreement on the subject, Clarkseemed less enchanted with the westerncountryside. Although his journal entriesoften echoed Lewis’s, over the next fewmonths adjectives like fertile rarely appearedin Clark’s descriptions of the landscape.

Game was scarce at first because huntingparties from the Mandan and Hidatsa villageshad thoroughly harvested the region duringthe long winter season; the expedition hadtraveled for four days before Drouillard andClark finally killed a deer. Sacagawea helpedfill the expedition’s larder by gathering wildJerusalem artichokes. The river also hosted an

Like buffalo, herds of pronghorn antelope provided a welcome addition to the expedition’s diet. (U.S. Fishand Wildlife Service)


abundant population of bird life, includingbrant, geese, swans, gulls, ducks, and whoop-ing cranes. When Clark killed a goose on April13, Lewis climbed to the top of “a lofty cotton-wood tree” to collect an egg from its nest,whether out of scientific curiosity or hungerfor fried egg he did not say.

After five months of sedentary garrisonlife, the Corps of Discovery enjoyed returningto the now-familiar routine of river travel.Each morning, one of the captains would takeup position as commander of the little fleet,riding in the white pirogue. The other cap-tain—more often than not, Lewis—would

walk along the shore, often accompanied byDrouillard. After their nightly meal Cruzattewould break out his fiddle. Sometimes themen would be rewarded for a good day’sprogress with a dram of whiskey.

Each night Lewis and Clark would sit bythe campfire and write in their journals. Whenit was time for bed, the captains, along withCharbonneau, Sacagawea, and Drouillard,slept in a tipi of “dressed Buffaloe skins.” Thiswas one of the few instances on the expedi-tion in which rank obviously had its privileges;the enlisted men apparently slept in the open.Their old enemies the mosquitoes were in evi-

The Buffalo and the Plains Indian Economy =

On the Corps of Discovery’s return from the Pacific in 1806, Clark saw 20,000buffalo in one day. Those numbers were far greater than the total number of allthe Indians of all tribes Lewis and Clark would encounter in their two-year jour-ney. There may have been as many as 25 million buffalo in North America then.

The ancestors of modern buffalo roamed the plains of the North Americancontinent for hundreds of thousands of years. Human beings came along, acrossa temporary land bridge that spanned the Bering Strait 15 to 18 thousand yearsago, and made their own way to the Plains. The Indian cultures that emergednear the buffalo came to depend on them, not only for meat, but for the hidesthat the Indians made into clothing and shelter, the sinews that they used for fas-tenings, and the bones that could be made into tools. The Indians had huntedbuffalo on foot for thousands of years, stampeding them off high cliffs or past arow of archers. The introduction of the horse among the Plains Indian tribes afterthe 16th century greatly increased the range and effectiveness of buffalohunters. Even so, the herds were so vast that hunting had little effect; prairiewolves, rather than human beings, were the buffalo’s principal predator. Lewiswas astonished at the lack of fear buffalo displayed in the presence of humans.“[T]he bull buffaloes particularly will scarcely give way to you,” he wrote on May4, 1805. “I passed several in the open plain within fifty paces, they viewed me fora moment as something novel and then very unconcernedly continued to feed.”

The coming of the white hunters, with their high-powered rifles, doomed thebuffalo and the Plains Indian economy that depended on the animal. By the endof the 19th century there were only about 300 adult buffalo left in all of NorthAmerica.

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dence early on: “I saw a Musquetor today,”Clark wrote resignedly on April 9.

By the second week out, they no longerhad to worry about food. “I saw Several Smallparties of antelope,” Clark recorded in hisjournal of April 17, “large herds of Elk. . . . alsoa Beaver house.” Clark killed a buffalo andfour deer while walking alone along the shoreon April 21; that same day, Lewis, along with aparty including Drouillard, Ordway, and Potts,accounted for three deer, two beavers, andfour buffalo calves. The young buffalo, Lewisnoted, were “very delicious . . . equal to anyveal I ever tasted.” He also wrote approvingly

of the taste of beaver tail and beaver liver. Themen killed for food, not for sport, and littlewent to waste. To feed the 33 members of theexpedition, the hunters needed to bring infour deer or antelope or one buffalo every day.If they had too much fresh meat for immedi-ate consumption, they cut the surplus intosmall strips and dried it, carrying it along asjerky for days when the hunters were less suc-cessful.

Through April and into May, the expedi-tion’s little fleet had to contend with highwinds blowing eastward, slowing and evenoccasionally halting their progress. The wind

Titled The Last of the Buffalo, this Charles M. Russell work depicts three AmericanIndians near a tipi. One of them is carving a buffalo horn while another smokesfrom a calumet and a third reclines with a bow and arrows. (Library of Congress,Prints and Photographs Division [LC-USZ62-115204])


severely tested the boat-handling skills of theCorps of Discovery; some were found want-ing. On April 13 Touissant Charbonneau hadbeen entrusted the helm of the white pirogue.This was the expedition’s most important boatnow that the keelboat was heading back to St.Louis, since it carried medicine, trade goods,and the captains’ journals, as well as Saca-gawea, Pomp, and several nonswimmersamong the soldiers. Disaster loomed when asudden shift in the wind’s direction, followedby a miscalculation by Charbonneau at therudder, nearly tipped the white pirogue over.With Lewis shouting orders, Drouillard seizedthe rudder from the hapless Charbonneau,while other men took down the sails. The boatand its precious cargo were saved.

Even when their lives were not directlyendangered by it, the wind made everyonemiserable. Windblown sand inflamed eyesand gummed up the works of Lewis’s pocketwatch: “we are compelled to eat, drink, andbreathe it . . .” he complained on April 24.

WHERE NO WHITE MANHAD BEEN BEFOREDespite the hardships of the journey, the trav-elers were sustained by pride in their accom-plishments. Every mile they sailed westward,they knew they were making history. On April14, a week out from the Mandan villages, theyreached a small creek running into the Mis-souri that they named after Charbonneau.Given that this was the same man who hadnearly sunk the white pirogue the day before,it may seem strange that the captainsbestowed this honor upon him. But as Lewisexplained in his journal: “[W]e called [it] Shar-bono’s Creek, after our interpreter whoencamped several weeks on it with a huntingparty of Indians. this was the highest point towhich any whiteman had ascended; except

two Frenchmen who having lost their way hadstraggled a few miles further, tho’ to whatplace precisely I could not learn.” One of the“two Frenchmen” Lewis referred to was Jean-Baptiste Lepage, who had enlisted as a mem-ber of the expedition the previous November.Lewis’s account turned out to be not entirelyaccurate; unknown to him, another French-Canadian trader had traveled as far as themouth of the Yellowstone River a few yearsearlier. But as far as Lewis knew, once theexpedition had gone a few miles past Char-bonneau’s creek—present-day Bear DenCreek—the Corps of Discovery had entered aregion that no white person had ever seenbefore.

On April 22 they reached the White EarthRiver, the first of two rivers entering the Mis-souri from the north that the Hidatsa had toldthem to expect. Lewis optimistically esti-mated from its appearance that its headwa-ters must lie deep in Canadian territory nearthe Saskatchewan River and that the riverwould be navigable most of the way there. (Iftrue, that would have been excellent news forAmerican fur-trading interests, but in realitythe river stopped well short of the Saskat-chewan region.)

On April 25, two and a half weeks aftertheir departure, they came to a truly momen-tous juncture, the mouth of the YellowstoneRiver. Eager to get to the river, Lewis had leftthe little fleet behind on the Missouri thatmorning and hiked overland with four menand his dog, Seaman. Lewis got his firstglimpse of the Yellowstone from a hilltop,which revealed “a most pleasing view of thecountry, particularly of the wide and fertilevallies formed by the missouri and the yellow-stone rivers, which occasionally unmasked bythe wood on their borders disclose theirmeanderings for many miles through thesedelightfull tracts of country.” The Hidatsa had


spoken glowingly of the lush Yellowstonecountry, of the abundance of furs waiting tobe taken by trappers, and of the river’s year-round navigability all the way to the foot of the Rocky Mountains. Following Jefferson’s in-structions, the expedition would have to stickto the Missouri River on their westward trek,but the captains had already decided toinclude a side trip down the Yellowstone ontheir return.

At noon on the next day, Clark and the restof the expedition reached the mouth of theYellowstone. That night the captains author-ized the distribution of a dram of whisky foreach man, and there was fiddle music anddancing around the campfire in celebration ofreaching “this long wished for spot,” as Lewisdescribed it.

CROSSING MONTANAProceeding on past the mouth of the Yellow-stone up the Missouri on April 27 the expedi-tion crossed the invisible line that would bethe future state border between North Dakotaand Montana. Those early days in the Mon-tana wilderness were among the most blessedin the memory of the explorers. For one thing,they were feeling very well fed. Game provedso plentiful that hunting came to resemble ashopping trip: “We can send out at any timeand obtain whatever species of meat thecountry affords in as large quantity as wewish,” Lewis wrote on May 8. Sacagawea con-tinued to prove her value to the expedition,identifying and gathering wild edible plantsalong the way, like the “delicious froot,” prob-ably the Missouri or buffalo currant, that sheoffered to Clark on April 30.

Even in early May there were some snowydays (“a verry extraodernarey climate,” Clarkcommented on May 2, “to behold the treesGreen & flowers spred on the plain, & snow an

inch deep”). But the expedition journals alsowere filled with entries recording “a fine day” or “a fine morning.” And, regardless ofweather, the scenery was a constant delight.Lewis noted on May 4 that the “country onboth sides of the Missouri continues to beopen level fertile and beautifull as far as theeye can reach . . .” Clark, as usual, dropped the“fertile,” but conceded in his own entry forthat day that the countryside was “rich highand butifull . . .”

The expedition continued to make goodprogress up the Missouri. The Hidatsa hadtold them they would encounter a major riverentering the Missouri from the north, TheRiver Which Scolds at All Others, about 500miles to the west of the Mandan villages. Sureenough, on May 8, a month and a day aftertheir departure, they came across its mouth.Finding the Indian name too much of amouthful, they renamed it the Milk River.Lewis was once again hopeful that the Milk“might furnish a practicable and advanta-geous communication with the Saskaashiwanriver” and the rich fur-trapping region aroundit (and, once again, as at the White Earth River,he proved mistaken).

As the Missouri began to cut a deeperchannel through the surrounding country-side, its high, crumbling riverbanks posed anew threat to the expedition. “I sometimeswonder,” Lewis wrote on May 11, “that someof our canoes or perogues are not swallowedup by means of the immence mass of earthwhich are eternally precipitating themselvesinto the river.”

But human error proved more dangerousthan nature. Once again Charbonneau hadbeen allowed to take the rudder of the whitepirogue, and once again he proved unfit. OnMay 14 a sudden squall caught the little fleetunaware. Lewis and Clark were both on shore,violating their usual rule that one of them


should remain aboard the white pirogue. See-ing it turned broadside to the wind and begin-ning to take on water, all they could do wasyell desperately from the shore for Charbon-neau to come about, or turn the boat. As Lewiswrote disgustedly in his journal that night:“Charbono, still crying to his god for mercy,had not yet recollected the rudder, nor couldthe repeated orders of the bowsman, Cruzat,bring him to his recollection untill he threat-ened to shoot him instantly if he did not takehold of the rudder and do his duty . . .”Cruzatte’s threat worked; Charbonneau finallygrabbed the rudder and turned the boat into

the wind. The men bailed the water with cook-ing pots, and the pirogue was saved.

Though Charbonneau disgraced himself,his wife impressed the men of the Corps ofDiscovery with her coolheaded competence.Even Lewis, who did not yet seem to holdSacagawea in high regard, wrote warmly ofher performance that day: “The Indianwoman, to whom I ascribe equal fortitude andresolution with any person on board at thetime of the accident, caught and preservedmost of the light articles, which were washedoverboard.” Her actions were all the moreremarkable, considering she had to keep her

Encounters with a Grizzly =

Montana’s abundant wildlife included one new creature whose acquaintancethe Corps of Discovery would have preferred not to have made: the grizzly bear.The Mandan had warned the corps of the grizzly’s fierceness. They never huntedfor the bears unless they had six or more warriors along. Despite this warning,Lewis and Clark tended to discount the grizzly’s fierce reputation. Lewis andanother hunter killed a young male grizzly on April 29. Although it took threeshots to bring the bear down, Lewis wrote complacently in his journal thatnight: “The Indians may well fear this anamal, equipped as they generally arewith their bows and arrows, but in the hands of skillful riflemen they are by nomeans as formidable or dangerous as they have been represented.”

On May 5 Clark and Drouillard encountered another grizzly, “a very largeand turrible looking animal, which we found verry hard to kill” according toClark. It took 10 musket balls, five of them in the lungs, to bring the beastdown. When they measured it afterward, they found that the bear stood wellover eight feet tall and had nearly five-inch-long talons; they estimated that itweighed more than five hundred pounds. Lewis adopted a more respectfultone in his journal: “I find that the curiousity of our party is pretty well satis-fyed with rispect to this anamal.” They may have been done with grizzlies, butgrizzlies were not done with them. On the late afternoon of May 11 PrivateBratton encountered a bear along the shore and shot him through the lungs;severely wounded as he was, the bear then pursued Bratton for half a milebefore giving up the chase. Lewis sent a party out to finish off the woundedgrizzly and confessed in his journal pages that he would “reather fight twoIndians than one bear.”

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infant son, Pomp, safe. At camp that night thecaptains had a ration of whiskey from theirdwindling supply distributed to the men tocalm everybody’s nerves—probably includingtheir own.

Although the men often had to jump intothe river or scramble along the sharp stonesand slippery mud of the riverbank in order topull the boats through shallow or rapidstretches with towropes, they made continuedprogress. On May 20 the Corps of Discoveryreached the Musselshell River, another of thelandmarks they had been told to look for. OnMay 29 they came to the mouth of a river

entering the Missouri from the south that hadgone unmentioned by the Hidatsa. Clark tookthe opportunity to name it Judith’s River, afterJulia (Judith) Hancock, a young girl he knewback home. After his return from the expedi-tion, Julia, by then aged 16, became his wife;her river would in time become known as theJudith River, without the apostrophe and s.

SPECTACULAR LANDSCAPEStarting in the third week of May, snow-capped mountains began appearing on thehorizon. On May 17 Clark spotted some high

When Lewis and Clark made their journey, there may have been more than100,000 grizzly bears roaming the area that was destined to become the lower48 states of the United States. Today there are perhaps 1,100 left, most of themon national parkland in Montana and Wyoming.

Seemingly calm and approachable in the photograph, the grizzly bear is actually afierce animal that can run up to 35 miles per hour and weigh up to 1,500pounds. (National Park Service)


peaks to the north of the river, westward fromtheir position: They were part of the LittleRocky Mountains, an outlying range detachedfrom and well east of the Rockies. On May 25Clark noted more mountains to both thenorth and south of the Missouri: these werethe Little Rocky and Bears Paw ranges to thenorth and the Judith range to the south. Clarkunderstood that these mountains were notthe long-sought Rockies described to them bythe Hidatsa. But in the distance, farther to thesouthwest, he saw another “range of high

mounts.” Although Clark did not speculate inhis journal as to the identity of those highmounts, Lewis saw them the next day andinstantly decided they must be the Rockies.He confessed to his journal his “secret pleas-ure” in arriving “so near the head of heretoforeconceived boundless Missouri . . .” (In reality,the peaks hovering tantalizingly on the south-west horizon were probably the HighwoodMountains, still another detached range, andnot part of the Rockies.) Lewis’s pleasure inviewing the mountains was not unmixed; he

After leaving Fort Mandan, the corps labors up the Missouri, reaching the Great Falls on June 13, 1805, and beginning their portage three days later. They resume their journey on July 14, and on July 27 they reach the Three Forks of the Missouri, where they camp for three days.

Ft. MandanFt. MandanThree Forks ofthe Missouri

Three Forks ofthe Missouri

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Camp

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0 100 miles

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Route of the Corps of Discovery, April 7–July 30, 1805

Lower Portage Camp

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Shoshone R.

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Milk R.

Poplar R.

Big MuddyCr.

Frenchman Cr.

Missouri River Breaks

White CliffsGates of the Mountains

White BearIslands

Great Falls

WY

ND

MT

Helena

Mandanvillages

Hidatsa villages

FortMandan

Bozeman

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Upper Portage Camp

RO

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Continental Divide


confessed to some worries about the “suffer-ings and hardship” that “this snowey barrierwould most probably throw in my way to thePacific. . . .” But he concluded on a more opti-mistic note: “I will believe it a good comfort-able road untill I am compelled to believedifferently.”

The mountains were spectacular but dis-tant. Closer at hand, the hills and bluffs thatnow lined the river provided some of the mostwondrous scenery the expedition had yetencountered. They were entering the sectionof the river later designated the MissouriBreaks. In the White Cliffs area of the MissouriBreaks, the river had cut deeply through sur-rounding layers of shale and sandstone. Thetowering cliffs that resulted on either side ofthe river had eroded over hundreds of thou-sands of years into fantastic shapes thatseemed, especially to someone with a roman-tic temperament like Meriwether Lewis, akind of dream landscape. In his journal entryfor May 31, Lewis described that day’s journeyas having passed through scenes “of visionaryenchantment.” In another of the justifiablyfamous journal entries he made that spring,Lewis wrote of the White Cliffs:

The water in the course of time in decend-ing from those hills and plains on eitherside of the river has trickled down the softsand cliffs and woarn it into a thousandgrotesque figures, which with the help of alittle immagination and an oblique view, ata distance are made to represent eligantranges of lofty freestone buildings, havingtheir parapets well stocked with statuary;collumns of various sculptures bothgrooved and plain, are also seen supportinglong galleries in front of those buildings; inother places on a much nearer approachand with the help of less immagination wesee the remains of ruins of eligant build-

ings; some collumns standing and almostentire with their pedestals and capitals; oth-ers retaining their pedestals but deprived bytime or accident of their capitals, somelying prostrate and broken othe[r]s in theform of vast pyramids of connic structurebearing a sereis of other pyramids on theirtops becoming less as they ascend andfinally terminating in a sharp point.

On June 2, still within the Missouri Breaks,they came to the mouth of another unex-pected river. This one posed a problem moredifficult than what to name it because, unlikethe Judith, it entered the Missouri from thenorth. From what the Hidatsa had told Lewisand Clark the previous winter, or at least fromwhat they had understood them to say, theexpedition should already have passed thelast major northern tributary of the Missouri,the River Which Scolds at All Others, whichthey had renamed the Milk. Was this then thereal Scolding River, or another river entirely?Or was it a fork in the Missouri that had alsogone unmentioned—and if so, which fork wasthe one that would lead them to the Rockies?

In reality they had stumbled across anentirely separate river—and not a very im-pressive river at that. Had it not been swollenby spring rains upstream, they never wouldhave been mistaken it for a fork of the mightyMissouri. But the captains needed to makesure. From June 3 through June 12 the ex-pedition camped at the junction of the tworivers, at a place later known as DecisionPoint.

Already by the afternoon of June 3, Lewisand Clark had a strong hunch that the south-ern “fork” was the real Missouri. The northernriver was muddier than the southern, and thecaptains reasoned that it had gotten that wayby running a long way through open plains.The southern river being clearer, it seemed


more likely that it flowed a relatively shorterdistance out of the mountains, and was thusthe river they wanted to follow. But most ofthe enlisted men were not persuaded by thecaptains’ argument, and that included menwhose opinions about rivers were worth tak-ing seriously, like the experienced boatmanCruzatte.

Taking the wrong fork now would meandelay or even worse. To “mistake the stream atthis period of the season . . .” Lewis wrote in

his journal on June 3, “and to ascend suchstream to the rocky Mountain or perhapsmuch further before we could inform our-selves whether it did approach the Columbiaor not, and then be obliged to return and takethe other stream would not only loose us thewhole of the season but would probably sodishearten the party that it might defeat theexpedition altogether.” The fate of the Corpsof Discovery rested on the decision Lewis andClark would now make.

To the Missouri Headwaters

87

7{

The Corps of Discovery faced a seri-ous choice and would have to makesure they were right before they could

proceed any further. Clark led a party up thesouthern river far enough to spot more snow-capped mountains in the distance (the LittleBelt and Big Belt ranges) and to determinethat the river was heading in the southwest-erly direction predicted by the Hidatsa.Returning to Decision Point, he felt reassuredthat he and Lewis were right in saying that thesouthern river was, in fact, the true Missouri.Lewis, meanwhile, led a party 40 miles up thenorthern river; although it headed west fromits juncture with the Missouri it soon bentnorthward. Lewis was now equally certainthat he and Clark had been right in their ear-lier hunch and that this was not the Missouri.Lewis named the northern river Maria’s Riverafter his cousin Maria Wood—like the Judith,the name would evolve and eventually losethe possessive apostrophe, becoming theMarias River.

Lewis and Clark rendezvoused at Deci-sion Point on June 8. Although they were certain in their own minds as to how to pro-ceed, their men remained unconvinced.Lewis could have ordered them back into the boats to follow his and Clark’s lead, aswas his right as commander. But he decidedthat it was more important for everyone to be in agreement on their course, even at thecost of a few more days’ delay. If he couldfind the Great Falls of the Missouri along the southern river, there could no longer beany question as to the direction they shouldfollow.

THE GREAT FALLS OF THE MISSOURIOn June 11 Lewis set out up the southern river,accompanied by Drouillard and three others.He had been suffering from violent stomachcramps and a fever for several days and itslowed his progress. That night, he had his

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This etching of Clark shooting grizzly bears suggests the animals were a dangerous foe. (Library of Congress,Prints and Photographs Division [LC-USZ62-19233])

men brew up a medicinal concoction ofboiled chokecherry twigs, a legacy of hismother’s herbal lore. He swallowed the brew,and it seemed to work.

Setting out the next day with renewedvigor, Lewis and his men made 27 miles upthe Missouri. On the morning of June 13,walking along the prairie, high above theriver, Lewis spotted what looked like smokein the distance, and he heard a deep roaringnoise. He was seeing the spray and hearingthe sound of falling waters. Seven miles far-ther on, a “sublimely grand specticle”awaited the explorers as they peered downfrom the prairie’s edge at the Great Falls, an80-foot precipice, 300 yards wide, that sent avast flow of water crashing down to the riverbottom. Lewis climbed down from theprairie’s edge to the foot of the falls. For the

next four hours he sat transfixed by thescene, “the grandest sight I ever beheld.”

The next day Joseph Field set off, carryinga letter from Lewis to Clark reporting on thediscovery. Lewis, meanwhile, headed back up to the high ground to scout out the port-age that lay ahead. He soon discovered thatthe “Great Falls” was not singular at all, asthey had thought, but plural: five sets of falls altogether, stretching over 10 miles ofriver. The scenery was grand, to be sure, butthe trip around the falls would require amuch longer portage than their conversa-tions with their Hidatsa friends the previouswinter had prepared them to expect. Thewater route to the Pacific was taking on unex-pected complications.

Lewis’s adventures were not over for theday. Deciding to postpone his return to the

To the Missouri Headwaters B 89

The Many Names of Sacagawea =

Lewis and Clark’s journals reveal the captains’ growing appreciation for Saca-gawea. The ways in which they chose to refer to her between 1804 and the endof 1805 are very revealing. When they first encountered her at Fort Mandan shewas known to them only as one of Toussaint Charbonneau’s two “Squars,” orsquaws. When Lewis helped deliver her baby in February 1805, he referred toher as “one of the wives of Charbono . . .” They had decided to take her alongon their trip hoping she would serve as an interpreter to the Shoshone, but herstatus did not improve: She was still only a nameless wife when Lewis recordedher as a member of the group departing Fort Mandan on April 5, 1805: “anIndian woman wife to Charbono . . .”

Six weeks later she finally got a name. By then she had proven her useful-ness to the expedition as a forager of new and interesting foods, like theJerusalem artichokes she dug up for their meal on April 9. And then, when

Charbonneau nearly overturnedthe pirogue on May 14, she hadhelped save the expedition’ssupplies from the Missouri’swaters. She earned the captains’respect, and as a token of theirappreciation they decided tobestow her name on one of therivers they came upon enteringinto the Missouri: “This stream,”Lewis wrote on May 20, “we callSah-ca-gar me ah or bird wo-man’s River, after our interpreterthe Snake* [Shoshone] woman.”

* Traders in the area often collectively called the Northern Shoshone, Northern Paiute (Numu), andBannock the Snake. Writings done at that time on Sacagawea often refer to her as Snake.

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As the trip progressed, Lewis andClark’s appreciation for Sacagaweagrew. This statue in Great Falls,Montana, commemorates thethree and Sacagawea’s presenceas their right-hand woman.(Bureau of Land Management)

(continues)


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camp at the lower falls, he shot a buffalo forhis supper. But as he approached his fallenprey with a now empty gun, he spotted a griz-zly heading straight for him. Lewis started toretreat, and the grizzly kept on coming. Lewishad his espontoon, his spear-pointed walkingstick, with him, but he knew would do him lit-tle good in face-to-face combat with a giantgrizzly. In desperation, he waded waist-deepinto the Missouri and turned to face his adver-sary. This time it was the bear that flinched; itturned and fled. Reloading his rifle (and vow-ing never to neglect that precaution again),Lewis went back to reclaim the dead buffalo.But then he saw another fearsome-lookingcreature of the “tiger kind” (possibly a wolver-ine) looking as though it intended to spring athim; he fired at it and it disappeared down itsburrow.

Having decided that “all the beasts of theneighborhood had made a league to distroyme,” Lewis abandoned any notion of spend-ing a night alone on the prairie and set off forhome, although not before three buffalobulls charged him (changing their minds,Lewis believed, when they got close enoughto him to see that he was not likely to bestampeded by their bravado). These “curiousadventures” seemed to Lewis like somethingout of a tale of “inchantment”; he thought it

all “might be a dream,” but he was remindedthat he was awake and had a long way still towalk by the prickly pear spines “whichpierced my feet very severely. . . .” He finallyarrived back at camp long after dark, to therelief of his men, who had become con-cerned. But his encounters with the animalkingdom were not quite over; upon awaken-ing the next day, he found that a large rat-tlesnake lay curled up 10 feet away fromwhere he was sleeping.

Meanwhile, on June 12, Clark and the rest of the men had set out up the Missouriafter making a cache of supplies to recoveron their return trip. In two pits, they left ahalf-ton of food, gunpowder, tools, weapons,and other supplies. They also left behind thered pirogue, camouflaged beneath a pile ofbrush on a small wooded island near Decision Point. As they set out upriver, Clarkfretted about Sacagawea’s health. She hadbeen very sick for several days from anunknown ailment, feverish and sufferingstomach pain, and although he had severaltimes opened a vein on her arm and let aconsiderable portion of blood drain outbefore tying off the wound (a common med-ical practice of the era, which supposedlyhelped purify “bad blood”), she did not seemany the better for it. “The Interpreters

By November she had earned an affectionate nickname as well, at least as far as Clark was concerned. The men were debating where they should maketheir winter camp. “Janey in favour of a place where there is plenty of Potas[potatoes—meaning camas root here],” Clark recorded in his journal on No-vember 24. And so the young Indian woman had progressed from nameless“squar” to “Sacagawea” to “Janey” in her first year in the company of the Corpsof Discovery.


woman verry Sick worse than she has been,”Clark noted in his journal on the evening ofJune 12.

On June 14 Joseph Field came down theriver and delivered to Clark the note fromLewis announcing the discovery of Great Falls.He also warned Clark that for several milesbelow the falls, the river ran too rapidly toallow for safe passage of the boats. On June 15the main party with Clark camped about amile below a side stream that Field had saidmight be used as a path to exit from the Missouri for their portage. Lewis and his party joined them at their riverside camp thenext day.

THE PORTAGELewis told Clark what he had seen upriver. Herecommended that they follow a portageroute along the river’s south side. Clarkagreed, and they moved their camp to thesmall stream entering on the south side of theriver that they called Portage Creek (present-day Belt Creek). The camp they set up herewould be known as Lower Portage Camp.While Clark set out to reconnoiter the portageroute, Lewis took over the task of treatingSacagawea’s illness; it would be a disaster ifshe died, he wrote, not only for her own sake,but because she was “our only dependence fora friendly negociation with the Snake[Shoshone] Indians on whom we depend forhorses to assist us in our portage from theMissouri to the columbia river.” He gave her adose of powdered bark and opium and alsohad her drink mineral water from a localspring, which seemed to work better thanClark’s bleedings. Within a few days sheshowed definite signs of recovery.

Lewis meanwhile oversaw preparations forthe portage. They would leave the whitepirogue hidden near the Lower Portage Camp

for their return trip, along with another cacheof supplies. He put the men to work con-structing wooden carts, which they would useto drag the expedition’s supplies and canoesacross the prairie portage. Clark returned onJune 20, suggesting they make their uppercamp past the mouth of the Medicine River,near what he called White Bears Island(named for the grizzlies that inhabited it). Heestimated the distance between the twocamps at 17 3/4 miles.

They set out on the portage on June 22.Lewis directed that the iron frame of hisexperimental boat, which they had hauled allthe way from Harpers Ferry in Virginia, beincluded in the first load. While most of theparty under Clark would cross and recross theroute between Lower Portage camp and WhiteBears Island camp, Lewis and a smaller groupwould remain at the upper camp to assemblethe iron boat. When completed, it would takethe place of the white pirogue they had leftbelow.

If the men had thought that towing thepirogues and canoes up the Missouri’s waterswas hard work, they now found themselvesengaged in even more strenuous labor. Theportage route was over rough ground, fre-quently cut by deep ravines. The little hand-made carts were hard to push or control; they broke down and had to be repaired.Prickly pear cactus spines cut through moccasins and punctured feet. The menendured storms that dropped hailstones thesize of apples that left them with bloodyheads. On a side trip to view the Great Falls,Clark, Charbonneau, Sacagawea, and Pompwere caught in a terrible summer downpour;sheltering in a ravine, they were almostswept away in a flash flood. The Corps of Discovery stumbled on, bleeding andexhausted: “[A]t every halt,” Lewis wrote,“these poor fellows tumble down and are so

92 B Across America: The Lewis and Clark ExpeditionWestbound route

Camp

Dam

Falls

Contemporary urban area

Note: Terms in quotation marks indicateplace-names used in the travelers’ journals.

0 4 miles

0 4 km

N

1.

2.

3.

4.

“I wished for the pencil of Salvator Rosa, a Titian, or the pen of Thomson, that I might be enabled to give to the enlightened world some just idea of this truly magnificent and sublimely grand object which has, from the com-mencement of time, been concealed from the view of civilized man.” —Meriwether Lewis, June 13, 1805

“. . . a large white, or reather brown bear had perceived and crept on me within twenty steps before I discovered him. In the first moment I drew up my gun to shoot, but at the same instant recolected that she was not loaded . . . ” —Meriwether Lewis, June 14, 1805

“The Indian woman verry bad, & will take no medisin what ever . . . If she dies it will be the fault of her husband as I am now convinced." —William Clark, June 16, 1805

“At every halt these poor fellos tumble down and are so much fortiegued that many of them are asleep in an

instant. In short, their fatiegues are incredible . . . yet no one complains. All go with cheerfullness.” —Meriwether Lewis, June 23, 1805

“It being the 4th of Independence we drank the last of our ardent Spirits except a little reserved for Sickness.” —John Ordway, July 4, 1805

“Therefore for want of tar or pitch we had, after all our labour, to haul our new [iron-frame] boat on shore, and leave it at this place.” —Patrick Gass, July 9, 1805

“About 11 o’clock we set out from this place, which we had called Canoe Camp.” —Patrick Gass, July 15, 1805

5.

6.

7.


Portage around the Great Falls, June–July 1805

Missouri R.

Portage Coulee

Sand Coulee Creek (“Flattery Run”)

Belt Creek(“Portage Creek”)

Sun R. (“Medicine R.”)

Box Elder Coulee (“W

illowR

un”)

5 6

7

4

3

1

2 Portage Route, June 17–July

7,

1805

Lewis, June 11

–13,

1805

Lower PortageCamp

Great Falls

CanoeCamp

Upper Portage Camp

SulphurSpring

MoronyDam

(1930)

Crooked Falls

“Colter Falls”(submerged)

Black EagleDam (1891)

“Upper Falls”

Rainbow Dam (1910)“Handsome orBeautiful Falls”

Ryan Dam (1915)“Great Falls”

White BearIslands


much fortiegued that many of them areasleep in an instant.”

Meanwhile, work went on at the uppercamp assembling Lewis’s experimental boat.Wood had to be cut and shaped to fill out theframe; animal skins had to be prepared and sewn together to serve as the boat’s hull.Lewis took on the job of camp cook, preparingbuffalo dumplings as a special treat for hishard-working men.

On July 2, Clark and his weary men deliv-ered the last load of supplies. The boat was notyet finished, so the men who were not workingon it got a few days’ rest. On July 4 they cele-brated Independence Day with the last of theexpedition’s whisky. Lewis and Clark mean-while had quietly decided that they would not,as originally intended, send anyone back fromthe Great Falls to report to Jefferson on theexpedition’s progress. They were going to needevery man they had for the challenges tocome. They also now realized it would be im-possible for the Corps of Discovery to reachthe Pacific and return to Fort Mandan for itswinter encampment that year as previouslyplanned. If they made it to the Pacific in 1805,that would be where they would have to spendthe winter.

The iron boat was completed and ready fora trial sailing on July 9. It leaked. Lewis hadcounted on sealing the seams of the sewn ani-mal skins with a tar made from pine pitch, butno pines grew at the Great Falls. The mixtureof charcoal and tallow that Lewis devised as asubstitute did not work. They had lugged theiron frame across two-thirds of the NorthAmerican continent for nothing. “I need notadd that this circumstance mortifyed me not alittle,” Lewis wrote in his journal. “I bid a dieuto my boat. . . .” The failure of Lewis’s cher-ished experiment meant there would be stillfurther delay in setting off. To take the place ofthe iron boat, they had to build two more

dugout canoes, costing them five more sum-mer travel days.

CLOSING IN ON THE ROCKIESOn July 15 the expedition once again pro-ceeded on up the Missouri. Ahead of themthey could see the Rockies—the real Rockiesthis time—in the distance. The men were dis-tributed among the eight dugout canoes.They were, for the first time, traveling with-out any of their original fleet: The whitepirogue was cached at Lower Portage Camp,the red pirogue further back at DecisionPoint, and the keelboat under the commandof Corporal Warfington had reached St. Louison May 20. The river was changing directionagain. West of Great Falls the Missouri bentsouth, just as the Hidatsa had told them itwould.

On July 16, they found hoofprints and wil-low shelters along the riverside. An Indianparty had camped there. Although theyjudged the signs of Indian presence as beingat least a week and a half old, it was the closestthey had come to encountering other humanbeings since shortly after their departure fromthe Mandan villages. Looking at the aban-doned camp, Sacagawea thought its inhabi-tants must have been from her own tribe, theShoshone.

These were the Indians Lewis and Clarkmost wanted to meet. But they were not goingto catch up with a party of mounted Shoshonewhile traveling up the river in the dugoutcanoes. They also feared that the sound ofgunfire from their hunters’ rifles would spookthe Shoshone, who might fear the shots camefrom a Hidatsa raiding party. So on July 18Clark, accompanied by Joseph Field, JohnPotts, and York, headed out overland as anadvance party searching for the Shoshone,

while Lewis remained behind in command ofthe expedition fleet.

On July 19 Lewis’s little fleet reached a nar-row rocky gorge cut by the Missouri throughthe Big Belt mountain range, “the mostremarkable clifts we have yet seen.” He namedthe entrance to the gorge “the Gates of theRocky Mountains.” The river twisted andturned through nearly six miles of high cliffson either side, before reentering the plains.Clark’s party rejoined the expedition on theMissouri on July 21, without having encoun-tered any Shoshone (although they didobserve the smoke of a distant prairie fire,started perhaps by Indians to warn others ofthe presence of the strangers coming up theMissouri). Clark’s report was disappointing,but Sacagawea gave them reason for opti-mism. Lewis noted in his journal: “The Indianwoman recognizes the country and assures usthat this is the river on which her relationslive, and that the three forks are at no greatdistance. this peice of information hascheered the sperits of the party, who nowbegin to console themselves with the antici-pation of shortly seeing the head of the mis-souri, yet unknown to the civilized world.”

THREE FORKSThe Three Forks of the Missouri were nearby,just as Sacagawea promised. Clark set out to find them on July 23, heading overlandagain with a small party consisting of Josephand Reuben Field, Robert Frazer, and Char-bonneau. Despite Clark’s badly bruised feet,they hiked 23 miles that first day; 30 the next.On the third day out, the morning of July 25,they reached the forks. Here, 2,464 miles fromits mouth on the Mississippi, the mighty Mis-souri divided into three clear and fast-runningstreams, all running over clean bottoms ofsmooth pebbles and gravel. It was a remark-

ably beautiful spot, with mountains visible tothe east, west, and south (later to be namedthe Bridger range, the Tobacco Root Moun-tains, and the Jefferson, Madison and Gallatinranges stretching before them on the vistafrom southwest to southeast).

To Clark, it was obvious at a glance that thewesternmost fork of the Missouri was themost substantial of the three and that it ledmost directly to the mountains they sought.He saw signs that Indians had passed throughthe area within the past week, but none wereto be found there that day. Clark left a messagefor Lewis attached to a pole, and headed upthe western fork to see what he could learnabout the river’s course.

Lewis arrived with the remainder of theparty at the Three Forks two days later. Saca-gawea was with him. She had now traveled


As U.S. secretary of the treasury, Albert Gallatin wasa strong supporter of the Lewis and Clark expedition. (Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division [LC-USZ62-110017])


full circle back to the place of her kidnappingfive years before by the Hidatsa. Lewiswatched Sacagawea curiously. He wanted tosee how she would react to finding herselfagain on home territory, but professed him-self disappointed at her apparent indiffer-ence: “I cannot discover that she shews anyimmotion of sorrow in recollecting thisevent,” he wrote, “or of joy in being againrestored to her native country; if she hasenough to eat and a few trinkets to wear Ibelieve she would be perfectly content any-where.” Lewis’s assumptions about Saca-gawea’s inner feelings are a reminder that hemay have been a better interpreter of the nat-ural world than he was of the emotions ofother human beings. Sacagawea had beenthrough a lot in her young life; displays ofemotion had rarely won her any advantage, soit is not surprising that, if she felt any greathappiness at being back at Three Forks, shekept those feelings to herself.

Clark and his men limped down to ThreeForks on the afternoon of July 27 and rejoinedthe main party. The captains decided theyshould remain there for two days and give themen a chance to recuperate from the heavyexertions of recent weeks. They named the“three noble streams” that diverged at ThreeForks after their country’s leaders: the west-ernmost—and from their perspective, mostimportant—branch would be the Jefferson,the middle branch would be the Madison(named for Secretary of State James Madison)and the easternmost branch would be theGallatin (named for Secretary of the TreasuryAlbert Gallatin).

SEARCHING FOR THE SHOSHONEIn their homes back east, in Virginia and Ken-tucky, late July was the height of summer. In

western Montana, however, it was a timewhen winter’s approach could first be de-tected in the air. The days were hot, but thenights were getting cold. Game was beginningto get scarce as well. And there were noShoshone or their horses to be seen. Thoughhe did not share his worries with his men,Lewis confided to his journal in an entry onJuly 27 that “we begin to feel considerableanxiety with rispect to the Snake [Shoshone]Indians. if we do not find them or some othernation who have horses I fear the successfullissue of our voyage will be very doubtfull. . . .”

There was nothing to do but press on and hope that the next day or the next bendin the river would finally lead them to theShoshone. On July 30 the Corps of Discoveryset out up the newly named Jefferson River,Clark in a dugout canoe and Lewis on foot,walking along the riverbank with Charbon-neau and his wife. Sacagawea pointed out to Lewis the precise spot from which she had been captured by the Hidatsa five yearsearlier.

Still no Shoshone, and the canoes weremaking slow progress. The river was no longerreally navigable; most of the time the men hadto wade upstream dragging the canoes overthe shallow, stony river bottom. Lewis decidedto push on ahead overland. On August 1 he setout with Drouillard, Charbonneau, and Gass.On August 4 they came to another fork in theriver. This time Lewis judged that the moreeasterly or left fork, not the westernmost orright fork, to be the one that came down mostdirectly from the mountains, judging by theflow and color of the water. This easterly forkwould later become known as the BeaverheadRiver. Lewis left a note on a pole for Clarktelling him to follow this fork.

To make sure he had chosen correctly, how-ever, Lewis decided to reconnoiter the right, orwesterly fork (present-day Big Hole River).


The Rocky Mountains =

Lewis and Clark had long hoped and feared the day they would arrive at the footof the Rocky Mountains, “this snowey barrier,” as Lewis called it. As Europeangeographers realized early on, the Rockies were among the most significant fea-tures of the North American landscape, a formidable barrier between the GreatPlains of central North America and the land that reached to the Pacific. Passingthrough and over the Rockies would prove the most difficult challenge faced byLewis and Clark on their expedition.

The Rocky Mountains are an interlocking chain of more than 20 ranges andgroups of mountains that extend more than 3,000 miles from New Mexico toCanada and Alaska. In places, the Rocky Mountains are more than 350 mileswide, with individual peaks ranging in height from 7,000 feet to more than 14,000feet. The Rockies form the line of the Continental Divide. From the eastern flanksof the Rocky Mountains, water flows toward the Atlantic; from the Rockies’ west-ern flanks, water flows to the Pacific. Those rivers with headwaters in the Rockieswhose waters ultimately flow to the Atlantic include the Missouri, Yellowstone,Rio Grande, Arkansas, Platte, and Saskatchewan Rivers. Those rivers with head-waters in the Rockies whose waters ultimately flow to the Pacific include theColumbia, Colorado, Snake, Fraser and Yukon Rivers. In Canada, the Peace, Atha-basca, and Liard Rivers flow from the Rockies northward to the Arctic Ocean.

The Rockies were created by a complex succession of geological movementsover a period of tens of million years. Geologists call the process that created theRockies the Laramide Orogeny (orogeny is a technical term geologists use for“mountain building”; “Laramide” refers to the Laramie Mountains of easternWyoming, where the geological process that created the Rockies was first identi-fied). The Rockies’ geological origins can be found in the eastward shifting of theearth’s plates under the Pacific Ocean, a process whose technical name is platetectonics. The plates that underlie the earth’s surface move and collide with oneanother; the plate underlying the Pacific Ocean collided with the plate that layunder the North American continent tens of millions of years ago. The collisionbetween two tectonic plates is the underlying cause of the formation of both theRocky Mountains and the Appalachian Mountains, although there are someimportant differences that help to explain why the two ranges look so different.First, the collision of the plates related to the uplift of the Rockies occurred muchmore recently than the collision that created the predecessors of the AppalachianMountains. Second, the collision related to the Rockies was not between twoslabs of continental crust but between oceanic crust and continental crust.

The Laramide Orogeny, the name given to the mountain-building event thatcreated the present-day Rocky Mountains, started in the Late Cretaceous (80million years ago) with the subduction of the oceanic Pacific Plate (and relatedplates) under the North American plate. The makeup of the plates is important

\


for understanding the types of mountains that were formed. The less densecontinental crust overrode the denser basaltic oceanic crust of the Pacific plate.As the rocks of the Pacific plate were pushed down into the mantle, some of thematerial carried along with the plate started melting. The partially molten mate-rial moved upward toward the surface and formed igneous rocks—volcanicrock, if it emerged on the surface; intrusive rock, like granite, if it cooled belowthe surface.

The collision of the two plates occurred at a relatively high speed (10 centimeters/year), which produced a great deal of crustal deformation in a beltstretching from present-day western Idaho to central Montana. The deforma-tion (mountain-building) included folding and thrusting of existing sedimentaryrocks on the western side of the deformed zone (the mountain ranges of west-ern Montana and Wyoming, eastern Idaho, and eastern Utah), crystalline-coreduplifts in the east (mountains of south-central Montana, central and easternWyoming, and central Colorado), intrusive igneous ranges (mountains like theBitterroot Range, which were such an obstacle to Lewis and Clark), and extru-sive igneous ranges (the volcanic rocks of Montana and Wyoming). The overallmountain ranges that resulted from the first part of this tectonic event probablylooked somewhat like the Andes, with a narrow coastal zone receiving sedimentfrom high eroding mountains.

About 50 million years ago, the plate movement changed so that the Pacificplate started moving more northerly (instead of northeast or east), and the rateof convergence slowed. This had an effect like a plow backing up—the thrustedand uplifted mountain ranges sagged down. This also caused the “magmaticarc” (the zone of partially melted crust associated with the subducted plate) to“sweep” back toward the northwest, resulting in another round of igneousintrusion and volcanism. Younger mountain ranges in central Montana andWyoming, such as the Bearpaws, the Highwood, and the Crazies were formedduring this round of the orogeny.

At about 17.5 million years ago, the movement of the plate became morenorthwesterly. This change in motion created tears in the continental crust thattrended in a roughly east-west direction, and igneous features such as theColumbia River Plateau and the Snake River Plain started forming. In geologicalterms, the history of the Rockies is all part of the earth’s recent past. Unlike theancient mountains of the eastern United States, the Rocky Mountains may stillbe growing.

Geographers today divide the Rocky Mountains into five sections. The South-ern Rockies, found in New Mexico, Colorado and southern Wyoming, include theLaramie, Medicine Bow, Sangre de Cristo, and San Juan Mountains, as well asthe Front Range of the Rockies. Many of the peaks in the southern Rockies rise

(continues)


\

(continued)

to more than 14,000 feet, including Mt. Elbert, in the Sawatch Mountains, at14,433 feet the highest of all the Rockies. The southern Rockies were the first tobe approached by European explorers. The city of Santa Fe, founded by theSpanish in 1598 in present-day New Mexico, was for centuries the northernmostoutpost of the Spanish Empire in North America; it lies on the southwest flank onthe Sangre de Cristo Mountains. In the 19th century the Front Range of the Rock-ies, running 300 miles northward of Pikes Peak in Colorado, would attract theattention of such famous American explorers as Zebulon Pike (for whom PikesPeak was named), Stephen Long (who gave his name to Longs Peak), and JohnWesley Powell (the first explorer to sail the Colorado River through the length ofthe Grand Canyon).

The Middle Rockies lie in northwestern Colorado, northeastern Utah, andwestern Wyoming and include the Teton Range (destined to become a favoritedestination for generations of American mountaineers), as well as the Big Horn,Beartooth, Owl Creek Uinta, and Wind River Mountains. The Wind River range ispierced by South Pass, first discovered in 1812 by fur trader and explorer RobertStuart, a 25-mile-wide opening through the mountains that rises gradually to aheight of 7,550 feet. Unlike other Rocky Mountain passes, South Pass offeredabundant water and grass along the way and would in time prove accessible towagons pulled by teams of horses or oxen. For that reason, in years to come therelatively easy access across the Rockies offered by South Pass would become acrucial element in the Oregon Trail.

The Northern Rockies are the section that Lewis and Clark encountered in1805. They run through northwestern Wyoming, western Montana, central andnorthern Idaho, and eastern Washington to the Canadian border. The NorthernRockies include the Bitterroot Range, which Lewis and Clark would cross withgreat difficulty by means of the Lolo Trail in September 1805. The Northern Rock-ies also include the Clearwater, Salmon, Sawtooth, and Lost River Mountainsand the Front Ranges of Montana.

The Canadian Rockies run north of the Canadian border through BritishColumbia and Alberta. They include Canada’s highest mountain, 12,972-foot Mt.Robson. The fur traders employed by Canada’s North West Company foundnumerous passes through the high peaks of the Canadian Rockies. Particularlysignificant discoveries included Alexander Mackenzie’s crossing of the Rockies in1793 via the Peace River Pass, and David Thompson’s discovery of Howse Passin 1807 and Athabasca Pass in 1811.

Finally, to the north and west, the Columbia mountain group of the Rockiesincludes the Selkirk, Purcell, and Cariboo Mountains of Canada and the BrooksRange of Alaska. These remote peaks, extending into the arctic region, wereamong the last of the Rockies to be explored and climbed; caribou and wolves,rather than humans, remain their principal inhabitants.


When Clark reached the forks in the Jefferson,there was no note from Lewis; a beaver hadchewed down the pole on which it had beenposted. So Clark, following Lewis’s tracks, alsoheaded up the right fork (which was, however,the wrong river). Eventually, everything gotstraightened out, and on August 7 the reunitedparty headed up the Beaverhead.

On August 8 they came to another signifi-cant landmark, a broad rock formation juttingup from the level valley plain. Lewis recordedthe discovery in his journal: “The Indian wo-man recognized the point of a high plain . . .which she informed us was not very far fromthe summer retreat of her nation on a riverbeyond the mountains which runs to the west.This hill she says her nation calls the beaver’shead. . . . She assures us that we shall eitherfind her people on this river or on the riverimmediately west of it’s source; which from itspresent size cannot be very distant.”

The next day, August 9, Lewis again headedoff overland ahead of the main party, this timewith Drouillard, Shields, and McNeal as hiscompanions. They camped that night at a sitenortheast of present-day Dillon, Montana. Onthe following day they came to another fork inthe Beaverhead. This time, Lewis decidedthere would be no point in pretending anylonger that the water route was still navigable.Here they would have to leave their canoes.Lewis wrote a note to Clark telling him to haltat this spot and wait for his return, attaching itto a dry willow pole (no doubt hoping that thistime no industrious beaver would gnaw itdown). Meanwhile he was determined topress up the western branch of the dividedstream (present-day Horse Prairie Creek), insearch of the Shoshone.

On August 11, the explorers set out earlyas usual. Lewis had the men walk in a spread-out formation, covering a distance of severalhundred yards, with Lewis and McNeal in the

center together and Drouillard and Shieldson the flanks. They had come about five milesin this fashion, searching for signs of Indians,when suddenly Lewis spotted one on horse-back, about two miles away across the plain, heading in their direction. Lewis stud-ied the rider through his telescope. The man’sclothing was unlike any that Lewis had seenbefore on an Indian, and so he concluded thismust be a Shoshone. “I was overjoyed at thesight of this stranger,” Lewis wrote, “and hadno doubt of obtaining a friendly introductionto his nation provided I could get nearenough to him to convince him of our beingwhitemen.”

When they had closed the distance be-tween them to about a mile, the Indian halted,as did Lewis and McNeal. Lewis took a blanketfrom his pack and holding it at two cornersthrew it up into the air and then brought itclose to the ground as if spreading it out. He repeated this gesture three times. It was,he had been told by other tribes, a univer-sally recognized sign of peaceful intentions.It may have been, but it did not seem to persuade the distant horsemen of Lewis’sgoodwill. Meanwhile, Drouillard and Shields,who were spread out to either side of Lewis, continued to walk forward, not havingspotted the Indian. Lewis was afraid the two flankers would scare off the rider beforehe could convince him that they meant noharm. Leaving his rifle with McNeal, headvanced alone. As he did so, he rolled up his sleeve to show off his white skin, holdingout trade trinkets in his hand. When he wasclose enough to be heard by the rider, hecalled out the word tab-ba-bone, which Saca-gawea had told him was the Shoshone wordfor “white man.” In reality, the word meant“stranger”—the Shoshone Indians actuallyhad no word for white men since they hadnever met any.


Lewis meanwhile caught Drouillard’s at-tention and signaled him to halt, but Shieldsmissed Lewis’s signal and kept heading for-ward. The rider let Lewis get within about 100 paces, then suddenly turned his horse,whipped him into a gallop and rode off out ofsight. There would be no meeting with theShoshone that day.

Furious at the missed opportunity, Lewisscolded Shields for his “want of attention and imprudence.” But at least they now knew that the Shoshone were close by andpressed on eagerly toward the mountains.Lewis fixed a small American flag to a pole;the next time they came in sight of an Indian,he would be ready to display it as a signal

Leaving Three Forks on July 30, 1805, the corps proceeds up the Jefferson River, continuing on at the point where it becomes today’s Beaverhead River, near Twin Bridges, Montana. At the Beaverhead’s fork, Meriwether Lewis and a foot party follow Horse Prairie Creek and then cross the Continental Divide at Lemhi Pass on August 12.


LemhiPass Three Forks of

the Missouri

LemhiPass

N

Route

Camp

Indian village

Mountain pass




Terms in quotation marks indicateplace-names used in the travelers’journals.

0 30 miles

0 30 km

Route of the Corps of Discovery, July 30–August 12, 1805

Cameahwait’sShoshone village

Gallatin

R.

Madison

R.

Jefferson R.

Horse Prairie Cr.

Big Hole R. (“Wisdom

R.”)

Red

Rock R.

Salmon R.

Lemhi R

.

Ruby R.

(“PhilanthropyR

.”

Beav

erhe

adR.


BeaverheadRock

CampFortunate

Twin Bridges

Cameahwait’sShoshone village

Lemhi Pass

Continental Divide

Continental Divid

e

BI

TT

ER

RO

OT

MO

UN

TA

IN

S

MT

WY

ID


of their peaceable intentions (why Lewisthought the Shoshone would recognize orrespond favorably to the appearance of theAmerican flag, he did not explain). Theycame the next day, August 12, 1805, to a“large and plain Indian road” heading up themountainside. A year and three months into their journey, they stood at the eastern

foot of the Continental Divide and were clos-ing in on the headwaters of the great Mis-souri River. Lewis held hopes of “finding apassage over the mountains and of tastingthe waters of the great Columbia” that veryevening.

It was not to be so easy.

On Foot and on Horseacross the Rockies

102

8{

Captain Lewis and his men did notlinger long atop the ContinentalDivide on August 12, 1805. Although it

is easy to imagine Lewis’s pride that day, herevealed little in his journal about themoment except his awe at his first view ofthose “immence ranges” that blocked his viewof the western horizon. They still had to findthe Shoshone, so this was not the moment tosit around and savor their accomplishment.Soon Lewis and his men headed down thewestward slope. After about three-quarters ofa mile, they stopped to drink from a “hand-some bold running Creek of cold Clear water”which Lewis optimistically described as hisfirst taste of “the water of the Columbiariver”—even though he must have alreadysuspected that their arrival at the banks of thereal Columbia was still many days away.

They camped that night farther down theslope, by a spring where they made a meagersupper from some of the salt pork that theyhad carried all the way up the Missouri. Whenthey went to sleep, they were spending their

first night on foreign territory: Having steppedover the Continental Divide, they had alsocrossed the bounds of the Louisiana Purchase.They had entered a region that was, as yet, theproperty of none of the “Great White Fathers”in Washington or London who coveted it.Here, the Indian tribes who inhabited the landremained independent and sovereign. Andthose Indians were going to be very importantto determining the success or failure of theLewis and Clark expedition in the months tocome.

MEETING THE SHOSHONEThe next morning, August 13, they set off earlyagain, heading down into a deep valley.Despite his preoccupation with finding theShoshone, Lewis typically took the time toexamine the new trees and plants they en-countered along the route, noting the pres-ence of “white maple” (the Rocky Mountainmaple) and “a species of honeysuckle” (thecommon snowberry). There were more mo-

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On Foot and on Horse across the Rockies B 103

mentous discoveries to come. Walking parallelto the river at the bottom of the valley (thepresent-day Lemhi River, near Tendoy, Idaho),they spotted a group of Indians about a mileaway from them, including a man, twowomen, and their dogs. The Indians saw themas well. Lewis put down his rifle, unfurled theAmerican flag, and shouted “ta-ba-bone.”

But the results were the same as the lastencounter. The flag did not reassure the Indi-ans, who took one look at these self-pro-claimed “ta-ba-bone,” and fled before Lewiscould come near enough to prove his goodintentions. Only the dogs lingered, and whenLewis tried to tie some trade goods around theneck of one of the animals in a handkerchief,“thinking by this means to persuade [theShoshone] of our pacific disposition towardthem,” they too fled.

There was nothing to do but follow thepath the Indians had taken. They went about amile (Lewis noting the presence of pricklypear along the path), when they spied anothergroup of Indians, consisting of “three femalesavages.” There was one elderly woman, oneyoung woman, and a girl of about 12 years ofage. The young woman ran off upon spyingthe whites, while the old woman and the girlremained seated on the ground, heads bowed,apparently resigned to capture or death.

Lewis did everything he could to reassurethese two that he meant them no harm. Herolled up his sleeve to show his white skin, (hisface and hands, he notes, had by this timebeen tanned by the sun “quite as dark as theirown”). He pressed some trinkets into theirhands, and repeated “ta-ba-bone.” Thatseemed to persuade the old woman, and shecalled to the younger woman who had fled tocome back. Lewis dipped his finger in some ofthe vermillion paint he was carrying as tradegoods and painted the “tawny cheeks” of thewomen, a gesture that was “emblematic of

peace” among the Indians. Using sign lan-guage, he convinced them to lead his party totheir chief.

They did not have long to wait. Two milesfarther down the path, they met up with aband of 60 warriors on horseback who werethundering toward them, apparently sum-moned by the first group who had fled Lewisand his men. This moment could have spelleddisaster for the expedition. The Indians wereobviously expecting a hostile raiding partyfrom another tribe and were armed to givebattle with their bows and arrows and a fewmuskets. Coolly and courageously, Lewisadvanced toward the riders unarmed, carry-ing the flag on its pole. One can only imaginethe absolute amazement these Shoshone war-riors must have felt in seeing this unknownman in a cocked hat come toward them withhis piece of red, white, and blue cloth dan-gling from a stick. The Shoshone womencalled out to their men that these strangerscame bearing gifts and meant no harm.Instantly, the war party became a welcomingparty. The chief and other warriors dis-mounted and rushed to hug Lewis and hismen, saying in their own language “I am muchpleased, I am much rejoiced.” Lewis was, ofcourse, equally happy that the Indians werepleased to meet them, but somewhat lesshappy that they were so demonstrative oftheir feelings: “we were all carresed andbesmeared with their grease and paint till Iwas heartily tired of the national hug.” But theCorps of Discovery had met the Shoshone atlong last.

They sat in a circle on the ground with thechief, whom they discovered was namedCameahwait (a name meaning “The One WhoNever Walks”), and smoked some of Lewis’stobacco in a pipe. Lewis handed out moretrinkets and gave Cameahwait the Americanflag he had been carrying when they met,


“which I informed him was an emblem ofpeace among whitemen.” After smoking a cer-emonial pipe, they accompanied Cameahwaitand his men about four miles farther downthe road, where they came to the tribe’sencampment.

Cameahwait’s people were the LemhiShoshone band, part of the Northern Sho-

shone tribe of the Rocky Mountains, alsoknown to Lewis and Clark as the Snake Indi-ans. The Lemhi Shoshone lived a kind of bor-derland existence between two separateIndian ways of life—the river-based, salmon-fishing culture of the Pacific Northwest andthe nomadic buffalo hunting culture of thePlains. Part of the year, from May to Septem-

Salmon served as an essential part of the diet of Indians living along the rivers of the Pacific Northwest,including the Shoshone, Nez Perce, Chinook, and Clatsop tribes. (U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service)


ber, they lived in their preferred setting, theLemhi River valley west of the ContinentalDivide and fished; then, reluctantly, they ven-tured east of the Divide across Lemhi Pass andhunted buffalo on the Plains. It was not a tripthey looked forward to, for it held constantdanger from raiding parties of Hidatsa, Black-feet, and other well-armed Indian tribes. Assoon as they had enough dried buffalo meat tolast through the winter, they returned to themountains. They were getting ready now tomake their annual trek to the plains.

Neither in their own valley nor on theplains had the Shoshone ever encounteredwhite men, though they had a few goods ofEuropean manufacture obtained in trade withother tribes. Their poverty, compared to well-established trading tribes such as the Man-dan, was evident to Lewis and his men. Butthe Shoshone were rich in one resource:Cameahwait owned a herd of about 400horses. As a Virginia gentleman, Lewis knew athing or two about horse breeding, and hedeclared in his journal that he would not havebeen ashamed to ride some of the Shoshonemounts “on the South side of James River” inhis home state.

There was more ceremonial smoking oftobacco and exchanges of presents at theriverside encampment. The Shoshone fed thewhite men from their own meager food sup-plies, mostly dried cakes made from service-berries and chokecherries. They had littlesalmon left from the summer catch, but Lewiswas offered a small piece of roasted fish whosetaste pleased him immensely for “this was thefirst salmon I had seen and perfectly con-vinced me that we were on the waters of thePacific Ocean.”

RETURN TO LEMHI PASSFor all the hugging, smoking, and hospitalitydisplayed by the Shoshone, they had not

entirely made up their minds about thesewhite strangers. With Drouillard interpretingby sign language, Lewis explained to Cameah-wait that there was “another Chief and a largeparty of whitemen” coming up the river on the other side of the mountain; that theydesired to trade for horses with Cameahwait’speople; and that once Lewis returned to theEast, he would send many more white men to come with trading goods—including themuskets that the Shoshone desperately need-ed in order to defend themselves against hos-tile tribes.

The promise of future trade pleasedCameahwait, and he agreed to return withLewis to meet up with Clark and the rest of theexpedition. But on the morning of August 15,the day they had agreed to head back over themountains, the Shoshone lost their enthusi-asm for the arrangement. Perhaps they sus-pected some kind of trick: How could they besure these white strangers were not in leaguewith their enemies the Hidatsa? EventuallyLewis shamed Cameahwait into keeping hisword. “I told him if they continued to thinkthus meanly of us that they might rely on itthat no whitemen would ever come to tradewith them or bring them arms and ammuni-tion . . . I still hoped that there were someamong them who were not affraid to die, thatthere were men [who] would go with me andconvince themselves of the truth of what I hadasscerted.” Cameahwait would allow no onedoubt his bravery; he would go with Lewis,and eventually was able to persuade some ofhis warriors to accompany him. As they madeto leave for Lemhi Pass, the old women of thetribe wept, fearing they would never see theirmen again. But Lewis, Cameahwait, and theothers had not gone far before a whole crowdof villagers, both men and women, decided tojoin the band and cross the mountains. Lewiswas amazed at how quickly and impulsively

they changed their minds; the Shoshone, hedecided, had a “capricious disposition.”

They traveled 40 miles up over the passand down the forks of the Beaverhead onnearly empty stomachs, for neither white mennor Shoshone had much in the way of provi-sions left. Drouillard managed to shoot a deeren route, and the famished Shoshone, “poorstarved divils,” ate its internal organs rawmuch to Lewis’s disgust (although they care-fully refrained from touching the rest of thedeer meat, which they considered the whitemen’s portion).

The Indians still feared treachery. As theyneared the place where Lewis said the otherwhite men awaited them, he and his menwere given Shoshone headwear to wear inplace of their own hats; if there was anambush ahead, the white men would notescape being targets. To quiet Shoshone sus-picions, Lewis voluntarily gave Cameahwaithis gun, and told him in sign language that hecould shoot him if they were attacked.

Unfortunately, when they reached theforks of the Beaverhead, neither Clark norany of his party had yet arrived. Thinkingfast, Lewis had Drouillard fetch a note that he left at the campsite for Clark a few daysearlier. Showing it to Cameahwait, he toldhim it was a message from Clark, saying that he would be along the next day with themain party. Cameahwait appeared to acceptLewis’s explanation, but some of the Sho-shone were suspicious, saying “that we tolddifferent stories,” as Lewis recorded in hisjournal. To keep the Shoshone interested,Lewis had told them that there was a womanof their own tribe traveling with the whitemen up the river. Not only that, Drouillardadded, “we had a man with us who was blackand had short curling hair.” This seemed toastonish the Shoshone, and Lewis concludedthat “they seemed quite as anxious to see this

monster,” meaning York, “as they wer themerchandise which we had to barter for theirhorses.” He slept uneasily that night, fearingthat the Shoshone would slip back across themountain to safety, and in doing so doom theexpedition.

A DAY OF REUNIONSEarly the next morning, August 17, Drouillardand several Shoshone set out along the riverbank to find Clark. Shortly after 7 A.M., theyran into the expedition as it struggled up-stream. Sacagawea was among the first to see Drouillard and his Shoshone compan-ions approach, and according to Clark she“danced for the joyful Sight” because she rec-ognized the Indians as her own people. Soonafterward, Clark’s party reached the forks ofthe Beaverhead, to Lewis’s immense relief.Cameahwait greeted the new white chiefwarmly, bidding him sit on a white buffaloskin and tying small pieces of seashell intoClark’s hair in ceremonial greeting. Saca-gawea, meanwhile, embraced another youngwoman who she recognized as a girl who had been captured with her that day five yearsearlier along the Three Forks, but who unlikeSacagawea had managed to escape her captors.

Then came the most unexpected reunionof all. Lewis and Clark sat down with Cam-eahwait to smoke a pipe in preparation fornegotiations. Sacagawea and Charbonneauwere called over to provide translation. As shejoined the circle of men, Sacagawea suddenlyrecognized Cameahwait as her own long-lostbrother. Weeping with joy, she ran to Cam-eahwait, threw her blanket over him, and embraced him. If there had been any questionbefore of Shoshone friendship for these white strangers, it was now a thing of the past.Lewis and Clark would name their meeting



place at the forks of the Beaverhead “CampFortunate.”

Everyone seemed to have a very good time.The Shoshone were impressed by Lewis’s air gun, by his dog, Seaman, and by the prom-ised appearance of York—a man, not a mon-ster, as they could now see for themselves.Lewis bought a few horses for some triflesfrom the expedition’s collection of tradegoods. Some of the soldiers, Lewis noted in hisjournal, did some trading of their own andarranged to have “connection” with the“tawney damsels” who had accompanied theShoshone warriors across Lemhi Pass. Lewisurged his men to make sure they did not angerany Shoshone husbands by paying unwantedattention to their wives, but no problemsarose on that score.

August 18 was Lewis’s birthday and foundhim depressed. Perhaps he was feeling letdown after the emotional reunions of the pre-vious day. Or perhaps he was just feeling along way from home, with a long way still togo to reach the Pacific. He had only one closefriend on the expedition, William Clark, andClark was about to set off without him acrossthe Continental Divide to do some advanceroute-finding.

Whatever the reason for his low spirits,Lewis dwelled at length on his personalshortcomings in his journal: “This day I com-pleted my thirty-first year, and conceivedthat I had in all human probability nowexisted about half the period which I am toremain . . . I reflected that I had as yet donebut little, very little, indeed, to further thehapiness of the human race or to advance theinformation of the succeeding generation.”He regretted all the time he had wasted in hisyouth, when he could have been improvinghimself and learning more. But he resolved,“in future, to live for mankind, as I haveheretofore lived for myself.” Perhaps this res-

olution made Lewis feel better, perhaps not.A little over a week later he stopped makingdaily journal entries, and with rare excep-tions did not resume until January 1 of thefollowing year.

ROUTE-FINDINGThat same morning Clark set out withCameahwait, most of the Shoshone, 11 of hisown men, plus Sacagawea and Pomp.Cameahwait had already warned Lewis of thedifficulties the rivers west of the ContinentalDivide presented to travelers, but the whitemen took axes with them to build canoes ifClark should find a water route that lookedpromising. Lewis would remain behind for themoment with the rest of the Corps of Discov-ery. They prepared a cache for supplies andsank the dugouts with stones in a nearbypond, preserving them for future use. Lewisset his men to work manufacturing woodenpacksaddles for carrying supplies, waiting forCameahwait’s promised return with thehorses they needed if they were going to gettheir supplies over the mountains.

When the advance party reached theShoshone encampment on the Lemhi River,Clark questioned Cameahwait about the paththat lay ahead of the expedition. Until thistime they had followed directions given theprevious winter by the Hidatsa; but the Hi-datsa knew little, except by hearsay, of theland to the west of the Rockies. Lewis andClark had expected to find the “southern fork”of the Columbia when they crossed the Conti-nental Divide. But, as they now were comingto understand, there was no southern fork ofthe Columbia. Could they travel by tributarystreams to the Columbia? If so, they could stillpreserve the essence of President Jefferson’sdream of finding a mostly water-borne pas-sageway across the continent.

The Lemhi River intersected another largerriver (the present-day Salmon) a few miles tothe north. The Salmon headed north and thenits main fork headed westward, the directionthey wanted to go. That sounded promising,but Cameahwait told Clark that the fast-run-ning Salmon, which cut through a deepcanyon with impassable slopes, would notsuit their purpose.

There was another route, Cameahwait toldClark, although it involved a long overlandtrek. They could follow the banks of theSalmon River’s north fork, then push on over arough trail through steep hills into anotherriver valley (the present-day Bitterroot Valley).Eventually they would find a westward trailthat led to a pass through even higher moun-tains than they had already encountered.They would find little to eat in the high coun-try in this season. But there were Indians whoregularly used the trail to travel back and forthto buffalo country. These were the “persed[pierced] nosed Indians” who lived on a riverthat “ran a great way toward the seting sunand finally lost itself in a great lake of waterwhich was illy taisted and where the whitemen lived.”

The description of the ill-tasting great lakesounded to Clark like the Pacific, their ulti-mate destination. And if Indians could takethe trail across the western mountains, whitemen could as well. For Clark, Cameahwait’swords “instantly settled” for him the questionof which way the expedition should go. Cau-tious as always, he still intended to explore theSalmon River route just to make sure Cameah-wait was not exaggerating its difficulties. Heand his men set out upriver with a Shoshoneguide named Old Toby, but they did not getfar. Cameahwait had not exaggerated the diffi-culty of the river route. They would have to goby land over the mountains after all. The hard-to-kill notion of a short-portage water route to

the Pacific finally died with Clark’s brief explo-ration of the Salmon River.

Having seen Clark off on his foray up theSalmon, Cameahwait headed back acrossLemhi Pass to join Lewis at Camp Fortunate,accompanied by Sacagawea, Charbonneau,and about 50 Shoshone. They did more horse-trading. Lewis bought nine horses and a mulefrom the Shoshone and rented two others,and then with supplies loaded on the newlymade packsaddles, he headed back over thepass on August 24. Cameahwait wanted toplease his new white friends, who had beengood to his sister, and who promised to bringtrade—and guns—to the Shoshone. But therewas a problem. They were heading west, awayfrom the buffalo. The whites wanted theShoshone to stay camped along the LemhiRiver while they purchased still more horsesfrom them. Cameahwait’s people were fam-ished and needed to come east to the buffaloplains as soon as possible. So, while promisingLewis to accompany him all the way back tothe Shoshone encampment, he secretly sentsome of his men out on the morning of August25 to alert the rest of his band that it was timeto break camp and move east.

Sacagawea now gave a very clear indica-tion that her loyalties lay with the Americans,and not with her own tribe. Having learned ofCameahwait’s secret plan, she told Charbon-neau. Her husband, who did not seem to thinkit was very important news, finally got aroundto mentioning Cameahwait’s plan to Lewisseveral hours later. “I was out of patience withthe folly of Charbono,” Lewis fumed in a jour-nal entry. The Frenchman “had not sufficientsagacity to see the consequencies whichwould inevitably flow from such a movementof the indians . . .” If the Shoshone headed eastin the next day or so, then they could not tradewith them for more horses, which would be adisaster for the expedition.



Lewis confronted Cameahwait. He onceagain threatened and shamed the Shoshonechief. If Cameahwait failed to honor his prom-ise to the expedition, Lewis would guaranteethat no whites would ever come and tradearms to the Shoshone. The chief “remainedsilent for some time, [but] at length he told methat he knew he had done wrong but that hehad been induced to that measure from see-ing all his people hungary. . . .” Cameahwaitagreed to send another messenger ahead totell his people to remain in their encamp-ment. The expedition was saved, thoughLewis did not seem to fully appreciate the sac-rifice that the Shoshone were making onbehalf of the self-righteous white strangers.

Lewis and his men reached the Shoshoneencampment on August 26. That night therewas fiddle music and dancing, “much to theamusement and gratification of the natives.”Cameahwait had promised that there wouldbe horse-trading on the next day, but Lewisspent another uneasy night fearing “that thecaprice of the indians might suddenly inducethem to withhold their horses from us . . .”

Lewis got his horses, although not thesleek mounts he had admired in their herd.The Shoshone were becoming shrewdertraders and made the white men pay a highprice in their trade goods for a collection ofold and ailing nags, not at all the kind of ani-mals that Lewis would have chosen to rideback home in Virginia. There was nothing tobe done about it. They needed mounts, andnow they had them, 29 horses and one mule.Clark rejoined Lewis at the Shoshone en-campment on August 29, and on the followingday, guided by Old Toby and his son, they saidgoodbye to Cameahwait and set out overlandup the Lemhi River and then up the north forkof the Salmon River. The ankle-deep snowthrough which they slogged over the roughterrain reminded them again of the need to

push on as hard and fast as they could beforethe onset of winter.

FLATHEAD COUNTRYThe Corps of Discovery left the banks of theSalmon River behind and crossed over whatlater became known as Lost Trail Pass on Sep-tember 3, dropping down the following dayinto easier traveling country in the BitterrootValley. Here, they met another tribe of Indians,the Flathead or Salish tribe, who were campedat a site near present-day Ross’s Hole, Mon-tana. “[T]hose people recved us friendly,”Clark wrote in his journal, “threw white robes[over] our Sholders & Smoked in the pipes ofpeace.”

The “Flathead” name was misleading.Some Indian tribes in the Northwest boundthe heads of infants with boards to shape theirgrowing skulls with a slanted or “flattened”forehead, which they considered a mark ofbeauty. The Salish did not follow this practice,but since they lived in the region where Lewisand Clark expected to find head-flattening,they called them by that name anyway. Lewisand Clark also marveled to hear the Salishspeak a language that, to their ears, soundedremarkably like Welsh; the myth of the WelshIndians died even harder than the myth of theshort portage across the Rockies.

They bought more horses from the Salish,who also generously exchanged some of their fresh mounts for the broken-downShoshone cast-offs in the expedition’s herd.With their 40 or so horses they could lightenthe packs each animal carried, so they madegood time as they headed north alongside the Bitterroot River. Lining the broad rivervalley on both sides were mountain ranges—to the east the relatively gentle SapphireMountains, but to the west, the direction theywould have to cross, the higher, more jagged,


Contrary to the name Lewis and Clark knew them by, Flathead Indians did not, in fact, flatten their heads.This painting, done by James W. Alden in 1857, shows a camp and the clearing of land along the FlatheadRiver. (National Archives [NWDNC-76-E221-ALDEN45])


and increasingly snow-covered BitterrootMountains. Under other circumstances thescenery might have inspired them, but theirstomachs were empty and they did not care.On September 6 Clark noted bleakly that therewas “nothing to eate but berries, our flour out,and but little Corn, the hunters killed 2pheasents only . . .” Several days of hard raindid nothing to lift their spirits.

THE HARDEST STRETCHOn September 9 the Corps of Discoverycamped on a “fine bould clear runningstream,” which entered the Bitterroot Riverfrom the west, about 10 miles south of pres-ent-day Missoula, Montana. They called thisstream Traveler’s Rest Creek (it was laterknown as Lolo Creek). Old Toby gave themnews there that was both discouraging andencouraging. To the east lay a trail alongside ariver (present-day Big Blackfoot River). If theyfollowed that trail over the mountains to theeast, they would come to an easy pass, and injust four days they would reach the MissouriRiver near the Great Falls. The previous winterthe Hidatsa had tried to tell them about thispass, but they had misunderstood the direc-tions they had been given. As a result, theyhad wasted nearly two months traveling southto the headwaters of the Missouri beforeheading up a parallel path northward alongthe Salmon and Bitterroot Rivers. (Of course,if they had crossed at the earlier opportunity,they would have done so without the benefitof horses.) The encouraging aspect of OldToby’s news was that, on their return trip, theycould make much better time heading forhome if they followed his suggested route.

Meanwhile, there were high mountains tothe west still to be crossed. The men did notlook forward to what lay ahead. “The snowmakes them look like the middle of winter,”


Joseph Whitehouse wrote in his journal of theBitterroots; they were “the most terriblemountains that I ever beheld,” according toSergeant Gass.

On September 11 the Corps of Discoveryset out along what has come to be called theLolo Trail. For 11 cold, hungry, weary daysthey struggled across the Bitterroots. Horsesslipped on the steep footing and rolled downthe hillsides, scattering the expedition’s sup-plies. That no one was killed or injured enroute seems a miracle. But the phrase muchfatigued appeared day after day in Clark’s

journal. Bad weather added to their woes.What was rain in the Bitterroot Valley turnedto snow in the Bitterroot Range. Eight inchesof snow fell on September 16, and Clark wrotein his journal that “I have been as wet and ascold in every part as I ever was in my life.”

Everything else might have been endur-able, had it not been for hunger. The placenames they bestowed en route serve to com-memorate their days of travel on meagerrations: There was “Killed Colt Creek” wherethey stopped to eat one of the colts in theirherd, and “Hungery Creek” where they failed

This photograph taken by Edward Curtis in about 1910 shows four Salish (Flathead) women sitting on theground preparing meat, probably in much the same way as they had at the time of Lewis and Clark. (Libraryof Congress, Prints and Photographs Division [LOT 12327-A])


Main route

Westbound route approximated

Eastbound route variations

Eastbound route approximated

Camp Indian village

N

Note: Contemporary boundaries and statenames are provided for reference.

Terms in quotation marks indicateplace-names used in the travelers’ journals.

Mountain peak


0 15 miles

0 15 km

5 4

3

1

2

6

1.

2.

3.

“When we had gone 2 miles, we came to a most beautiful warm spring, the water of which is considerably above the blood-heat; and I could not bear my hand in it without unpleasantness.” —Patrick Gass, September 13, 1805

“. . . encamped opposit a Small Island at the mouth of a branch on the right side of the river. . . . Here we were compelled to kill a colt for our men & selves to eat for the want of meat & we named the south fork Colt Killed Creek, . . . ” —William Clark, September 14, 1805

“Some of the men without Socks, wrapped rags on their feet, and loaded up our horses and Set out without any-thing to eat and proceeded on. Could hardly See the old trail for the Snow.” —Joseph Whitehouse, September 16, 1805

“Encamped on a bold running creek passing to the left which I call Hungery Creek as at that place we had nothing to eate.” —William Clark, September 18, 1805

“The men are becoming lean and debilitated, on account of the scarcity and poor quality of the provisions on which we subsist . . . We have, however, some hopes of gettingsoon out of this horrible mountainous desert . . . ” —Patrick Gass, September 19, 1805

“At 12 miles descended the mountain to a leavel pine countrey. Proceeded on . . . to a small plain in which I found main Indian lodges. Those people gave us a small piece of buffalow meat, some dried salmon beries & roots. . . . They call themselves Cho pun-nish or Pierced noses.” —William Clark, September 20, 1805

4.

5.

6.


Bitterroot Mountains (Lolo Trail),September–October 1805 and May–July 1806

Pack

Cr.

Colt Killed Cr.(“White Sand”

QuamishMeadows

Sherman Peak

Lolo Pass

N. Fork C learwater R.

Selway R.

Kooskooske

e(“

Loch

sa”)

R.

Kooskooskee(“M

iddleFork

Clearwater”) R.

FishCr.

Hungry Cr.

Lolo Cr.

Lolo Cr.

(“Brushy Fo

rk”)

Eldo

rado

Cr.

Lolo Cr.

Jim Ford Cr.

JimB

rown

Cr.

Lawyers Cr.

Pack

Cr.

(“Crooked Fork”)

Colt Killed Cr.(“White Sand”)

Twisted Hair’s village

CanoeCamp

CampChopunnish

Rocky Point Lookout

QuamishMeadows

Hot springsTravelers’

Rest

Nez Perce villages

CayuseJunction

Sherman Peak

BI T

TE

RR

OO

T

MT

S.

Lolo Pass

WEIPPEPRAIRIE

Idaho

Montana


to have even that poor a meal. Normally, fourdeer were required to feed the expedition; in their 11 days in the Bitterroots, they man-aged to kill only five deer, little more than a single day’s ration. The howling coyotes did not make for restful nights, but CaptainLewis killed one and it went into the pot tofeed the men, as did a few grouse, one duck,and some crayfish. They were eventuallyreduced to eating some of the “portable”(dried) soup they had lugged all the way upthe Missouri; it must have been a truly vileconcoction, because if there was anything

else to eat—even coyote—they avoided it.They also consumed 20 pounds of the can-dles they carried.

NEZ PERCE HOSPITALITYOn September 18, with the expedition stillfloundering over the snowy hills of the Bitter-roots, Clark set off ahead of the main partywith six men in search of open country andbetter hunting. Two days later, on September20, Clark and his party reached the WeippePrairie in present-day Clearwater County,

The Corps of Discovery trekked across the Bitterroot Mountains to the Clearwater River by way of the LoloTrail, a historic Indian hunting and trade route. (Montana Historical Society, Helena)


Idaho, 160 miles from their starting point atTraveler’s Rest. There they came across anencampment of Nez Perce Indians. They weredirected by the Indians to another encamp-ment on the Clearwater River, where they meta Nez Perce chief named Twisted Hair.

Like the Shoshone, most of the Nez Percehad never encountered white men. Accordingto Nez Perce tradition, the tribe debated whatto do about the strangers. Some thought theyshould kill them and take their rifles and othergoods. An old woman named Watkuweis, wholike Sacagawea had been captured by a rivalIndian tribe, was the only Nez Perce who hadever seen whites before. Fortunately her expe-rience with whites (probably French traders)had been good. “These are the people whohelped me,” she said of the whites. “Do themno hurt.”

The Nez Perce fed the famished whitestrangers on dried salmon and a bread madefrom camas roots. (The camas plant, a form oflily common in the West, produced a blueflower in the spring; when it lost its flowers,the Nez Perce and other Indian tribes woulddig up the bulbs, steam, and then dry them,and grind them into flour.) Clark and his menate heartily, but unfortunately they found thatthe new diet did not sit well in their famishedstomachs. “I find myself verry unwell all theevening,” Clark wrote in his journal on Sep-tember 20, “from eating the fish & roots toofreely.” The next day was no better: “I am verysick today,” Clark wrote on the 21, “and pukewhich relive me.” Clark treated himself andhis men with Rush’s Pills, a powerful laxativethat only increased their stomach miseries.When Lewis and the rest of the party stumbled

Lewis and Clark’s diplomatic efforts are illustrated in the above etching by Patrick Gass of the two men holding council with Indians. (Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division [LC-USZ62-17372])


down out of the Bitterroot Range on Septem-ber 22, Clark tried to warn them to go easy onthe salmon and camas roots, but to no avail.They stuffed themselves, as starving peoplewill, and soon were as sick as Clark and hismen. (It is likely that their illness was due tobacteria in the fish.)

Despite their illness, Lewis and Clark car-ried out their duties as diplomats, handing outJefferson medals to Twisted Hair and severalother chiefs. Twisted Hair drew them a map ona piece of white elk skin showing how to travel

by lesser rivers westward to the river whichflowed directly to the sea. He and anotherchief named Tetoharsky also agreed to accom-pany Lewis and Clark through Nez Perce terri-tory as far as the Columbia.

On September 26 Clark, accompanied byTwisted Hair and several other Nez PerceIndians, established the “Canoe Camp” on asite five miles west of present-day Orofino,Idaho. The new camp was on the south bank of what Lewis and Clark would call inNez Perce language the Kooskooskee River

The Nez Perce Horses =

Meriwether Lewis greatly admired the horses possessed by the Indian tribeswest of the Rockies. In February 1806 he would write in his journal: “Theirhorses appear to be of an excellent race; they are lofty eligantly formed activeand durable; in short many of them look like fine English coarsers and wouldmake a figure in any country.”

Spanish explorers introduced horses to the North American continent in themid-16th century. No other European import had as dramatic an impact on thelives of western Indians as the horse. When the Indians acquired horses, theyswiftly changed long-established patterns of settlement, warfare, hunting, andtrading. The introduction of the horse allowed tribes living in the river valleyswest of the Rockies to venture eastward across the mountains to hunt buffalo,while at the same time increasing the risk of conflict with the Plains-dwellingIndians such as the Lakota.

The Nez Perce had first acquired horses around 1700. They used their horsesfor transportation on their yearly migration west of the Rockies, when whole vil-lages would migrate from the valleys of the Columbia, Snake, and ClearwaterRivers to higher elevations where they would gather camas roots and fruit,hunt, and fish the mountain streams.

The Nez Perce became known as expert horse breeders. Appaloosa horses,with their distinctive spotted coats, were often to be found in Nez Perce herds.Lewis described the Appaloosa breed in his journal as “pided [pied] with largespots of white irregularly scattered and intermixed with the black brown bey[reddish brown] or some other dark color. . . .” (The term Appaloosa is derivedfrom the Palouse River, which flows through eastern Washington.) The NezPerce valued their horses highly. They painted their coats and decorated theirhalters and saddles with beads, dye, and porcupine quills.

\


(the present-day middle fork of the Clear-water River). Virtually all the Corps of Discov-ery were still recovering from stomachailments (Lewis suffering intensely, andClark feeling only a little better). But with thehelp of the Nez Perce they soon built fivedugout canoes, this time out of ponderosapines rather than the cottonwoods they hadrelied on along the Missouri. The Indiansshowed them how to burn out the interior offelled trees to save labor. By October 6 theirnew fleet was complete. They branded the 38horses that had survived the trip over LoloTrail and turned them over to the care of theNez Perce, burying their saddles and someother supplies.

Finally on the afternoon of October 7, theCorps of Discovery proceeded on down the

Clearwater River in their new dugout canoes.The short portage they had expected to findconnecting the waters of the Missouri to thewaters of the Columbia had turned into anarduous land journey of two months’ durationand some 400 miles of rugged terrain. It musthave been a great relief to the footsore soldiersto find themselves once again riding incanoes, instead of bushwhacking throughrough and broken country. Even better, theywere traveling with the current, instead ofagainst it as they had all the long way up theMissouri River. The Clearwater River was flow-ing toward the Pacific.

“Ocian in View!”To the Pacific

118

9{

Lewis was still feeling sick to his stom-ach when the expedition resumed itsjourney on water, this time setting off

in its little fleet on the waters of the ClearwaterRiver. Clark recorded the last-minute confu-sion that attended the Corps of Discovery’sdeparture on October 7: “[A]s we were about toset off we missd. both of the Chiefs who prom-ised to accompany us; I also missed my PipeTomahawk which Could not be found.” Thepipe tomahawk never turned up that day, butthe chiefs did the following day, October 8,when Twisted Hair and Tetoharsky boarded theexpedition’s dugouts near a village a few mileswest of Canoe Camp. There was more confu-sion on October 9, when Old Toby and his sonsuddenly departed without collecting the paythey were owed for five weeks’ service guidingthe expedition, including the terrible week anda half the Corps of Discovery had spent cross-ing the Bitterroot Mountains. The captainsnever knew what scared off their heretoforeintrepid Shoshone guides, though it may havebeen the sight of the fast-flowing Clearwater

River or the prospect of traveling amongstrange Indians in territory so far from home.Lewis and Clark asked the Nez Perce chiefs tosend a horseman to bring back Old Toby andhis son so they could be properly compensatedbut were told it would be pointless; anythingthe white men gave the Shoshone guide wouldbe taken from him by the Nez Perce Indianswhose villages he would have to pass beforereaching the protection of his own tribe.

DOWN THE CLEARWATERThe dangers of the Clearwater were not to beunderestimated. On the expedition’s first dayon the river, one of the canoes struck a rockand sprung a leak. Fortunately it remainedafloat, and the men were able to repair it thatnight. Notwithstanding the mishap, the Corpsof Discovery made 20 miles on the Clearwaterthat day. After making a further 18 miles thenext day, another canoe, piloted by SergeantGass, struck a rock. Filling rapidly with waterwith water through a leak in its side, it over-

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“Ocian in View!” B 119

turned, dumping men and supplies in therapids. The expedition laid up on a nearbyisland on October 9 to dry their goods andmake further repairs.

Stuck on the shore, the explorers foundthemselves the object of great curiosity on thepart of the local Indian population. They usu-ally welcomed such attention, but this timethe curiosity they attracted was not entirelyinnocent. “The Indians troublesom,” Clarknoted on the 9: “Stole my Spoon.” Theft hadnot been a problem until now. When theytraveled up the Missouri and crossed theRockies, the Corps of Discovery had been ableto welcome Indians into their midst withoutthe least thought for protecting their belong-ings; as Lewis wrote of the Shoshone, notwith-

standing their “extreem poverty” they were“extreemly honest.”

The tribes they encountered along theClearwater, Snake, and Columbia Rivers dis-played a different attitude toward expeditionproperty. They apparently did not think thewhites would notice or care much if a fewsmall and useful items disappeared from theirpacks and canoes. If the Corps of Discoveryhad still been as well equipped as it was whensetting off up the Missouri, that might haveproven the case. But at this stage of their jour-ney, every spoon counted.

DOWN THE SNAKEOn October 10 the explorers set off againdown the Clearwater and, despite yet another

On October 8, 1805, the rapids of the Grand River sent one of the corps’ canoes crashing into a broken tree-top. This etching made by Sergeant Patrick Gass shows the canoe sinking, but none of the crew members’journal entries of the day seem stark. Rather, the men were eager to describe the Indian tribe they met soonafter. (Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division [LC-USZ62-19232])


near-disastrous encounter between a canoeand a rock, managed to cover an extraordi-nary 60 miles of river that day, the farthestthey had ever come in a single day. That nightthey slept at the confluence of the Clearwaterand the Snake Rivers. (Their journey that dayalso took them across the border from pres-ent-day Idaho to present-day Washington.)

As the corps headed westward, the coun-try along the river changed dramatically. Theyleft the mountains and high meadows behindand found themselves in a region of rollinghills and canyons. The ponderosa pines thatthey had passed along the shores of the Clear-water disappeared: There was now “no timberof any kind,” Clark noted in his journal onOctober 12 as they sailed down the Snake.They had passed through vast tracts of tree-less land before. But in the Great Plains theyfound cottonwood trees to camp amongalong the river bottom. The waving grasses ofthe prairie lands, at least along the LowerMissouri, suggested to them the possibility ofraising crops and building settlements. Theycould imagine white settlers following in theirwake. Along the Snake, Clark complained,nothing grew by the riverside but “a fiew Hackberry bushes and willows. . . .” In the evendrier terrain to come when they reached theeastern Columbia, sagebrush would domi-nate the landscape. Lewis, who was onceagain leaving the daily journal-keeping toClark, was not moved to any of the rapturousdescriptions of the countryside to comparewith his appreciation for the Lower Missouri,the mouth of the Yellowstone, or the MissouriBreaks.

Compared to their struggle getting acrossthe Bitterroots the month before, they weremaking good progress. But river travel, evenwith the advantage of a favorable current, wasstill strenuous. Although they had hired threeIndian guides to help them navigate the

Snake’s rapids, they could not avoid frequentspills, costing them irreplaceable supplies andvaluable time. A dugout piloted by Drouillardstruck a rock on October 14 and sank, alongwith blankets, tomahawks, shot pouches, andother goods. In five days on the Snake, theytraveled less than 120 miles.

ON TO THE COLUMBIAOn October 16 they reached the junction ofthe Snake and the Columbia Rivers, 3,714miles from their starting point on the Missis-sippi River. Clark was very matter-of-fact inhis description of the day’s events: “[H]avingtaken our Diner Set Out and proceeded onSeven miles to the junction of this river [theSnake] and the Columbia which joins from theN.W.” Clark’s understated response should notobscure the significance of the moment, forthe Corps of Discovery’s arrival at the Colum-bia rivaled the crossing of the ContinentalDivide in its importance in the history of theLewis and Clark expedition. It had been 13years since an American merchant captain,Robert Gray, had discovered the river’s mouthon the Pacific. If Jefferson’s dream of a waterroute across the continent was no longerviable, his soldiers had nonetheless found aroute linking the major river crossing thePlains with the major river that flowed to thePacific.

The Corps of Discovery came upon theColumbia more than halfway along the river’s1,210-mile course to the sea. The headwatersof the river, which Lewis and Clark never saw,were to be found in a lake deep in Canadianterritory, in present-day British Columbia. Forits first 200 miles the river flows northwest-ward, before bending to the south. A hundredmiles below the present-day U.S.-Canadianborder, the river bends westward and contin-ues more or less due west to the Pacific. It is


the second-longest river in the Americas emptying in the Pacific (Canada’s and Alaska’sYukon River is the longest.) When theyreached the confluence of the Snake and theColumbia, Lewis and Clark were back on ariver that had already been explored by whitemen, from its mouth on the Pacific to a dis-tance of about 100 miles inland. They werethus linked again to the world they had knownin the East, as well as on the last stretch oftheir journey to the western edge of the conti-

nent. But they still had some 400 miles oftreacherous waters to navigate ahead of them.

As they traveled along the river, Lewis andClark found new reasons to be glad they hadbrought Sacagawea along with them. Clarknoted in his journal on October 13: “The wifeof Shabono our interpetr we find reconsiles allthe Indians, as to our friendly intentions—awoman with a party of men is a token ofpeace.” The two Nez Perce chiefs, Twisted Hairand Tetoharsky, accompanying the expedition

This photograph taken by Edward Curtis in December 1910, is of Chinook Indians sitting in a canoe by theshore of the Columbia River. Reaching the river, the gateway to the Pacific, was one of the expedition’s mostmomentous successes. (Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division [LC-USZ62-47010])


on this stretch of its journey also served as asign that the white men were not to be fearedor attacked. They set off ahead of the expedi-tion, announcing its coming to the Indianbands in fishing encampments along theriver. The tribes in this region were related tothe Nez Perce, and spoke dialects of the samelanguage, known to later generations of lin-guists as Sahaptian.

Twisted Hair and Tetoharsky’s advancework helped win a particularly friendly recep-tion for the Corps of Discovery when theycame upon the junction of the Snake andColumbia. The arrival of the white explorers

provided a welcome distraction to the Yakamaand Wanapam Indians who were campedthere, drying fish and repairing their gear atthe end of the annual salmon run. Clarkrecorded that the local chief came to see them“at the head of about 200 men Singing andbeeting on their drums . . .” The Indiansformed a half circle around the white men“and Sung for Some time . . .”

They spent two days camped at the conflu-ence of the Snake and Columbia. Back amongIndians who were “of a mild disposition andfriendly disposed,” the captains took advan-tage of the opportunity to practice some

The Columbia River Salmon Culture =

The lands they were passing through may have seemed barren and inhospitableto the Corps of Discovery, but the waters cutting through them in the deep rivervalleys of the region were richly endowed with migratory salmon. The Indianswho lived along the river fed themselves from its bounty. While no single Indiancommunity along the Columbia was as large or permanently established as theMandan villages, the region was as thickly populated as any Lewis and Clarkwould pass through on their journey. Every few miles the expedition cameacross another small riverside settlement of timber-framed lodgings with rushmats covering walls and roofs, and as Clark noted, “large Scaffols of fish dryingat every lodge . . .” The salmon was as important to the peoples who lived alongthe rivers of the Pacific Northwest as the buffalo was to the peoples who livedalong the upper Missouri River.

Salmon endured a strenuous life cycle. Born in freshwater, newly hatchedsalmon made their way hundreds of miles down streams and rivers to theocean, where they grew into adults. Every year, between mid-April and mid-October, vast numbers of adult salmon (perhaps as many as 16 million) wouldswim back from the ocean through the freshwaters of the Columbia and its trib-utary rivers, branching off from the rivers to the exact stream where they hadbeen born. There they would spawn their eggs, renewing the life cycle, anddying soon afterward. The Indians along the rivers would harvest the fish asthey made their annual runs upstream. Lewis and Clark recorded the existenceof a number of varieties of salmon they encountered on the Columbia and itstributaries: the silver or coho salmon, the king or chinook salmon, the blue-backed or sockeye salmon, as well as the related species, the steelhead trout.

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diplomacy. They smoked a peace pipe withthe chief, and they put on the same show theyhad perfected a year earlier, heading up theMissouri. They handed out Jefferson medalsand made a speech informing the gathering“of our friendly disposition to all nations, andour joy in Seeing those of our Children aroundus.” The Yakama and Wanapam were techni-cally nobody’s “children” at that moment,because neither the Great White Father inWashington or his rival in London had yetestablished valid claim to the lands along theColumbia or the Snake. But Lewis and Clark’swords made clear that they thought it wasonly a matter of time before the land on thewestern side of the Continental Divide, likethat to the east, would become part of theUnited States. For their part, the local Indianswere not troubled by the question of wherethe actual territorial boundaries of the UnitedStates ended in 1805; it could not haveseemed like a question that would ever havemuch effect on their lives.

From the Wanapam chief Cutssahnem,and from another Yakama chief whose namewent unrecorded, the explorers received mapsof the Columbia that included information onwhat Indian tribes might be expected alongtheir route. On October 18 they set sail downthe last of the rivers they would follow to thePacific. Sergeant Gass recorded in his journalentry for the day that “we proceeded down theGreat Columbia, which is a very beautifulriver.”

On their first day on the Columbia, theyencountered the Walla Walla tribe near themouth of a river that bore their name. Thechief, named Yellepit, “a bold handsom Indian,with a dignified countenance about 35 years ofage . . .,” according to Clark, gave them anotherfriendly reception. Yellepit brought the whitesa basket of berries as a gift, and in turn hereceived one of the Jefferson medals. The chief

wanted Lewis and Clark to stay and visit withhis tribe for a while. But, keenly conscious ofthe approach of winter, the captains beggedoff, promising to stay longer with the WallaWalla on their return trip.

DIFFICULT WATERSThe Corps of Discovery at first enjoyedsmooth sailing on the broad waters of theColumbia. Measuring the river on October 18,Clark found it stretched nearly 1,000 yardsfrom one bank to the other. But they soon dis-covered that the Columbia would not be aneasy highway to the ocean. On October 22 theexpedition’s canoes came to what Lewis andClark called the Great Falls of the Columbia,later known as Celilo Falls, where the river’selevation dropped 38 1/2 feet in a complicatedseries of falls and cataracts. The excellent fishing opportunities offered by the narrowingof the river at Celilo Falls had attracted In-dians to the area for the past 10,000 years,making it one of the longest-settled commu-nities in North America. To Lewis and Clark,however, it was just an obstacle. To get safelypast the worst of these falls, they portagedtheir supplies along a narrow trail on thenorthern shore of the Columbia, near present-day Wishram, Washington, then crossed theriver and hauled their dugouts along thesouthern shore.

One challenge was quickly followed by thenext on this stretch of the river. On October 24the river narrowed dramatically at a pointnear the present-day city of The Dalles, Ore-gon. All the water that had moved placidlydown the Columbia where it was 1,000 yardswide was now pinched into a channel, whichat its narrowest stretched a mere 45 yardsfrom bank to bank. Clark described this pas-sage of the river as an “agitated gut swelling,boiling & whorling in every direction.” The


corps had to get through two sets of dauntingrapids, called the Short Narrows and the LongNarrows. They considered another portage,but decided it would take too much time.Instead, with their most experienced boats-men at the helm, they ran the canoes downthe narrows. Much to the astonishment of theIndians who were watching from the river-banks and clearly expected the foolish whitemen to drown in the attempt, they passed thenarrows without mishap.

The river was changing, and so were thepeoples who lived along it. The riverbank

along the Short and Long Narrows, like theMandan villages, functioned as a center oftrade that drew Indians up and down the riverfrom many tribes. It also served as a linguisticand cultural dividing line. To the west of theNarrows, peace prevailed among the tribesspeaking Sahaptian languages, stretching allthe way to the Rockies; to the east of the Nar-rows, peace prevailed among the tribes whospoke languages of the Chinookan family,stretching all the way to the Pacific. But rela-tions between the Sahaptian- and Chinookan-speaking tribes were not peaceful. Twisted

The overhead view of Celilo Falls in this photograph aptly represents the vastness of the falls and why Lewisand Clark named the landmark the Great Falls of the Columbia. (Library of Congress, Prints and PhotographsDivision [LC-USZ62-107043])


Clackamas

Chinook

Wanapam

Colum

bia

R.

Snake R.

Columbia R.

Will

amet

teR.

Des

chuk

s R.

Celilo FallsThe

Dalles

Fort Clatsop

Quileute

Quinault

Chehalis

CathlametCowlitz

Clatskanie

Clackamas

Klickitat

Siletz

Cayuse

Alsea

SiuslawNorthern Paiute

Umpqua

Palouse

Tenino

Chinook

Wanapam

Yakama

Wishram

Wasco

Umatilla

SkillootTillamook

Clatsop

Watlala

Walla Walla

PACIFICOCEAN

Note: Map shows approximatetraditional locations of majortribes.

Contemporary boundaries areprovided for reference.

N

0 50 miles

0 50 km

Camp

Tribe nameCayuse

Fort Clatsop and Its Indian Neighbors, 1805–1806

Hair and Tetoharsky knew that if they wentany further they would be straying into hostileterritory, and for several days they had beensaying they wanted to turn back and go home.

Lewis and Clark persuaded them to stay withthe expedition at least until they passed theNarrows, to give them a chance to brokerpeace between the tribes. The Nez Perce

chiefs agreed but warned the captains to beon their guard against attack by the Chi-nookan tribes.

Lewis and Clark held their council on theevening of October 24, after their successfuldescent of the Narrows. A chief from theWishram-Wasco band of Chinookan-speakingpeople came to their camp along with some ofhis warriors, providing “a favorable opportu-nity of bringing about a Piece,” Clark thought.They smoked pipes, handed out medals, andurged the tribes of the lower and upperColumbia to put aside their weapons. “[W]ehave every reason to believe,” Clark wroteconfidently in his journal that night, “thatthose two bands of nations are and will be onthe most friendly terms with each other.” Butthe captains were again indulging in the wish-ful thinking that so often characterized theirventures into Indian diplomacy. Twisted Hairand Tetoharsky headed home the next day,anxious to return to the safety of Sahaptian-speaking territory. The Corps of Discovery wasonce again on its own.

THE WESTERN COLUMBIANot far past the Narrows, the corps confrontedyet another pinched-in portion of the river,this one known as the Upper and Lower Cas-cades. This stretch seemed even more daunt-ing than the Narrows, and the captainsdecided to portage their goods and dugoutsrather than push their luck any further. Belowthe cascades, on October 31 they found a“remarkable high detached rock” on the northshore of the Columbia, a volcanic plug almost900 feet in height, which they named BeaconRock.

Although they were still more than 100miles from the ocean, they began to feel theeffects of the tides on the river; before theyhad traveled much farther, the river water

would prove so salty they had to rely on rain-water to drink. Of that there would prove to beno shortage. The mountains they were nowpassing on either side of the river worked adramatic change in the climate.

On their very first day on the Columbia,back on October 18, Clark noted that they hadseen “a mountain bearing S.W. Conocal formCovered with Snow.” On the next day, a secondmountain came into view, “a high mountain ofemence hight covered with Snow.” The firstmountain he left nameless for the moment;the second, Clark decided, “must be one of themountains laid down by Vancouver, as Seenfrom the mouth of the Columbia River”—thatis, one of the mountains that the British navalofficer William Broughton under the com-mand of Captain George Vancouver had dis-covered and named in 1792. “I take it to be Mt.St. Helens,” Clark wrote—though it was, infact, Mount Adams, for Mount St. Helens isstill hidden from view on that portion of theriver. Looking back on November 3 in thedirection from which they had come, Clarkagain saw the tall snow-capped peak that hehad spotted on October 18 and left unnamed.He now realized that it must be Mount Hood,a high glacier-covered volcanic cone alsonamed by Lieutenant Broughton. They soonreached the mouth of a river entering thesouthern side of the Columbia, a tributarythey called the Quicksand (the present-daySandy River). This was the highest point onthe Columbia River reached by Broughton inhis reconnaissance of 1792. Thus, for the firsttime since April, they were back in territorypreviously visited by whites.

Mount Hood, Mount St. Helens, andMount Adams were all part of the CascadeRange, a volcanic ridge averaging 5,000 feet inheight, dotted with glaciated peaks thatreached twice that height or more. The Cas-cades ran up the western edge of the conti-



nent, roughly 100 miles from the coast, fromnorthern California through the present-daystates of Oregon and Washington. The Colum-bia River provided one of the few open pathsthrough this mountainous barrier, in a regionlater known as the Columbia Gorge. As theypassed through the Cascades, the Corps ofDiscovery left behind the open hills and semi-desert conditions of the eastern end of thegorge and entered a region of deep forests andlush undergrowth. East of the Cascades,

annual rainfall is limited to about six inches;west of the Cascades, 10 times as much fallsevery year, as the rain clouds perpetuallyrolling in from the Pacific bump up against themountains and go no further.

The explorers were in a hurry to get to theocean, and they never stayed more than anight with any of the Chinook Indians whosewooden plank houses they passed along theriver. White men, or at least the goods thatwhite men had to offer, were no novelty to

Salm

onR.

Lem

hi R.From the Shoshone camp near Lemhi Pass, the corps travels north to Travelers’ Rest. After a dangerous mountain crossing via the Lolo Trail, they meet the Nez Perce. They then travel by water from Canoe Camp down the Clearwater and Snake Rivers. On October 16, 1805, they reach the Columbia River, and they arrive at Pillar Rock on November 7.

Lemhi Pass

PillarRockPillarRock

Route

Camp

Indian village




0 50 miles

0 50 km

Route of the Corps of Discovery, August 12–November 7, 1805

Travelers’ RestTwisted Hair’s

village

Nez Percevillages

Canoe Camp

Beacon Rock

Lost Trail Pass

Celilo Falls

Ross’s Hole(First meetingwith Flathead

[Salish] Indians)

Travelers’ RestTwisted Hair’s

village

Nez Percevillages

Canoe CampWeippe

Lewiston

Beacon Rock

Pillar Rock

LemhiPass

Lost Trail Pass

Mt. Hood

Lolo Trail

BI

TT

ER

RO

OT

MT

S.

WA

NV

OR

ID

MT

Columbia R.

Sn

akeR.

Snake R.

Clearwater R.

North ForkClearwater R.

South ForkClearwater R.

Gra

nde

Rond

e

Columbia R.

Celilo Falls

The DallesGreat Chute ofthe Columbia

Salmon R.


these Indians. The corps saw one Indian wear-ing a sailor’s jacket, others wearing scarlet andblue blankets. There were iron pots, brassteakettles, and muskets in the villages. Theyeven began hearing a few words of spokenEnglish, suggesting both the proximity ofwhite traders and the rough nature of theirconversations (among the recognizable wordsLewis recorded hearing from Indians theynow encountered was “musquit, powder, shot,knife, file, damned rascal, sun of a bitch, etc.”).Another less-than-welcome sign of frequentcontact with white merchants was the factthat the Chinook knew the value of the thingsthey offered to sell the expedition, especiallyfood. “They asc high prices for what they Sell,”Clark complained on November 1, “and Saythat the white people below give great pricesfor every thing. . . .”

Their dislike of the local Indians mountedas they found themselves besieged by light-fingered visitors. Clark had a pipe tomahawkstolen on November 4 in a tense encounterwith a band of Skilloot Indians on an islandon the southern shore of the Columbia theycalled Wappatoe Island (present-day SauvieIsland); a few days later, three Indians werecaught in the act of stealing a knife; a fewdays after that, Shannon and Willard’s gunswere stolen, though recovered when thewhite men confronted the thieves. Clarkwarned one group of visiting Indians that ifthey tried to steal guns or other expeditiongoods, “the men would Certainly shutethem . . .”

AT LAST THE PACIFICAll their troubles were momentarily forgottenon November 7, as they sailed down a stretchof the river near present-day Altoona, Wash-ington. They knew the Pacific could not be faroff. That afternoon, as they proceeded on

down the Columbia in their canoes, theycould see the river widen dramatically andcould hear the sound of waves crashing onthe shore ahead. Without any attempt to dis-


guise his emotions, Clark set down in thepages of his field journal the most famoussentence he would ever write: “Ocian in view!O! the joy.”

It would make a better story if Clark wereright; unfortunately, he was mistaken. Thewaves were genuine enough, but they werecrashing in Gray’s Bay, part of the Columbia

This photograph captures the sun setting over the Columbia Gorge in Oregon. (Library of Congress, Prints andPhotographs Division [LC-USF3427-004795-A])

estuary, not the edge of the Pacific at all. Theystill had 20 miles of the Columbia to proceeddown before they would reach the ocean. Andthose would not be an easy 20 miles.

The Pacific Northwest winter was settlingin, and it was the worst time to be navigatingthe Columbia estuary in clumsy dugoutcanoes. Driving rain and high waves cut shorttheir river travel on November 8; “the Canoesroled in Such a manner as to cause Several[expedition members] to be verry Sick,” Clarkreported. For two miserable days they campedon a tiny beachhead on the northern side ofGray’s Bay. A lull in the storm on November 10let them gain an additional eight miles downthe river, to Point Ellice, near present-dayMeglar, Washington. There they were trappedagain by bad weather for several more days.Everything was wet; no one could sleep; theywere cold and exhausted. “A hard rain all thelast night . . .” Clark wrote on November 11; “atremendious thunder Storm abt. 3 oClock thismorning. . . .”, he wrote on November 12; “Therain Continue all day,” he wrote on November13. It did not help anybody’s spirits that therewas “nothing to eate but pounded fish whichwe Keep as a reserve and use in Situations ofthis kind.”

Finally, on the afternoon of November 15,after 11 days of more or less continuousdownpour (“the most disagreeable time I haveexperienced” according to Clark), the rainbriefly relented and they were able to saildown to Chinook Point, still on the Columbiaestuary but in sight of the ocean. There theycamped for the next nine days, finding shelterin huts built from lumber they took from anabandoned Indian village. Meanwhile Lewisand a small group hiked to the end of CapeDisappointment, where Lewis carved his ini-tials in a tree and then walked along the oceanbeach. It was Clark’s turn to visit the oceanwith another party a few days later. The “men

appear much Satisfied with their trip behold-ing with estonishment the high waves dashingagainst the rocks & this emence ocian” hewrote on November 18. On November 19Clark’s party walked about nine miles up thecoast, to about the site of present-day LongBeach, Washington, where he carved his nameand the date on a small pine tree.

At the end of their journey to the Pacific,they could take stock of the immensity oftheir accomplishment. Back at Camp Wood inthe winter of 1803–04, Clark had made esti-mates of the distance they would have totravel to reach their final destination. His esti-mates had proven reasonably accurate as longas they traveled through the previouslyexplored Lower Missouri. But his estimate ofthe distance from the Mandan village to thePacific—1,550 miles—was off by 1,000 miles.They had traveled roughly 2,550 miles be-tween April and November 1805. All told, bythe new estimate Clark recorded on Novem-ber 16, 1805, they had come 4,142 miles fromthe mouth of the Missouri to the mouth of theColumbia.

Now that they had seen the ocean, somemembers of the Corps of Discovery were infavor of heading back up the Columbia for adrier climate. “[M]en all Chearfull,” Clarkwrote on November 18, “express a desire towinter near the falls [Celilo Falls] this winter.”Lewis and Clark disagreed. Disagreeable asthe ocean climate was, the temperatures wererelatively mild, and they feared it would bemuch colder inland. The shoreline north ofthe Columbia offered little game, but they hadbeen told by the Clatsop Indians who lived onthe southern shore that elk were abundant in the woods there. If they moved their campto the south, they could feed themselves onelk meat during the winter and use the elkskins to manufacture new clothing and moc-casins. They could also make salt from the



ocean water to preserve and flavor their food.Not only that, but if they stayed by the oceanfor the winter, they might encounter an Amer-ican or British merchant ship, which wouldenable them to purchase supplies for them-selves, and trade goods to carry back withthem on their return journey. They might evenbe able to send a copy of their journals backwith the ship, thus increasing the chances thatthe record of their expedition would reach Jef-ferson should any evil end befall them on thereturn.

Again, as when they faced a critical choiceat Decision Point at the mouth of the MariasRiver, the captains could have simply issuedan order. Instead Lewis and Clark put thequestion to a vote on November 24, and aftersome debate the proposal to cross the Colum-bia and seek a winter encampment site nearthe ocean got the most votes (the other voteswere divided between “falls” and “SR”—theSandy River). All of the men were allowed toparticipate in the vote, including Clark’s slave,York. Sacagawea’s preference was noted aswell, though not counted in Clark’s final tallyof the voting; she was listed as being “in favourof a place where there is plenty of Potas [pota-toes, or roots].”

FORT CLATSOPThey crossed to the south bank of the Colum-bia on November 26 and remained campedthere for the next week and a half. Lewis tooka party inland, and he found a spot for a win-ter encampment in the forest near a freshwa-ter spring, three miles up a small river that isnow known as the Lewis and Clark River (andis about five miles southeast of present-dayAstoria, Oregon). They moved to the site onDecember 7 and started building their thirdand final winter encampment, called FortClatsop after the local Indian tribe.

The new fort was square, enclosing an areaabout 50 feet square, with two long barracksrows facing each other across a small paradeground, and gates in both the front and backwalls. The captains had a room to themselvesin the barracks, as did Charbonneau and hisfamily. The enlisted men bunked eight to aroom. The fort was not designed for comfort,but at least it provided a roof over their heads.They needed one. Of the 161 days they wouldspend at Fort Clatsop, they would enjoy only12 days without rain.

The third Christmas of the expeditionafforded only a meager celebration. “OurDiner to day,” Clark wrote in a morose entryon December 25, “Consisted of pore Elkboiled, Spilt [spoiled] fish & Some roots, a badChristmass diner . . .” On January 1, 1806, thecaptains were awakened by a volley fired by

A large member of the deer family, the elk is relatedto the moose. When the expedition spent the winteron the Oregon coast, elk was a staple of their dietand eventually the members lost their appetite forit. (National Park Service)


N

Route, November 7, 1805–March 23, 1806

Camp


Note: Contemporary state names are provided forreference.

Terms in quotation marks indicate place-names used inthe travelers’ journals.

0 10 miles

0 10 km

1.

2.

3.

“Here I found Capt. Lewis name on a tree. I also engraved my name, & by land the day of the month and year, as also several of the men.” —William Clark, November 18, 1805

“In the Evening our Officers had the whole party assembled in order to consult which place would be the best, for us to take up our Winter Quarters at. The greater part of our Men were of opinion; that it would be best, to cross the River, . . . ” —Joseph Whitehouse, November 24, 1805

“at day light this morning we we[re] awoke by the dis-charge of the fire arms of all our party & a Selute, Shoute and a Song which the whole party joined in under our windows, after which they retired to their rooms were Chearfull all the morning.” —William Clark, December 25, 1805

“About noon Captain Clarke with 14 men came to the saltmakers camp, in their way to the place where the large fish had been driven on shore, some distance beyond this camp.” —Patrick Gass, January 7, 1806

“I . . . thank providence for directing the whale to us; and think him much more kind to us than he was to jonah, having Sent this monster to be Swallowed by us in Sted of Swallowing of us as jonah’s did. —William Clark, January 8, 1806

“the rain Seased and it became fair. about meridian at which time we loaded our canoes & at 1 P.M. left Fort Clatsop on our homeward bound journey. at this place we had wintered and remained from the 7th of Decr 1805 to this day, and have lived as well as we had any right to expect, . . .” —John Ordway, March 23, 1806

4.

5.

6.


Campsites and Selected Sites near the Mouth of theColumbia River, November 15, 1805–March 23, 1806

5

6

4

3

1

2

Fort Clatsop

StationCamp

Whale site

Saltworks

PACIFICOCEAN

Gray’sBay

Baker Bay(“Haley’s Bay”)

Young’s R.

Lewis

andC

larkR

.

Columbia River

CapeDisappointment

PointEllice

Ecola Cr.

Washington

Oregon


the men outside their cabin to mark thearrival of the New Year. A year before they hadcelebrated the New Year with their Mandanfriends. Now they were looking forward tospending the next New Year back in their own homes, where, as Lewis wrote (in his first journal entry in many months), “we hope to participate in the mirth and hilarityof the day.”

After Christmas and the New Year, therewere few diversions to break up the monot-ony. One came on January 5, when theyreceived a report from local Indians of a whalewashed up on the beach a few miles south ofthe fort (at present-day Cannon Beach, Ore-gon). Hoping to obtain something to eat otherthan elk and salmon, and eager for an outing,Clark prepared to set out to find the whale.Much to the captains’ surprise, Sacagawea virtually demanded to be included in Clark’sparty. “The Indian woman was very im-po[r]tunate to be permitted to go,” Lewiswrote in his journal, “and was thereforeindulged; she observed that she had traveled along way with us to see the great waters, andthat now that monstrous fish was also to beseen, she thought it very hard she could not bepermitted to see either (she had never yetbeen to the Ocean).”

Sacagawea got her wish and saw theocean; of the “monstrous fish,” there was notmuch left by the time they got to it on January8; Indians from the local Tillamook tribe hadgotten there first and stripped off all the meatand blubber. But the trip was not wasted;apart from the chance to get away from theconfines of the fort for a little while, they alsopurchased 300 pounds of blubber and somewhale oil from the Indians. The whale proveda welcome if exotic addition to their diet and was entirely consumed by the end of Jan-uary. We “prize it highly,” Lewis wrote and,thinking of the Old Testament story of how the

prophet Jonah was swallowed by a whale,praised God for “having sent this monster tobe swallowed by us in stead of swallowing of usas jona’s did.”

THOUGHTS OF HOMEWhenever they were in sight of the ocean, theykept an eye peeled for the sails of a merchantship. But none appeared. There would be nonews from home and no opportunity to sendcopies of their journals to Jefferson by sea.Most critically, they would be unable to re-plenish their dwindling supply of trade goods(now only about enough to fill two handker-chiefs, according to Lewis.) It was going to bea frugal trip back to St. Louis.

They made do with what they had at hand.There was game to be hunted and meat to bepreserved. They turned elk skins into clothingand moccasins to replace the worn and rot-ting garments and footwear they had worndown the Columbia. In late December someof the men set up a camp on the seacoast (inpresent-day Seaside, Oregon) to make salt.They boiled saltwater in five large kettles,scraping out the salt left when all the waterhad boiled off; over the next two months theyproduced four bushels of salt. Lewis pro-nounced the salt to be “excellent, fine, strong& white” and reported with gusto how muchmore he was enjoying his food now that itcould be seasoned.

As he had the previous winter at Fort Man-dan, Clark now devoted his time to mapmak-ing, noting in his journal on February 14: “Ihave compleated a map of the Countereythrough which we have been passing from theMississippi at the Mouth of the Missouri tothis place.” The Corps of Discovery, heclaimed optimistically, had succeeded in find-ing “the most practicable and navigable pas-sage across the Continent of North America.”

This detailed drawing of a eulachon (commonly referred to as a candlefish) wasmade by Lewis in his journal. Surrounding the illustration are Lewis’s thoroughnotes on his observations of the fish. (American Philosophical Society)


While Clark drew his maps, Lewis wrotelong, descriptive entries in his journals cata-loging the plant and animal life of the Oregoncountry, as well as recording observations ofChinookan customs, dress, and appearance.Lewis also displayed his talents as an artist;the pages of his journal from that winter arefilled with images that came to symbolize thediscoveries of the Corps of Discovery, includ-ing his drawing of a eulachon or candlefish, anoily fish related to the smelt that ran up theColumbia in large numbers in late spring andproved another welcome bit of variety atmealtime. “I find them best when cooked inthe Indian stile, which is by roasting a numberof them together on a wooden spit . . .” Lewiswrote with obvious zest. “They are so fat theyrequire no additional sauce, and I think themsuperior to any fish I ever tasted”—certainlyto “pounded salmon,” which he was consum-ing altogether too often.

The captains knew there was no point inheading east too soon. Although the Colum-bia, unlike the Missouri, never froze over, anearly spring start would only bring them to adead halt once they reached the snowboundRockies. They were not going to be able to getacross that formidable barrier any time beforeJune, at the earliest. But life at Fort Clatsop, anunending round of rain-soaked days, flea-bitten nights, and spoiled elk meat at meal-

time, proved too much to bear. They had orig-inally planned to set off eastward on theColumbia on April 1, but by early March theyhad decided to leave as soon as possible.

But there was another problem. They nolonger had enough canoes to carry all of theirparty. Only three of their dugouts remainedseaworthy. Lewis traded his uniform coat foran Indian canoe, but they could not findanother one available for a price they werewilling to pay. And so, notwithstanding theirown complaints about “thievish Indians,” theydecided to steal another canoe from the localClatsop Indians, who had been very friendlyto them throughout the winter. The theft ofthe Clatsop canoe was not the Corps of Dis-covery’s finest moment.

By mid-March, their preparations weremade except for the final packing of the ca-noes, but then, typically, the weather turnedbad. They waited impatiently through anotherfour days of steady rain. On March 22, Lewisvowed that the expedition would leave thenext day “at all events.” As it turned out, theweather finally cooperated, with the rain stop-ping about midday on March 23. Wasting notime, the men hurriedly packed their belong-ings and themselves into their three dugoutsand two Indian canoes, and at 1 P.M. they pro-ceeded on up the Columbia. The Corps of Dis-covery was going home.

10{Homeward Bound

136

Another long winter came to an endfor the Corps of Discovery. It had nowbeen more than 22 months since

they had first “proceeded on” up the Missouri.The men paddling their rough dugouts andcanoes against the current were long-haired,bearded, and probably none too clean,dressed from head to foot in elk skin. Inappearance, apart from their Harpers Ferryrifles and a few other stray bits of militarygear, little would have suggested that this wasa detachment of the U.S. Army.

Whatever they lacked in spit and polish,they made up for in energy. These men werehappy to be heading home. They paddled 16miles upriver on March 23, their first day backon the Columbia, and another 16 the nextday; a few days later they would make 20miles. That was an excellent rate of speed,considering they were now fighting the cur-rent that flowed down to the Pacific, and con-sidering that the river was swollen with thespring melt-off of mountain snows. Within a week they had arrived back at WappatoeIsland (present-day Sauvie Island). Theweather was still disagreeably cold when they woke in the mornings, but signs of

spring were all around, including the black-berries and dogwoods coming into bloomalong the river.

On the expedition’s second day on theriver, an Indian paddled out to reclaim thecanoe they had stolen a week earlier. Theypaid him off with an elk skin. That was notmuch of a trade from the Indian’s perspective.Lewis insisted in his journal that the man“consented very willingly” to the exchange,but then a lone Indian was not in a good posi-tion to haggle with 30 heavily armed men,who were not intending to return the canoe inany case.

A NEW RIVER AND A NEW MOUNTAINHeading up the river, the men could seeMount Hood and Mount St. Helens again,their slopes wearing a full mantle of wintrywhite. Lewis took a more careful and approv-ing look at the surrounding landscape than hehad managed coming downriver; he nowjudged the stretch of the Columbia west of theCascades “the only desireable situation for a

\

Homeward Bound B 137

This photograph of a canoe is a more modern version of the ones used by Lewis and Clark. In the distance isWind Mountain, which is in the Columbia River Gorge area. (Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division[LC-USZ62-47012])


settlement which I have seen on the West sideof the Rocky mountains.”

By the end of March, they were campedalong the north side of the Columbia near thesite of present-day Washougal, Washington.Their early departure from Fort Clatsop wasnow working to their disadvantage. On theirfirst week on the river they had bought driedfish from Indians they encountered en route,including sturgeon and eulachon. But thefish that those who lived along the Columbiadepended upon above all others, the salmon,had yet to make its annual appearance. With-out a supply of fresh salmon, the local Indi-ans were going to have a hard time feedingthemselves, let alone 33 strangers passingupriver.

Lewis and Clark decided they would haveto halt for a week and restock their larder withvenison and elk meat. There was another ad-vantage to stopping where they did. LocalIndians told them of a southern tributary ofthe Columbia whose mouth, hidden by Wap-patoe Island, lay a few miles to the west. Thedelay provided the opportunity for a side tripto explore this river, known to the Indians asthe Multnomah, and later to be renamed theWillamette.

On April 3 Clark led seven men back downthe Columbia to the mouth of the WillametteRiver and then a further 12 miles up theWillamette to the site of the present-day cityof Portland, Oregon. They spotted a newsnow-covered “noble mountain” to the south,another of the Cascade peaks, which theynamed Mount Jefferson. Lewis and Clarkimagined the Willamette to be a much greaterriver than it actually proved to be, thinkingwishfully that it would provide a river highwayall the way down to southern California. Infact, its headwaters were to be found a scant200 miles away in the southern CascadeMountains.

Clark and his men rejoined the main bodyof the expedition the following day, and onApril 6 the Corps of Discovery resumed theirtrip up the Columbia. Lewis noted theypassed “several beautifull cascades which fellfrom a great hight,” including one fallingnearly 300 feet (probably present-day Mult-nomah Falls). By mid-April they had reachedthe stretch of narrows, rapids, and falls east ofthe Cascades, which they surmounted byportaging their supplies on land while pullingthe empty canoes and dugouts upstream withtowropes from the shore.

BAD MOOD ON THE COLUMBIAAs on their trip down the river, they were againharassed by Indians intent on helping them-selves to expedition property. On April 11,during the portage below The Dalles, localIndians enraged Lewis when they made offwith Seaman. Lewis sent out a party of threemen to retrieve the dog, telling them to shootthe thieves if necessary (they got the dog backwithout violence). Shortly afterward anotherIndian attempted to make off with an ax,which was also recovered. Lewis posted a sen-tinel to keep all Indians out of the camp “aninformed them by signs that if they made anyfurther attempts to steal our property or in-sulted our men we should put them to instantdeath.” When an Indian stole a small piece of iron on April 21, Lewis struck the man,which, as Sergeant Gass noted, “was the firstact of the kind, that had happened during theexpedition.”

The captains were eager to stop fightingthe river currents and strike off overlandinstead. For that they would need horses, andthe local Indians were not eager to sell themany, at least not at prices they could affordfrom their meager remaining supply of trade


goods. Clark spent several days in mid-Aprilnegotiating with Indians on the north side ofthe Columbia, and he was able to purchaseonly a few broken-down mounts. “These peo-ple are very fathless [faithless] in Contracts,”Clark complained in his journal on April 19;time and again Clark thought he had sealed anagreement for the purchase of a horse, only tohave the seller come back a few hours laterand demand additional payments, or cancelthe sale entirely. Lewis and the rest of theparty crossed the Columbia several days later

to join Clark. By trading off their cooking ket-tles they acquired a few more horses—10 inall, not nearly enough. Rather than abandontheir dugout canoes to the local Indians, theychopped the vessels up for firewood.

On April 21 the expedition set off on landalong the north shore of the Columbia. A fewof the men were assigned to paddle upriver inthe two Indian canoes, which carried gear thatcould not fit on their horses. The expeditioneventually traded the remaining two canoesfor some beads to increase their trade goods,

Travelers’Rest

FortClatsop

Travelers’Rest

FortClatsop

Upon leaving Fort Clatsop, on March 23, 1806, the explorers make their way upriver, acquiring some horses along the way. In early May they reach the Nez Perce villages, but they must wait until June 24 before they can take the Lolo Trail back to Travelers’ Rest. Arriving there on June 30, they leave in two separate parties on July 3.Route

Camp

Indian village




0 50 miles

0 50 km

N

Travelers’ RestTwisted Hair’svillage

Broken Arm’svillageFort

ClatsopLost Trail

Pass

BI

TT

ER

RO

OT

MT

S.

Travelers’ RestTwisted Hair’svillage

Broken Arm’svillage

Orofino

LewistonClarkston

FortClatsop

BeaconRock

Lost TrailPass

LemhiPassMt. Hood

BI

TT

ER

RO

OT

MT

S.

WA

OR

UTCA

ID

MTCClleeaarrwwaatteerr RR..

Columbia R.

Sn

akeR.

Snake R.

Clearwater R.

North ForkClearwater R.

South ForkClearwater R.

Gra

nde

Rond

e

Columbia R.

Will

amet

teR.

PAC

IFI C

OC

EAN

CeliloFalls

The DallesGreat Chute ofthe Columbia

Salmon R .

Lemhi R.

Route of the Corps of Discovery, March 23–July 3, 1806


and they managed to pick up a few morehorses in trading with Indians they met alongthe way.

On April 27 they met up again with theWalla Walla chief Yellepit, who had been sowelcoming on their trip down the Columbiathe previous fall. Yellepit was “much gratifyed”to see them return, and they spent severaldays with him at his tribe’s encampment nearthe mouth of the Walla Walla river. The Indiansbrought them firewood and some fish (the

salmon were now running again), and theexpedition was able to add additional horsesto their herd. Lewis and Clark were relieved tobe back among friendly and cooperative Indi-ans who “behaved themselves in every risepctextreemly well,” as Lewis noted. Yellepit pre-sented Clark with a “very eligant white horse,”and Clark presented the chief with a swordand some gunpowder and musket balls.Yellepit also told them of a “good road” withplenty of game that would cut eighty miles

The Umatilla lived near the Walla Walla in present-day Oregon. Three Umatilla Indians are shown standingby their camp on the shore of the Columbia River in this photograph taken by Ralph Irving Griffin ca. 1922.Tipis were not traditionally used by this tribe; at the time of Lewis and Clark’s visit, they lived in plankhouses. (Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division [LC-USZ62-115455])


from their return journey, heading inland overterritory that was new to them until recon-necting with the Snake just south of its conflu-ence with the Clearwater. With Yellepit’s helpthey crossed the Columbia and left that riverbehind them for good.

BACK AMONG THE NEZ PERCEThey reached the Snake River on May 4.Although they were now back among the NezPerce, a tribe they had gotten along with wellthe previous year, Lewis was still finding ithard to live up to Jefferson’s instructions totreat the Indians they encountered “in themost friendly & conciliatory manner,” as heshowed at the midday meal on May 5. Lewiswrote in his journal that evening:

while at dinner an Indian fellow verryimpertinently threw a poor half starvedpuppy nearly into my plait by way of deri-sion for our eating dogs and laughed veryheartily . . . I was so provoked at his inso-lence that I caught the puppy and threw itwith great violence at him and struk him inthe breast and the face, siezed my toma-hawk and shewed him by signs if herepeated his insolence I would tommahawkhim, the fellow withdrew apparently muchmortifyed and I continued my repast on dogwithout further molestation.

A few days later they met up again withtheir old friend Chief Twisted Hair at a sitenear present-day Orofino, Idaho. The NezPerce had kept their horses for them over thewinter and returned the 21 they were able toround up to the explorers. Lewis and Clark’smen dug up the saddles and ammunitionthey had left in a cache by the ClearwaterRiver.

At a council with Nez Perce chiefs, Lewisreturned to his role as diplomat, urging thetribe to seek peace with other tribes in theregion. At the same time, and somewhatinconsistently, he described the great advan-tages that would soon come to the Nez Percethrough trade with the Americans, notablyguns to defend themselves against their ene-mies the Blackfeet. He also urged the NezPerce to send a representative east to meetThomas Jefferson—although the presidentwas not yet the Great White Father of the NezPerce, because the tribe lived in a territorywest of the Rockies. The Nez Perce were unin-terested in making such a long journey east-ward in any case, but they did agree to sendsome young men with Lewis and Clark acrossthe Bitterroot Mountains to talk peace withthe Shoshone.

Just when they would be able to make thatcrossing of the mountains was a source of con-siderable concern to the captains. The Indianstold Lewis and Clark that they could not thinkof attempting the mountains anytime soondue to the winter snows that had yet to melt; itwould be another month before the Bitterrootswere passable. “This is unwelcom inteligenceto men confined to a diet of horsebeef androots,” Lewis noted in his journal, “and whoare as anxious as we are to return to the fatplains of the Missouri and thence to our nativehomes.” On May 14 they moved their camp afew miles eastward, to a site on the north bankof the Clearwater River near present-dayKamiah, Idaho. They would remain at thisencampment from May 13 through June 9. Itwould prove the longest the Corps of Discov-ery would remain at any one place along theentire route, except for their winter encamp-ments at Fort Mandan and Fort Clatsop. Latergenerations of historians labeled this siteCamp Chopunnish. (“Chopunnish” was aname the explorers used for the Nez Perce.)


While they waited, they did what they couldto increase their provisions for crossing the Bit-terroots: “[N]ot any of us,” Lewis wrote, “haveyet forgotten our sufferings in those moun-tains . . .” The captains divided up the remain-ing stock of trade goods among the men andordered them to trade with the Nez Perce foredible roots to add to their stock of rations.Lewis and Clark even cut the brass buttonsfrom their coats to trade for more roots.

Despite their impatience to resume theirjourney eastward, the Corps of Discovery werehappy to spend more time among the NezPerce. Lewis called the tribe “the most hos-pitable, honest and sincere people that wehave met with in our voyage.” In turn, the NezPerce seemed to genuinely like the explorers,especially Clark who was much valued as ahealer. Dozens of Indians visited him at CampChopunnish to be treated for everything fromsore eyes to paralysis. Clark did what he couldfor them, with his small supply of pills andlimited medical knowledge, and seems tohave cured some of his patients and relievedothers of the worst of their symptoms. Rela-tions between the Nez Perce and the whiteswere also made stronger with dances,footraces, target shooting contests, and othergames. According to stories later told by theNez Perce, William Clark fathered a son by aNez Perce woman that spring, although thereis no clear proof of his paternity. Lewis mean-while kept up his study of western animalsand plants, describing in his journals birdsnew to science such as the western tanagerand a root crop called cous that the Nez Perceused to make bread.

BACK ACROSSTHE BITTERROOTSMay turned to June, and the Nez Perce werestill warning the captains that it was too soon

to attempt the Bitterroots. But the captainsdecided to press ahead, and the menapproved: as Lewis noted on June 9, “our partyseem much elated with the idea of moving ontowards their friends and country.” The fol-lowing day the Corps of Discovery loadedtheir horses (they now had a fine herd of 70)and set out to the east. They stopped atWeippe Prairie, where they had first met theNez Perce the previous fall, and spent severaldays there hunting and preserving meat. OnJune 15 they headed up into the mountains.

They soon realized they should have lis-tened to the Nez Perce. The horses flounderedin the deep snow and could find no grass toeat. The expedition made it as far as HungryCreek, a place of unhappy memory, but thecaptains decided on June 17 that they wouldhave to turn back. It was “the first time sincewe have been on this long tour,” Lewis noted,“that we have ever been compelled toretreat . . .” Some of the men “were a good deeldejected.”

The captains sent Drouillard and Shan-non to ride back ahead of the main party tothe Nez Perce camp, asking for guides to jointhem at Weippe Meadow for their nextattempt on the Bitterroots. On June 23 theircouriers returned with three “young men ofgood character” from the Nez Perce. Two oth-ers had already joined their party planning togo east to meet with Flathead (Salish) Indi-ans. On June 24 they set out again over theBitterroots with their Nez Perce companions,and this time successfully crossed the moun-tains. Having expert guides made a big differ-ence. Much of the snow had melted in theinterval, revealing patches of grass for thehorses. On June 30 they arrived at Traveler’sRest. It had taken them 11 days to cross themountains heading west in fall 1805; inspring 1806 they completed the return trip injust six days.


DIVIDING THEIR FORCESDuring the winter at Fort Clatsop the captainshad pored over their trail maps and made adaring decision. There were so many tantaliz-ing blank spaces to fill in on Clark’s maps thatthey would need to split up when theyreached Traveler’s Rest. It was a complicatedplan that depended a good deal on luck andtiming to pull off. Lewis would lead a detach-ment eastward across the mountain pass thattheir Shoshone guide Old Toby had told themabout the previous fall, a shortcut back to theGreat Falls of the Missouri. At the Great Falls,Lewis would divide his party again, taking half of them on an overland route back to the Marias River. Lewis planned to follow theMarias northward to see how far it traveled

towards the rich fur country of the Saska-tchewan region.

Meanwhile, Clark was to lead the other halfof the party back down the Bitterroot valley,through which they had traveled in the fall.They would not retrace their route exactly,however, but would cross the Rockies by a newmountain pass, which would bring them backto Camp Fortunate and from there to theThree Forks of the Missouri by a shorter routethan the one they had followed across LemhiPass in summer 1805. At Three Forks Clarkwould divide his own party. Half his menwould take the canoes they had cached atCamp Fortunate down the Missouri to ren-dezvous with the men who Lewis left at theGreat Falls. Clark would proceed on overlandto the Yellowstone River, and follow it back to

In this etching by Patrick Gass, Captain Lewis is shown in the only fight that took place on the entire expedition. When the Blackfeet did not respond to his threat, Lewis raised his gun and shot one of them.(Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division [LC-USZ62-19231])


its mouth on the Missouri. The men at GreatFalls would continue down the Missouri, ren-dezvousing with Lewis en route, and proceed-ing on until they, too, came to the mouth ofthe Yellowstone, where Lewis and Clark andthe entire Corps of Discovery would reunite.

Lewis and Clark said good-bye to eachother on the morning of July 3, after a few days

at Traveler’s Rest, recovering from the crossingof the Bitterroots. “I took leave of my worthyfriend and companion, Capt. Clark, and theparty that accompanyed him,” Lewis wrote inhis journal that evening. “I could not avoidfeeling much concern on this occasion al-though I hoped this seperation was onlymomentary.”

Travelers’Rest

Travelers’Rest

ReunionPoint

ReunionPoint

On July 3, 1806, from Travelers’ Rest, Meriwether Lewis takes a party due east to Great Falls and subsequently takes a smaller group northward to explore the Marias River. He rejoins Sergeants John Ordway and Patrick Gass on the Missouri on July 28. Meanwhile, William Clark and his party return to Camp Fortunate and Three Forks, from which Ordway’s group takes the canoes to join Lewis’s party. Clark and the remainder set off for the Yellowstone River. Not until August 12 does the entire corps reunite at Reunion Point near present-day New Town, North Dakota.

Clark’s route

Lewis’s route

Ordway’s route

Camp




0 100 miles

0 100 km

N

Route of Lewis’s Party and Route of Clark’s Party, July 3–August 12, 1806

Bozeman

GibbonsPass

Lewis andClark Pass

RO

CK

Y

UN

Travelers’ Rest

Bozeman

New Town

Billings

Lower Portage CampUpper Portage Camp

CampFortunate

Camp Disappointment

GibbonsPass

BozemanPass

Lewis andClark Pass

Lemhi Pass

GR

EA

T

PL

AI

NS

RO

CK

YM

OU

NT

AI

NS

Continental Divide

ID

ID

MT

ND

SD

WY

Missouri R.

Missouri R.

Gal

latin

R.

Mad

ison

R.

Cannonball R.

Yellowstone R.

Yellowsto

neR.

Clark Fork R.

Blackfoot R.

Su n R.

Big

horn

R.

Tong

ueR

.

Pow

der

R.

Heart R.

Knife R.

Litt

leM

isso

uriR

.

Jeffer

sonR.

Milk R.

Big Muddy

Cr.

Teton R.

Marias R.

Salm

onR

. Lemhi R.

Bitt

erro

otR

.

Musselshell R.

FrenchmanCr.

Three Forksof the Missouri Pompy’s

Tower

Site of canoemanufacture

ReunionPoint

Great FallsPortage


Lewis and nine of them men rode northalong the Bitterroot River, accompanied bythe five Nez Perce, and then turned east alongClark’s Fork river. The Nez Perce left them onJuly 4, but said they could not miss the trailthrough the mountains, and as proved usualwhen the Nez Perce gave directions, theyknew what they were talking about. The passover which Lewis and his men crossed theContinental Divide is now known as Lewisand Clark Pass. On July 11 they reached thesite of their former camp at White Bears Islandon the Missouri. The trip overland from Trav-eler’s Rest had taken them just eight days.They also killed a buffalo on July 11, their firsttaste of their favorite meat since the previoussummer. Less happily, unseen Indian thievesmade off with 10 of their 17 horses that night.

Meanwhile, Clark’s party followed a sepa-rate route back to the Missouri. They, too,made rapid progress, traveling south onhorseback down the Bitterroot valley. On July4, 1806, they celebrated their third Indepen-dence Day on the trail. This time there was nowhiskey to salute the occasion, but they didstop early in the day for a “Sumptious Dinner”of venison. On July 6 they crossed the Conti-nental Divide by way of a mountain pass nowknown as Gibbons Pass. On July 8 theyreached the site of Camp Fortunate on theBeaverhead River, the place where Sacagaweahad enjoyed her reunion with her brotherCameahwait the previous year. Clark and hismen recovered the canoes and headed downdown the Beaverhead, some in the canoes andsome on horseback. They reached the ThreeForks of the Missouri on July 13.

EXPLORING THE YELLOWSTONE RIVERThere Clark’s party split. Sergeant Ordway andnine men in canoes headed back down the

Missouri to the Great Falls to join up with theLewis-led party. Clark and 12 others, includingCharbonneau, Sacagawea, and little Pomp, setout on horseback to the Yellowstone. “TheIndian woman . . . has been of great service tome as a pilot through this Country,” Clarknoted in his journal July 13, after Sacagaweahelped guide Clark’s group through a moun-tain pass (present-day Bozeman Pass) that sherecommended to them as the best route to theYellowstone valley. On July 19 they made campalong the Yellowstone at a site on the northernbank, south of present-day Park City, Mon-tana. Clark would call this “Canoe Camp,”because he set the men to work over the nextfew days fashioning two new dugout canoes.

Before the end of the trip, every member of theexpedition had a landmark named after him or her.Perhaps the most widely familiar namesake is thatof Pomp, Sacagawea’s son. Clark named the 200-foot sandstone “tower” after the expedition’s small-est member. (Bureau of Land Management)


Although Clark and his men saw no one enroute to the Yellowstone River, Indians evi-dently saw them and their herd of horses. Halfthe horses disappeared one night, likely hav-ing become the property of the Crow Indians,who were renowned as some of the most skill-ful horse thieves among the western tribes.Clark decided to send Sergeant Pryor andthree men on an overland journey with theremainder of their horses to the Mandan vil-lage, but on the second night, all their horseswere stolen, and they had to hike back to theriver. On July 24 Clark and the remainder ofthe party sailed down the Yellowstone in the

newly constructed dugout canoes, the twolashed together so that they were less likely tooverturn in the fast-running water.

On the following day, July 25, Clark’s partycame to a “remarkable rock” located on thenorth side of the Yellowstone. It was a 200-foot-high sandstone formation, which Clarknamed “Pompy’s Tower” after Sacagawea’s in-fant son. (“Pompy’s Tower,” located east ofpresent-day Billings, Montana, has over theyears become known as “Pompey’s Pillar.”)Before they left, Clark carved the words “Wm.Clark July 25, 1806” on the side of the rock—the most striking physical evidence that

This photograph shows a carving made by William Clark of his signature on July 25, 1806, in the side ofPompey’s Pillar (Pompy’s Tower), named after Sacagawea’s son. (Bureau of Land Management)


remains today of the passage of the Corps ofDiscovery.

Clark’s party reached the junction of theYellowstone and Missouri on August 3. Theywere supposed to wait there to meet up withLewis’s party coming down the Missouri. Bythe next day, however, the presence of “exces-sively troublesom” mosquitoes, combinedwith the absence of buffalo, convinced Clarkhe should move his camp farther east alongthe Missouri. He left a note for Lewis attachedto a discarded elk antler. On August 8 SergeantPryor and the three men under his commandreached the Yellowstone’s mouth. After theirhorses had been stolen, they returned to theriver and constructed boats of buffalo skinsstretched over a wooden frame, known as bullboats, and set off to catch up with the rest ofthe expedition. They saw Clark’s note and con-tinued on down the Missouri until theyrejoined his party.

LEWIS’S ENCOUNTER WITH THE BLACKFEETBack at Great Falls, Lewis divided his party. Heleft Sergeant Gass and five men there to waitfor Sergeant Ordway and his detachment ofnine men, who were coming downriver fromThree Forks. The men at Great Falls wouldportage the expedition’s supplies (includingthe precious journals) around the falls to thelower portage camp, where they wouldrecover and put in order the white pirogue forthe return trip to St. Louis.

On July 16, Lewis, George Drouillard, andJoseph and Reubin Field headed off on horse-back along the northern edge of the Missouri,to intersect the Marias and then follow itscourse northward. Lewis knew this was a riskyventure. They had already lost most of theirhorses to unknown Indians. The regionaround the Marias River, Lewis knew, was

home to the Blackfeet, the Indians who regu-larly raided and bullied the Shoshone and NezPerce tribes. Thanks to their lucrative fur tradewith the British in Canada, the Blackfeet werewell armed by Prairie Indian standards. TheBlackfeet were unlikely to look kindly on thecoming of traders from the United States whomight supply their enemies with a similararsenal.

Keeping a sharp lookout for the Blackfeet,Lewis and his party arrived at the Marias onthe evening of July 18. They headed upriver,and on July 21 came to a fork in the river. Theychose to follow the more northerly fork, CutBank Creek. But it was not northerly enough:The river was bending westward. Arriving at “a clump of large cottonwood trees” on July22, Lewis halted his party; from there, at a distance of about 10 miles, they could see thatthe river rose into the mountains, northeast of present-day Browning, Montana. Theycamped there that night at what Lewis namedCamp Disappointment; he now had to admitto himself that the headwaters of the Marias“will not be as far north as I wished andexpected.”

Lewis and his men would have done wellto head back to the Missouri as soon as theyhad seen that the Marias River was not thehoped-for highway to the Saskatchewanregion. But Lewis had his men wait at CampDisappointment for several days, hoping forthe break in cloud cover that would allow himto take the accurate reading of the sky thatwould allow him to fix the location’s longitudeand latitude. On July 25, having come acrosssigns of a recently abandoned Indian en-campment, Lewis wrote in his journal “[W]econsider ourselves extreemly fortunate in nothaving met with these people.” But their luckwas about to take a turn for the worse.

The following day, July 26, Lewis and hismen were finally heading back to the Missouri

when they encountered “a very unpleasantsight”: eight Blackfeet caring for a herd ofabout 30 horses. Lewis “resolved to make thebest of our situation and to approach them ina friendly manner.” He had his men approachthe Indians on horseback, flying the Americanflag. The Indians were young men, some ofthem just teenagers, and they seemed asuncertain about the encounter as Lewis andhis men were feeling. Reverting to the role ofdiplomat, Lewis handed out a handkerchief, aflag, and a medal to three of the young men hedecided were “chiefs.” Though outnumberedeight to four, Lewis decided his party “couldmannage that number should they attemptany hostile measures.” Using sign language tocommunicate, Lewis invited the Blackfeet tocamp with them by the side of the nearby TwoMedicine River, the southern fork of theMarias.

Once settled in camp, Lewis explained howhe had traveled all the way “to the great waterswhere the sun sets.” Along the way, he “hadseen a great many nations, all of whom I hadinvited to come and trade with me on therivers on this side of the mountain . . .” Thiswas probably the worst thing Lewis couldhave chosen to say, since it let the Blackfeetknow that their days of lording it over poorlyarmed enemies were about to come to an end,if these white strangers had their way. But forthe moment all was peaceful. They smoked apipe together, and Lewis invited them toaccompany him down to the Missouri for acouncil. He stayed awake until all the Indiansappeared to be asleep, and then he instructedReubin Field to act as sentry and awaken himimmediately if there were any sign of treach-ery or trouble from the Blackfeet.

Trouble came at first light the next day.Joseph Field had replaced his brother as sen-try. Probably feeling drowsy, he got carelessand laid his rifle down on the ground. One of

the Indians, waiting for that kind of opportu-nity, jumped up and seized both Joseph andReubin Field’s rifles and ran off. Joseph wokeup his brother and the two set out after him inhot pursuit. Reubin, who had picked up hisknife, stabbed the thief to death.

Meanwhile, Lewis and Drouillard woke upin the commotion and found their own riflesbeing stolen by other Blackfeet. Drouillardwrestled his gun back from the Indian whohad taken it. Lewis drew his pistol on the manwho had his rifle, who threw it on the groundwhen Lewis shouted to him to drop it. Lewistold his men not to harm the Indian; onedeath was enough. But then other Blackfeettried to drive off the whites’ horses. Lewis andhis men took off after them. Lewis pursuedtwo of the Blackfeet until one of them stoppedand hid behind some rocks. The other turned,musket in his hand, and apparently ready toshoot. Lewis got off the first shot, inflicting amortal wound on the Indian who fell to theground. But before he died, he propped him-self up on one elbow and got off a return shotfrom his weapon at Lewis, who “felt the windof his bullet very distinctly.” The other Indian,armed with a bow and arrow, was still hiddenin the rocks. Unable to reload his weaponbecause he had left powder and shot behind,Lewis made a quick return to camp.

Two of the Indians were now dead ordying, but the other six were still capable offighting—or, worse, finding other Blackfeet tojoin them to seek revenge, not only on Lewisand his small band, but also the larger groupthat was heading down the Missouri. Lewis,Drouillard, and the Field brothers hurriedlygathered up what could be useful, includingthe flag Lewis had earlier given the Black-feet. They burned the Indians’ shields andweapons. Lewis left the peace medal he hadearlier given the Blackfeet hung around theneck of one of the dead men, “that they might



be informed who we were,” not quite the usefor which the medals had been intended.

They mounted their horses and gallopedoff across the plains, covering nearly 100 milesbefore stopping at 2:00 A.M. on July 28 for ashort rest. Lewis had not entirely forgotten the larger purpose of the expedition, evenduring these desperate hours. Pausing for amoment in midflight, Lewis had dismountedand picked a sample of the white-marginedspurge, Euphorbia marginata—a species pre-

viously unknown to science. At first lightLewis and his men were back in the saddle,reaching the Missouri at midafternoon, wherethey had the “unspeakable satisfaction” ofseeing 14 well-armed men of the Corps of Dis-covery heading down the river in the whitepirogue and five canoes, with two others fol-lowing on horseback. They abandoned theirhorses and continued on down the rivertogether. They came first to the mouth of theMarias, where they dug up the cache of sup-

Alert and on horseback with rifle in hand, the Blackfoot in this painting by Karl Bodmer (A Blackfoot onHorseback, with Rifle, 1833) shows that they would be a formidable adversary in battle. (National Archives[NWDNS-111-SC-92842])


plies they had left there. They had hoped torefloat the red pirogue, which they had leftthere the previous summer, but it turned outto be too badly rotted to be of any use. Thewhite pirogue was now the last remnant of thefleet that began the Corps of Discovery’s jour-ney up the Missouri.

BACK ON THE MISSOURIOn August 7 Lewis and his men arrived at theconfluence of the Missouri and the Yellow-stone, but to their disappointment discov-

ered that Clark was not there to meet them as planned. They found Clark’s note, or atleast part of it, still attached to the elk antler.They kept going, eager to reunite the expedi-tion. But before they could do so, Lewis hadanother brush with death. On August 11Lewis and Cruzatte were off hunting whenLewis’s one-eyed companion mistook himfor an elk and shot him in the buttocks. Thewound was painful but not fatal. Lewis wouldtravel most of the rest of the way down theMissouri lying on his stomach while his but-tocks healed.

Mountain Men and the Fur Trade =

Manuel Lisa was one of the St. Louis merchants who did business with Meri-wether Lewis in the winter of 1803–04, and when the Corps of Discoveryreturned with stories of the wonders they had seen along the upper Missouriand the Yellowstone, he acted quickly. In 1807 he assembled an army of trap-pers, including several recruits from the Lewis and Clark expedition, and ledthem to the mouth of the Bighorn River in Montana. There they built a fortifiedfur trading establishment called Fort Raymond and started harvesting beaverfurs. William Clark and the Chouteau brothers were investors in Lisa’s profitableMissouri Fur Company.

Meanwhile New York merchant John Jacob Astor sponsored an expeditionacross the continent to the Columbia River in 1811, establishing Fort Astorianear its mouth on the Pacific. He organized a succession of profitable fur com-panies over the next decade and a half, building a trading empire that stretchedfrom the Plains to the Rockies to China, where American furs found eager buy-ers. Astor became the nation’s wealthiest businessman, thanks to the westernbeaver.

By the 1820s the western fur trappers were becoming popular heroes knownas mountain men. Many of them, like John Colter, Jedediah Smith, and JamesBridger passed into legend. While pursuing new trapping grounds, they cameupon the geysers and hot springs of the Yellowstone region and the Great SaltLake, and they developed the overland routes that tens of thousands of Ameri-can setttlers would eventually follow to Oregon and California.

The triumph of the mountain men and the merchants who employed themcame at a price. By the mid-1840s the western beaver population had been dev-astated by overharvesting, and the fur trade went into rapid decline.

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Pittsburgh to Camp Dubois (1803)

Camp Dubois to Pacific and return (1804–1806)

Lewis and Clark

Lewis

Clark

Return Route Variations (1806)

Camp Fort Indian village

N

Note: Contemporary boundaries areprovided for reference.

0 300 miles

0 300 km

N

Pittsburgh

CincinnatiCincinnati

LimestoneLimestone

Ft. MassacFt. Massac

CampCampFortunateFortunate

GreatSaltLake

Mandan andHidatsa villages

NezPerce

Arikara

YanktonNakota

Blackfoot

Shoshone

Route of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, August 1803–September 1806

Lolo Trail

Lewis andClark Pass

LemhiPass

Gulf of Mexico

GreatSaltLake

Lake Superior

LakeErie

Lake

Mic

higa

n

Missouri R.

Mis

siss

ippi

R.

RioGrande

Colorado R.

LakeHuron

Ohio R.

Colu

mbia R.

Yellowstone R.

Milk R.

Falls ofthe Ohio

GreatFalls

Marietta

Pittsburgh

LouisvilleSt. Louis

CahokiaFt. Kaskaskia

Cincinnati

Wheeling

Limestone

St. Charles

Ft. Massac

Mandan andHidatsa villages

Ft. Mandan

CampFortunate

CanoeCamp

Ft. Clatsop

CampDubois

Camp Disappointment

Travelers’Rest

Clatsop

Chinook

NezPerce

Teton Lakota

Arikara

HidatsaMandan

YanktonNakota

Osage

Otoe

Missouri

Blackfoot

Shoshone

The next day they met up with two whitemen, the first whites not in their party thatthey had seen since departing the Mandan vil-lage in April 1805. Joseph Dickson and ForestHancock from Illinois had headed up the Mis-souri in August 1804 and spent two yearshunting, trapping, and trading with the Indi-ans. Dickson and Hancock told Lewis thatthey had met Clark the previous day, who wascamped just a little farther downriver. Laterthat day, August 12, Lewis and his partycaught up with Clark’s group on the Missouriat a spot known as “Reunion Point,” six miles

south of present-day Sanish, North Dakota.The Corps of Discovery, after many misadven-tures, was united and on its way home.

On August 14 they reached the Mandanvillages. There they said good-bye, not just tothe Mandan, but to Charbonneau, Sacagawea,and Pomp as well. Clark paid Charbonneausome $500 for his services. In his own mind,Clark may have thought the money shouldhave gone to someone else in Charbonneau’sfamily. A few days later he wrote a letter toCharbonneau, declaring, “Your woman whoaccompanied you that long dangerous and


fatigueing rout to the Pacific Ocian and backdiserved a greater reward for her attentionand services on that rout than we had in ourpower to give her.”

Dickson and Hancock, the two Americansthat Lewis and Clark had encountered a weekearlier on the Missouri, joined them at theMandan villages. They asked John Colter tocome with them on a fur trapping trip up theYellowstone River, and the captains gave theirpermission for Colter to depart. Though it leftfour of its members behind on August 17when it proceeded on down the Missouri, theCorps of Discovery had some additional com-panions for the rest of the trip. The Mandan

chief Sheheke and his family came with themto travel to Washington to meet the new GreatWhite Father, accompanied by René Jessaumeand his family.

As they continued down the river, they sawmore familiar faces, welcoming the chance torenew their acquaintance with the Arikaraand the Yankton Nakota, but angrily shoutingat Black Buffalo and some of his Teton Lakotawarriors when they saw them on the river-bank at the end of August. On September 4they interrupted their trip to pay theirrespects to Sergeant Floyd where they had lefthim buried on a hillside overlooking the Mis-souri. The familiar sights of the lower Missouri

Given Up for Lost? =

The last time anyone in the United States had heard from the Corps of Discov-ery was when they sent the keelboat down the Missouri from Fort Mandan inApril 1805. Lewis had planned to send some of his men back later in 1805 witha further report on their progress along the upper Missouri but changed hismind. As months passed in summer and fall 1805 with no word from Lewis andClark, rumors spread in the United States that the Corps of Discovery had allbeen killed or captured by hostile Indians or by Spanish authorities. In Decem-ber 1805 Jefferson’s friend Dr. Benjamin Smith Barton wrote to express his con-cern: “We are made uneasy here by a report, that Capt. Lewis and his party havebeen cut off. I hope this is not true.”

So when the Corps of Discovery began to encounter other whites along theMissouri in September 12, they found themselves greeted as if they hadreturned from the dead. That day they met Robert McClellan, a former armyscout who was now trading furs on the Missouri. McClellan was coming upriverin a keelboat with Pierre Dorion and Joseph Gravelines, both of whom Lewis andClark had met on the river in 1804 and employed as interpreters. Clark noted inhis journal that McClellan had been asked by American officials to “make everyenquirey [inquiry] after Capt. Lewis my self and the party . . .” Sergeant Ordwayreported in his journal that McClellan told them “that the people in general inthe united States were concerned about us, as they had heard that we were allkilled. Then again, they heard that the Spanyards had us in the mines . . .”Despite these fears, President Jefferson never gave up hope of Lewis and Clark’seventual return.

\


passed by rapidly, as they made progress up to50 miles a day, better than three times theiraverage mileage heading up the river in 1804.And, unlike their earlier trip, they now foundthe Missouri crowded with other travelers;before they reached the river’s mouth theywould encounter nearly 150 traders and trap-pers heading up the river. The Missouri wasbecoming a great highway into the LouisianaTerritory, just as Jefferson had foreseen. They

picked up news from the travelers, and theyalso happily replenished their stock of flour,sugar, whiskey, and tobacco. And Lewis’swound was healing well; by September 9 Clarkreported him all but fully recovered.

On September 20 they saw some cows onthe shoreline, “a joyfull Sight to the party . . .”Clark noted, since it meant they had reachedthe edge of white settlement. In the late after-noon on September 21, they arrived in St.

After reuniting on the Missouri, the corps reaches the Mandan villages two days later, on August 14, 1806. Sacagawea and Toussaint Charbonneau leave the party here. Thereafter the group makes good time downstream, arriving in triumph at St. Louis on September 23.

St. Louis

ReunionPoint

ReunionPoint

St. Louis

N

Route

Camp

Fort

Indian village


White settlement



0 200 miles

0 200 km

Route of the Corps of Discovery, August 12–September 23, 1806

GR

EA

T

PL

AI

NS

Reunion PointLi

ttle

Mis

sour

iR

.

Mandanvillages

Reunion Point

Fort Mandan

New Town

Arikara villages

St. Charles

St. Louis

FortBellefontaine

La Charette

Sergeant Floyd’s gravesite

Floy

dR.

M

issouri R.

Mis

siss

ippi

R.Ill

inoi

s R.

Kansas R.

Platte R.

Osag e R.

James R.

Cheye

nne R

.

Litt

leM

isso

uriR

.

Missouri R.

Yellowsto

neR

Bighor

nR

.

Des Moines R.

ND

MN

MT

WY

NE

KS

WI

IA

MO

IL

SD

GR

EA

T

PL

AI

NS


Charles, where they were cheered, fed, andsheltered by the inhabitants who had seenthem off in May 1804. On September 22 theytraveled on to the newly established FortBellefontaine, the first U.S. Army post (apartfrom their own temporary forts) located westof the Mississippi. Their brother officersreceived them with full military honors,including a salute fired from the fort’s guns.

The great moment of triumph came thenext day, September 23: They proceeded ondown the Missouri to its very end, made aquick visit to their old camp across the Missis-sippi, and then sailed back across the river toSt. Louis. The city’s inhabitants turned out onthe shore and gave the Corps of Discoverythree cheers as they came into view. The menclambered out of the white pirogue and the

canoes and carried their supplies to a store-house. According to Sergeant Ordway, writinghis last journal entry that day, the men“rejoiced” to find themselves safe and well atthe end of the expedition, and with one com-mon thought in mind: “[W]e entend to returnto our native homes to See our parents oncemore as we have been So long from them.”

It had been two years, four months, and 10days since the Corps of Discovery set off insearch of the Northwest Passage, a round-tripjourney of roughly 8,000 miles. Lewis wrote toPresident Jefferson on September 23: “It iswith pleasure that I anounce to you the safearrival of myself and party at 12 Oclk.today. . . .In obedience to your orders we have peni-trated the Continent of North America to thePacific Ocean. . . .”

Epilogue

Putting Their Names on the Map

155

Lewis and Clark and the men of theCorps of Discovery returned in tri-umph from their trip across North

America, but it cannot be said that they alllived happily ever after—certainly not Lewis.At first, both captains enjoyed their new-found celebrity and its rewards. There werepublic celebrations, balls, and tributes intheir honor, praise for them in the newspa-pers, important men who wanted to shaketheir hands, and significant financial re-wards. By special appropriation, Congressvoted to offer Lewis $3,600 in back pay, whichwas a sizable sum of money in those days,plus 1,600 acres of western land, which couldbe redeemed for an additional $3,200. Jeffer-son appointed Lewis governor of the UpperLouisiana Territory, which brought not only asteady salary but the opportunity to get in on the ground floor as an investor in thelucrative fur-trading enterprises that wouldsoon exploit his discoveries in the Far West.Lewis also expected to profit from the sales ofhis account of the expedition, as soon as he

got around to rewriting the journals into abook. Clark reaped similar financial rewards,as well as an appointment as superintendentfor Indian affairs for the Louisiana Territory,and as brigadier general of militia for the ter-ritory. In spring 1807, it seemed that bothmen, still in their 30s and in excellent health,enjoyed the prospect of long, honorable, andprosperous lives and careers stretchingbefore them.

A LONG ANDHONORABLE CAREERFor William Clark, that is the pretty much theway things turned out. His life remainedclosely bound to the territory he hadexplored. In 1813 he became the first gover-nor of the Missouri Territory. He remained anhonored figure both in Missouri and through-out the United States, and he even enjoyedinternational celebrity. Foreign dignitariessuch as the Marquis de Lafayette came to visithim in St. Louis. Clark’s private life proved as

\


much a success as his public career. In 1808 he married Julia Hancock, the youngwoman also known as Judith for whom henamed Judith’s River in Montana. It was ahappy marriage, and they had five children.In addition, Clark and his wife adopted Saca-gawea’s son Jean Baptiste—“Pomp”—andraised him as their own. They later assumedguardianship of another child born to Saca-gawea and Charbonneau, daughter Lizette, as well as a boy, Toussaint, born to Charbon-neau and his other Shoshone wife. Clark lived in St. Louis to the end of his days in1838. He died in the home of his eldest son, Meriwether Lewis Clark, and was buriedin St. Louis’s Bellefontaine Cemetery. Themonument above his grave bears the inscrip-tion “His life is written in the History of His Country.”

A LIFE CUT SHORTFor Meriwether Lewis, things did not workout as happily. He proved an inept andunpopular governor of the Upper LouisianaTerritory. He was unlucky in both love andbusiness, beset by debt, and proved inca-pable of writing the account of the Corps ofDiscovery’s expedition that he hoped wouldsecure his fame and fortune. Out of despair,he started drinking heavily again. En route toWashington in fall 1811, he was overcome bydepression. On the night of October 11, 1809,Lewis took his own life while staying at an innin the little community of Grinder’s Stand,Tennessee (southwest of Nashville). WilliamClark and Thomas Jefferson were grief-stricken to learn of Lewis’s fate, but neitherwere surprised. “I fear O! I fear the weight ofhis mind has overcome him,” Clark wrote onhearing the sad news. Lewis was buried nearthe inn where he had taken his life. Thepapers he carried with him en route to Wash-

This monument marks the grave of William Clark inSt. Louis’s Bellefontaine Cemetery, where he wasburied after his long and successful post-expeditioncareer. (Library of Congress, Prints and PhotographsDivision [HABS, MO,96-SALU,84B-3])

Putting Their Names on the Map B 157

ington, including the original field journalsand maps of the Lewis and Clark expedition,were returned intact to Clark.

THE MANY PATHS OF THE CORPS OF DISCOVERYThe lives of other members of the Corps ofDiscovery were equally varied in their out-comes. Sergeant Patrick Gass would outliveLewis, Clark, and everyone else on the expedi-tion. A soldier in the War of 1812, he marriedat age 60, fathered six children, and lived on to1870, when he died near to his 99th year. Sev-eral expedition members came to violentends. George Drouillard and John Potts wereboth killed by Lewis’s old foes, the Blackfeet,when they ventured back to Montana on fur-trapping expeditions, employed by ManuelLisa’s Missouri Fur Company. John Colteralmost shared their fate. He was captured bythe Blackfeet in the same incident in whichPotts was killed, but the Indians decided togive him a sporting chance before killing him.They took all his clothes and let him run forhis life. Incredibly, his feet torn and bloody, hemanaged to outrun his pursuers. It took himseven days of running to reach the safety ofManuel Lisa’s fort on the Bighorn River, about200 miles from his starting point. He died apeaceful death in Missouri in 1813. GeorgeShannon was another expedition memberwho had a close encounter with death, shot inthe leg in a hostile encounter with the ArikaraIndians in 1807 while on a military mission upthe Missouri. Though he lost the leg to ampu-tation, he survived to become a lawyer andlived on to 1836.

The fate of other members of the expedi-tion remains less certain. Some historicalaccounts report that York was given his free-dom by a grateful William Clark for serving inthe Corps of Discovery. But other accounts,and Clark’s own letters, cast doubt on thatparticular happy ending. In one letter thatClark wrote to a brother in 1809, he com-plained about York’s insolence and men-

Painted shortly after the Corps of Discovery’sreturn, this portrait of Lewis in an ermine coat andholding a gun depicts a self-confident, triumphantexplorer, giving no hint of the desperation thatwould soon lead him to take his own life.(Collection of The New-York Historical Society)


Found in a Montana county named after Lewis and Clark, Helena National Forest (shown here) is a placewhere visitors can fish in the Blackfoot and Missouri Rivers and hike along the Continental Divide NationalScenic Trail like Lewis and Clark did over a century ago. (Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division [LC-USF34-065037-D])


tioned casually that Clark “gave him a Severetrouncing the other Day and he has muchmended.”

As for Sacagawea, undoubtedly the mostfamous member of the Lewis and Clark ex-pedition after the captains themselves, there are widely varying accounts of her later life. Some believe that she moved backto the Rockies and lived to old age, dying in1884. The more likely account suggests thatshe died in December 1812 at Fort Manuel, afur-trading post on the upper Missouri,shortly after bearing her second child. Herdeath was reported to Clark by an Americanfur trader, who called her “the best woman inthe Fort.”

The members of the Corps of Discoverydied one by one, but their names lived on.Every single member of the expedition whotraveled from Fort Mandan to the Pacific andback—including York (“York’s Dry Fork”),Sacagawea (“Bird Woman’s River”), and herinfant son (“Pompy’s Tower”) had his or hername given to a river, an island, a bluff, orsome other geographical feature the explor-ers encountered along the way. And in thetwo centuries that followed, people keptnaming things after the explorers, as sug-gested by the names of the twin cities that lienear the confluence of the Clearwater andSnake Rivers, Lewiston, Idaho, and Clark-ston, Washington. Sacagawea may have moreplaces named for her than either captain,though with many variations in spelling:There is a Sacajawea State Park in Washing-ton, a Lake Sakakawea in North Dakota, anda Sacagawea Spring in Montana. LarryMcMurtry commented in a collection ofessays on western history published in 2001and entitled Sacagawea’s Nickname, “[T]hereare probably at least one hundred motels upand down the Missouri River named forSacagawea . . .”

THE WEST SINCE LEWISAND CLARK’S DAYMuch has changed in the landscape sinceLewis and Clark’s day, as those Sacagaweamotels would suggest. There are interstatehighways where once there were only dustyor muddy tracks on the land. The rivers havechanged too. As Lewis’s biographer StephenAmbrose has written, “Today, Lewis andClark would hardly recognize much of theMissouri River. The river is 127 miles shorter,one-third as wide, and far deeper and faster.”The Missouri has been transformed for much of its length by dams, levees, and reser-voirs. The Great Falls of the Missouri is nolonger very great, as it is mostly covered bywaters backed up from the Ryan dam. Manyof Lewis and Clark’s campsites in easternMontana now lie beneath the waters of theFort Peck Reservoir; the site of Camp Fortu-nate now lies under the waters of the ClarkCanyon Reservoir. There are also four damsalong the stretch of the Columbia Riverexplored by Lewis and Clark (and even morefarther upstream), and they have tamed anddrowned Celilo Falls, and the Short and LongNarrows, as well as severely curtailing thesalmon run on the river.

And yet there still are many places wherevisitors can see much the same view today as the one that greeted Lewis and Clark andthe Corps of Discovery between 1804 and1806, including the view westward fromLemhi Pass, or southward from Ecola StatePark on Tillamook Head on the Oregon coast,or pretty much anywhere along the UpperMissouri, stretching 149 miles eastward fromFort Benton and designated as a NationalWild and Scenic River.

The names of the Lewis and Clark expedi-tion live on, as do at least some of the scenesof visionary enchantment they were privi-

leged to see. And so do their words. Lewisnever produced his promised account of theexpedition, and his failure to do so is a literarytragedy, because he proved himself in thejournals a masterly writer. Clark found an-other writer to take on the task after Lewis’sdeath, Nicholas Biddle of Philadelphia, wholater went on to a distinguished career as abanker. Biddle’s account, based on the jour-nals, came out in 1814 as The History of theExpedition under the Commands of CaptainsLewis and Clark. The journals themselves,



contained in 18 red leatherbound notebooks,were deposited in the archives of the Ameri-can Philosophical Society in Philadelphia,where their existence was largely forgotten.Fortunately they survived nearly a century ofneglect, and in 1904, on the expedition’s cen-tennial, a complete edition of the originaljournals was published, edited by ReubenGold Thwaites of the Wisconsin State Histori-cal Society. In the years that followed, otherdocuments from the expedition turned up atirregular intervals. Sergeant Ordway’s journal

was not found until 1916; some of Clark’s fieldnotes turned up only in 1953. The latest edi-tion of the expedition journals, including thewritings of the enlisted men as well as the cap-tains, was edited by Gary Moulton in a 13-vol-ume edition that concluded publication in1999.

THE PATH TO THE SEATheir names survive, their words survive, andso do their contributions in exploration and

This photograph is a view of Tillamook Head as seen from Seaside, Oregon—the town that marks the end ofthe trail for the Corps of Discovery. (National Archives [NWDNS-79-OC-2])


discovery. Lewis and Clark did not find theNorthwest Passage. They accomplishedsomething greater. At a dinner in Lewis’shonor held in Washington, D.C., in January1807, the poet Joel Barlow read a poem hehad written for the occasion. Barlow hailed

the guest of honor as a “young hero” whotaught the nation “his path to the sea.” Amer-icans would have found that “path to the sea”in time, even without a Lewis and Clark expe-dition. In fact, they would soon find shorterand better routes to the Pacific than the tor-

This sign, one of many along the route, marks the area where the expedition reached the end of its westwardtrail, in Seaside, Oregon. (Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division [LC-USF34-070422-D])


tuous path that Lewis and Clark wound upfollowing. What made Lewis and Clark truepathfinders was the impact they had on theAmerican imagination. The journey of theCorps of Discovery established the destiny ofthe United States as a continental power,

stretching from sea to sea. The West, thatplace existing largely as a blank spot on themap prior to 1804, became in the nation’simagination the American West after 1806.People could go there and come back. It hadbeen done. It could be done again.

arid Dry, with little moisture.Bilious A medical condition thought to do

with a malfunction of the liver, or the production of excess bile; a term also asso-ciated in the early 19th century withmalaria.

botany The branch of biology that dealswith plant life.

cache A hiding place in the ground for pro-visions.

cartography The design and production ofmaps.

chronometer An especially accurate time-keeper used to determine longitude.

climate Weather conditions of a region.colic A pain in the stomach or bowels.commerce Trade, business, the interchange

of goods.confluence A flowing together of two or

more streams or rivers.continental divide High ground dividing

river systems that flow into differentoceans.

corps An organized military body.council A group of people assembled for

consultation or deliberation.court-martial A court that determines the

fate of members of the military accused ofviolations of military law.

dialect A branch of a common language.

diplomacy The conduct of negotiations andother relations between separate states ornations.

dram A small drink of liquor.dysentery An infectious stomach illness.empire A collection of nations or peoples

ruled by a single powerful central govern-ment.

epidemic A condition in which a single dis-ease spreads rapidly among a large numberof people.

espontoon (spontoon) An 18th-century in-fantry officer’s weapon; a spear-headedbrace that could be used to steady a rifle formore accurate firing. Lewis and Clark usedtheirs as a walking stick, rifle rest, andweapon.

estuary The part of the mouth of a riveremptying into the ocean in which theriver’s flow is affected by the ocean’s tides.

ethnography The scientific description andstudy of various human cultures and races.

headwaters The origin of a stream or river.interpreter Someone appointed to translate

what is said from one language into another.keelboat A shallow freight boat used for

river travel.latitude The angular distance north or

south from the equator of a point on theEarth’s surface, measured on the meridianof the point.

165

Glossary{

longitude The angular distance east or weston the Earth’s surface, determined by theangle contained between the meridian of aparticular place and the prime meridian inGreenwich, England.

meridian A great circle of the Earth passingthrough the poles and any given point onthe Earth’s surface.

missionary A person sent to spread his orher religious faith to nonbelievers, often inanother country.

musket A smooth-bored, muzzle-loadedfirearm; the standard infantry weapon ofthe 18th and early 19th century.

naturalist Someone engaged in the study ofnatural history, such as zoology and botany.

navigation The art or science of directingthe course of a ship.

paleontology The study of forms of lifeexisting in former geological periods, asrepresented by fossil remains.

pirogue A small wooden watercraft. Pirogueis a French word that in the Canadian fur

trade was used to describe a large dugoutcanoe. Lewis and Clark’s “pirogues,” how-ever, seem to have been more on the orderof a large, open lifeboat, flat-bottomed,with plank sides, and carrying a mast.

plantation A farm or estate devoted togrowing the kind of staple crops, such ascotton, rice, or tobacco, usually associatedwith warm climates.

portage The act of carrying boats or goodsfrom one navigable body of water toanother, or the place where such things canbe carried.

sovereignty The supreme and independentauthority of government to which othersare subordinate.

tributary A stream contributing its flow to alarger stream or body of water.

watershed A high point of land dividing tworiver drainage areas.

zoology The branch of the biological sci-ences that concerns the study of animals.


NONFICTIONAllen, John Logan. Passage Through the Garden:

Lewis and Clark and the Image of the AmericanNorthwest. Urbana: University of Illinois Press,1975.

———, ed. North American Exploration. 3 vols. Lin-coln: University of Nebraska Press, 1997.

Ambrose, Stephen E. Undaunted Courage: Meri-wether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson, and the Openingof the American West. New York: Simon andSchuster, 1996.

Appleman, Roy E. Lewis and Clark: Historic PlacesAssociated with Their Transcontinental Explo-ration (1804–1806). Washington, D.C.: Govern-ment Printing Office, 1975.

Bakeless, John. Lewis & Clark: Partners in Discovery.New York: William Morrow & Company, 1947.

Betts, Robert B. In Search of York: The Slave WhoWent to the Pacific with Lewis and Clark. Boul-der: Colorado Associated University Press, 1985.

Biddle, Nicholas, ed. History of the ExpeditionUnder the Command of Captains Lewis andClark, to the Sources of the Missouri, thenceAcross the Rocky Mountains and down the RiverColumbia to the Pacific Ocean. Performed Dur-ing the Years 1804–5–6. Philadelphia: Govern-ment of the United States, 1814.

Botkin, Daniel B. Our Natural History: The Lessonsof Lewis and Clark. New York: G.P. Putnam’sSons, 1995.

Burroughs, Raymond Darwin. The Natural Historyof the Lewis and Clark Expedition. East Lansing:Michigan State University Press, 1961.

Brodie, Fawn M. Thomas Jefferson: An Intimate His-tory. New York: W. W. Norton, 1974.

Calloway, Colin G. One Vast Winter Count: TheNative American West Before Lewis and Clark.Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2003.

Chuinard, Eldon G. Only One Man Died: The Med-ical Aspects of the Lewis and Clark Expedition.Glendale, Calif.: A.H. Clark Co., 1979. Reprint,Fairfield, Wash.: Ye Galleon Press, 1997.

Clark, Ella E., and Margot Edmonds. Sacagawea ofthe Lewis and Clark Expedition. Berkeley: Uni-versity of California Press, 1979.

Crackel, Theodore J. Mr. Jefferson’s Army: Politicaland Social Reform in the Military Establishment,1801–1809. New York: New York University Press,1987.

Criswell, Elijah. Lewis and Clark: Linguistic Pio-neers. Columbia: University of Missouri Press,1940.

Cutright, Paul Russell. Lewis & Clark, PioneeringNaturalists. Urbana: University of Illinois Press,1969.

Coues, Elliot, ed. History of the Expedition Underthe Command of Lewis and Clark. 4 vols. NewYork: Francis P. Harper, 1893.

DeVoto, Bernard. The Course of Empire. Boston:Houghton Mifflin, 1952.

DeVoto, Bernard, ed. The Journals of Lewis andClark. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1953.

167

Further Information{

Dillon, Richard. Meriwether Lewis. New York: Coward-McCann, 1965.

Dramer, Kim. The Shoshone. Philadelphia: ChelseaHouse Publishers, 1996.

Duncan, Dayton. Out West: A Journey ThroughLewis and Clark’s America. 2nd ed. Lincoln: Uni-versity of Nebraska Press, 2000.

Duncan, Dayton, and Ken Burns. Lewis & Clark: AnIllustrated History. New York: Alfred A. Knopf,1997.

Fanselow, Julie. Traveling the Lewis and Clark Trail.2nd ed. Helena, Mont.: Falcon Press, 2000.

Fisher, Vardis. Suicide or Murder? The StrangeDeath of Governor Meriwether Lewis. Chicago:Swallow Press, 1962.

Furtwangler, Albert. Acts of Discovery: Visions ofAmerica in the Lewis and Clark Journals.Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1993.

Gass, Patrick. A Journal of the Voyages and Travels of a Corps of Discovery Under the Command of Capt. Lewis and Capt. Clark. Minneapolis,Minn.: Ross and Haines, 1958.

Goetzmann, William H. Exploration and Empire:The Explorer and the Scientist in the Winning ofthe American West. New York: Random House,1966.

Hawke, David Freeman. Those Tremendous Moun-tains: The Story of the Lewis and Clark Expedi-tion. New York: W. W. Norton, 1980.

Hebard, Grace Raymond. Sacajawea: A Guide andInterpreter of the Lewis and Clark Expedition.Glendale, Calif.: A.H. Clark Co., 1957.

Howard, Harold P. Sacajawea. Norman: Universityof Oklahoma Press, 1971.

Jackson, Donald. Among the Sleeping Giants: Occa-sional Pieces on Lewis and Clark. Urbana: Uni-versity of Illinois Press, 1987.

———. Thomas Jefferson and the Stony Mountains:Exploring the West from Monticello. Urbana:University of Illinois Press, 1981.

Jackson, Donald, ed. Letters of the Lewis and ClarkExpedition with Related Documents, 1783–1854.2 vols. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1978.

Josephy, Alvin M., Jr. The Nez Perce Indians and theOpening of the Northwest. New Haven, Conn.:Yale University Press, 1965.

Kessler, Donna J. The Making of Sacagawea: A Euro-American Legend. Tuscaloosa: University of Ala-bama Press, 1996.

Kroll, Steven. Lewis and Clark: Explorers of theAmerican West. New York: Holiday House, 1994.

Lavender, David. The Way to the Western Sea: Lewisand Clark Across the Continent. New York:Harper and Row, 1988.

Long, Benjamin. Backtracking: By Foot, Canoe andSubaru Along the Lewis and Clark Trail. Seattle:Sasquatch Books, 2000.

Luebke, Federick C., et al., eds. Mapping the NorthAmerican Plains: Essays in the History of Cartog-raphy. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press,1987.

Madsen, Brigham. The Lemhi: Sacajawea’s People.Caldwell, Idaho: Caxton Printers, 1979.

Malone, Dumas. Jefferson the President, First Term,1801–1805. Vol. IV of Jefferson and His Time.Boston: Little, Brown, 1970.

McCracken, Harold. George Catlin and the OldFrontier. New York: Dial Press, 1959.

McMurtry, Larry. Sacagawea’s Nickname: Essays onthe American West. New York: New York ReviewBooks, 2001.

Moulton, Gary E, ed. The Journals of the Lewis andClark Expedition. 13 vols. Lincoln: University ofNebraska Press, 1983–1999.

———. The Lewis and Clark Journals: An AmericanEpic of Discovery. Lincoln: University of Ne-braska Press, 2003.

Murphy, Dan. Lewis and Clark: Voyage of Discovery.Las Vegas, Nev.: KC Publications, 1977.

Oglesby, Richard. Manuel Lisa and the Opening ofthe Missouri Fur Trade. Norman: University ofOklahoma Press, 1963.

Osgood, Ernest S., ed. The Field Notes of Capt.William Clark, 1803–1805. New Haven, Conn.:Yale University Press, 1964.

Peebles, John J. Lewis and Clark in Idaho. Boise:Idaho Historical Society, 1966.


Reid, Russell. Sakakawea: The Bird Woman. Bis-marck: State Historical Society of North Dakota,1986.

Ronda, James P. Jefferson’s West: A Journey withLewis and Clark. Monticello, Va.: Thomas Jeffer-son Foundation, 2000.

———. Lewis & Clark Among the Indians. Lincoln:University of Nebraska Press, 1984.

———. Voyages of Discovery: Essays on the Lewisand Clark Expedition. Helena: Montana Histori-cal Society Press, 1998.

Ruby, Robert H., and Brown, John A. The ChinookIndians: Traders of the Lower Columbia River.Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1976.

Salisbury, Albert, and Jane Salisbury. Two CaptainsWest. Seattle, Wash.: Superior Publishing Com-pany, 1950.

Schmidt, Thomas. National Geographic’s Guide tothe Lewis & Clark Trail. Washington, D.C.:National Geographic Society, 2000.

Schwantee, Carlos, ed. Encounters with a DistantLand: Exploration and the Great Northwest.Moscow: University of Idaho Press, 1994.

Skelton, William B. An American Profession of Arms:The Army Officer Corps, 1784–1861. Lawrence:University Press of Kansas, 1992.

Snyder, Gerald S. In the Footsteps of Lewis andClark. Washington, D.C.: National GeographicSociety, 1970.

Steffen, Jerome O. William Clark: Jeffersonian Manon the Frontier. Norman: University of Okla-homa Press, 1977.

Thomas, Davis, and Karen Ronnefeldt, eds. Peopleof the First Man: The Paintings of Karl Bodmer.New York: Dutton, 1976.

Thomas, George. Lewis and Clark Trail: The PhotoJournal. Missoula, Mont.: Pictorial HistoriesPublishing Company, 2000.

Thwaites, Reuben Gold, ed. Original Journals of theLewis and Clark Expedition, 1804–1806. 8 vols.New York: Dodd, Mead, 1904–1905.

Wilson, Charles Morrow. Meriwether Lewis of Lewisand Clark. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Com-pany, 1934.

Wilson, James. The Earth Shall Weep: A History ofNative America. New York: Atlantic MonthlyPress, 1999.

Woodger, Elin, and Brandon Toropor. Encyclopediaof the Lewis and Clark Expedition. New York:Facts On File, 2004.

FICTIONGlancy, Diane. Stone Heart: A Novel of Sacajawea.

New York: Overlook Press, 2003.Hall, Brian. I Should Be Extremely Happy in Your

Company: A Novel of Lewis and Clark. New York:Viking Press, 2003.

Lasky, Kathryn. The Journal of Augustus Pelletier:The Lewis and Clark Expedition, 1804 (My NameIs America). New York: Scholastic, 2000.

Myers, Laurie. Lewis and Clark and Me: A Dog’sTale. New York: Henry Holt and Co., 2002.

Thom, James Alexander. Sign-Talker: The Adven-ture of George Drouillard on the Lewis and Clark Expedition. New York: Ballantine Books,2001.

Roop, Connie, and Peter Roop. Girl of the ShiningMountains: Sacagawea’s Story. New York: Hyper-ion Press, 1999.

WEB SITESGo West Across America with Lewis & Clark. Avail-

able on-line.URL:http//www.nationalgeographic.com/west. Downloaded on June 6, 2003.

Lewis and Clark Education Project. Available on-line. URL: http://yoda.cec.umt.edu/lewisclark.Downloaded on June 6, 2003.

Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail. Availableon-line. URL: http://www.nps.gov/lecl. Down-loaded on June 6, 2003.

Lewis and Clark Trail Heritage Foundation. Avail-able on-line. URL: http://www.lewisandclark.org/index.htm. Downloaded on June 6, 2003.

Lewis and Clark on the Information Superhighway.Available on-line. URL: http://www.lcarchive.org/fulllist.html. Downloaded on June 6, 2003.

Further Information B 169

171

AAdams, John 10aftermath, of Lewis and Clark

expedition 155–163Ahaharway. See Hidatsa

Indiansair gun 35, 49, 49Ambrose, Stephen x, xii, 160American Indians. See also spe-

cific individuals, e.g.: TwistedHair; specific tribes, e.g.:Nakota Sioux

Clark’s battle experienceswith 25

diplomatic relations with46–55

encounters with, on returnjourney 138–142

“Estimate of the EasternIndians” 70

ill-mannered behavior of141

Jefferson’s interest in 10and land west of the

Louisiana Purchase 102American Philosophical Society

13, 16, 19, 21, 161American Revolution 10, 16

ammunition 37animal life, Lewis’s observation

of 3, 31, 46, 78, 79, 116antelope 46, 77, 79Appaloosa horses 116arid 165gArikara 55, 61, 70, 152, 157Arkansas 4Arrowsmith, Aaron 27Asia, trade routes to 7Assiniboine Indians 68Astor, John Jacob 150Astoria, Fort 150At Lehmi (Robert F. Morgan) 5

BBad River 52“barking squiril” 45Barlow, Joel 162Barton, Benjamin Smith 19, 23,

152bear, grizzly. See grizzly bearBear Den Creek. See Charbon-

neau’s Creekbeaver fur 150Beaverhead River 95, 99, 106,

145Bellefontaine, Fort 153

Belt Creek. See Portage CreekBiddle, Nicholas 160Big Belt 94Big Bend 77Big Hole River 95Big Horse 50Big White (Sheheke) 55, 60–62,

152bilious 165g“bilious pills” 21, 23Bitterroot Mountains (Lolo

Trail) 111–117, 113m, 114,141–144

Bitterroot River 145Bitterroot Valley 108, 143, 145Black Buffalo 52, 53, 152Black Cat (Mandan chief)

60–62, 76Blackfeet Indians 105, 143,

147–150, 149, 157A Blackfoot on Horseback with

Rifle (Karl Bodmer) 149Black Moccasin 60blacksmithing 65books, taken on expedition

23Boone, Daniel 39, 40Le Borgne (One Eye) 60, 71

Index{Page numbers in italics indicate a photograph. Page numbers followed by m

indicate maps. Page numbers followed by g indicate glossary entries.Page numbers in boldface indicate box features.

botany 165g. See also plant lifeBozeman Pass 145Bratton, William 32, 82Bridger, James 150Bridger range 94Broughton, William 14–15, 126buffalo 41, 67, 79

on Great Plains 46on Lewis’s Great Falls expe-

dition 90and Plains Indian economy

66, 78, 79and Shoshone 108

Buffalo Calling Dance 71–72Buffalo Medicine 52, 53

Ccache 165gCahokia 33camas roots 115Cameahwait 103–109Canada 15Canadian Rockies 98candlefish 134canoe 137Canoe Camp 116, 145cartography x, 68, 133, 143,

165g. See also mapsCascade Range 126–127celebrations 71–72. See also

Christmas; IndependenceDay; New Year’s Day

celestial navigation 21Celilo Falls. See Great Falls of

the Columbia RiverCharbonneau, Jean-Baptiste.

See PompCharbonneau, Toussaint

boat-handling mishaps80–82

and Cameahwait 108end of journey 151Portage flood 91and Sacagawea 74, 89Shoshone search 95Three Forks search 94as translator 73, 106

and Yellowstone excursion145

Charbonneau’s Creek 80La Charette 40Chinookan-speaking Indians

124, 126Chinook Indians 121, 127–128Chinook Point 130Chopunnish, Camp 141–142Chouteau, Auguste and Pierre

34, 34, 36, 150Christmas

1803 351804 711805 131–133

chronometer 165gClark, George Rogers 25, 32Clark, William xii, 88, 89

appointment as commander24–25, 30

birthday dinner 41cartography x, 133, 143on Celilo Falls 123on Christmas (1805) 131,

132on Columbia River salmon

culture 122at Continental Divide

107–109field notes 161gifts to Indians 49, 50grave monument of 156on Great Plains 43–46, 79and grizzly bear 82Jefferson’s proposal of expe-

dition 11and Judith’s River 83Lakota Sioux, attempted

pursuit of 70and Lewis, meeting with in

Clarksville 32–33and Lewis’s death 156life after expedition

155–156life before expedition 25and Little Rocky Mountains

83–84

on Lolo Trail 112, 113and Mandan Indians 64, 71medical treatment of Nez

Perce 142and Missouri Fur Company

150Missouri River portion of

journey 40–43as naturalist 44–45, 68, 120and New Year’s Day (1805)

celebrations 71and Nez Perce Indians

114–117, 142official rank of 36–37and Pacific Ocean 129–130and portage 90–93on prairie dogs 45reception at end of journey

155reports of early part of jour-

ney 68–70return journey 139,

143–151, 144m, 145rheumatism troubles 55on Sacagawea 121, 151–152at St. Charles, Missouri 39and Shoshone 106–107on Snake River 120spelling, in journals xiiand Teton Lakota 53–55Three Forks expedition 94,

95Willamette River expedition

138winter of 1803-1804 33–36Yellowstone River explo-

ration 145–147and York 157, 159

Clarksville (Indiana Territory)32–33

Clatsop, Fort 125m, 131, 133Clatsop Indians 130Clearwater River 115, 117–120climate 165gcolic 165gCollins, John 39, 42Colorado Rockies 4


Index B 173

Colter, John 30, 36, 150, 152, 157Columbia Gorge 129–130, 137Columbian (British Columbian)

Rockies 98Columbia River 72–73, 120–130,

121, 140and approach to Continen-

tal Divide 5campsites near mouth of

132mcontemporary condition of

160discovery of 14–16Great Falls (Celilo Falls)

123–124, 124Jefferson’s orders for mis-

sion 24return journey on 136–141salmon culture 122Western Columbia 126–130

Columbus, Christopher 7commerce 165gconfluence 165gCongress, U.S. 18–19Continental Divide 1–6, 8, 15,

72, 102, 145, 165gCook, James 11, 11, 14corps 165gCorps of Discovery 5

coining of name by Jefferson38

complete route of 151mfirst Shoshone encounter

103life of members, after expe-

dition 157, 159list of members 74return journey of 136–154route, August 31, 1803–May

21, 1804 30–40, 32mroute, August 1803–Septem-

ber 1806 151mroute, May 21, 1804–Sep-

tember 28, 1804 40–55,51m

route, September 28, 1804–April 7, 1805 54m, 55–76

route, April 7–July 30, 180576–95, 84m

route, July 30–August 12,1805 95, 99–101, 100m

route, August 12–November7, 1805 101–130, 127m

route, September 11–Octo-ber 7, 1805 112–117, 113m

route, October 7–November7, 1805 118–130

route, November 15, 1805–March 23, 1806 130–136,132m

route of return, March23–July 3, 1806 136–144,139m

route of return, May–July1806 113m

route of return, July 3–August 12, 1806 144m,145–151

route of return, August 12–September 23, 1806150–154, 153m

rumors of death/capture of152

Council Bluff 49council (council meeting) 115,

165gwith Arikara 55with Chinookan-speaking

Indians 126with Mandan/Hidatsa

60–62with Otoe and Missouri

49–50with Teton Lakota 52–53with Yankton Nakota 50–52

court-martial 42–43, 65, 165gCrow Indians 146Cruzatte, Pierre

and Charbonneau’s boat-handling mishap 82

at Decision Point 86as fiddler 41, 65recruitment of 39

shooting of Lewis in but-tocks 150

as translator for Teton coun-cil 52–53

Custis, Thomas 4Cut Bank Creek 147Cutright, Paul xCutssahnem 123

DDakota Sioux 50Decision Point 85–87Delassus, Carlos Dehault 33–34depression, Lewis and 156desertion 43dialect 165gDickson, Joseph 151, 152diplomacy 165g

with Blackfeet 148with British traders 66–67and “Estimate of the Eastern

Indians” 70with Hidatsa 66with Indians 46–55, 115and Lakota/Arikara raids on

Mandan 70with Nez Perce 141with Spain 33–34with Yakima and Wanapam

122–123Disappointment, Camp 147Disappointment, Cape 130discipline 36, 42–43, 65dogs. See SeamanDorion, Pierre 51, 52, 152dram 81, 165gDrouillard, George

and Bitterroots 142and Blackfeet 148boat-handling 80at Fort Mandan 63Great Falls expedition 87and grizzly bears 82hunting on Great Plains 77,

79and Lakota raid on Mandan

70, 71


and Lehmi Pass excursion106

life after expedition 157and Marias River excursion

147Missouri, duties while on

78and Missouri Indians 48as part of permanent expe-

dition party 37recruitment of 33and Moses Reed desertion

43and Shoshone 2–3, 95, 99,

100, 105and Snake River journey

120Dunbar, William 4duration of expedition, Lewis’s

estimate of 27–28dysentery 165g

Eelk 46, 131Ellicott, Andrew 21, 21empire 165gengagés 36, 63, 75epidemic 165gespontoon 165g“Estimate of the Eastern Indi-

ans” 66, 70estuary 165gethnography x, 165geulachon (candlefish) 134Euphorbia marginata 149Evans, John 27expedition, aftermath of 155–163

FFairfong, Mr. (French trader)

49, 50Fallen Timbers, Battle of 25Field, Joseph 32, 88, 91, 93, 147,

148Field, Reuben 32, 36, 94, 147,

148fish 138, 140. See also salmon

Flathead Indians 109–111, 112Flathead River 110–111Floyd, Charles 32, 37, 42, 75,

152food

at Fort Mandan 65game 40–41, 77–78, 81, 133,

138on Great Plains 77hunting and gathering

40–41provisions from Shoshone

105on return journey 138, 140,

153Sacagawea’s identification of

plants 81scarcity in Bitterroots 111,

113, 114squirrels 31whale 133

Fort Peck Reservoir 160Fortunate, Camp 107, 108, 143,

145fossils 31France 8, 10, 11, 14, 26–27Franklin, Benjamin 13Frazer, Robert 43, 94Freeman, Thomas 4French and Indian War 10Front Range 4funds, for journey 23fur trade

after expedition 157and Blackfeet 147and Mackenzie’s expedition

15and Mandan 57–59mountain men and 150St. Louis merchants 34and U.S. expansion 15–16

GGallatin, Albert 27, 94Gallatin River 95game 40–41, 77–78, 81, 133, 138

wild 81

Gass, Patrickappointment as sergeant

42on Bitterroots 112and Clearwater River jour-

ney 118and Columbia River journey

123on Fort Mandan 62, 64at Great Falls of Missouri

147on Lewis’s striking of Indian

138life after expedition 157and Shoshone 95

geology, of Rocky Mountains96–98

Gibbons Pass 145Gibson, George 32, 48gifts 53. See also Jefferson peace

medalGoodrich, Silas 74Grand River 119Gravelines, Joseph 55, 63, 75,

152Gray, Robert 14, 120Gray’s Bay 129–130Great Britain 10, 11, 14, 15, 66“great council” 50Great Falls of the Columbia

River (Celilo Falls) 123–124,124, 160

Great Falls of the Missouri River72, 87–88, 90–91, 143, 144

Great Plains 43–46, 44“great white father” 36, 51, 52,

61, 68Grinder’s Stand (Tennessee)

156grizzly bear 82–83, 83, 88, 90guns 20. See also air gun

HHall, Hugh 42Hancock, Forest 151, 152Hancock, Julia 156Harpers Ferry 20

Index B 175

Harper’s Ferry by Moonlight(Granville Perkins) 12–13

hawks 3headwaters 165ghealing 142Helena National Forest 158–159Heney, Hugh 68Hidatsa Indians 58, 59

council meeting with 60–62diplomatic relations with

66instructions to Great Falls

111knowledge of land west of

the Rockies 107and Lehmi Shoshone 105and Mandan 60–62and maps 72villages 64m

The History of the Expeditionunder the Commands of Cap-tains Lewis and Clark(Nicholas Biddle) 160

holidays. See Christmas;Independence Day; NewYear’s Day

Horned Weasel 64Horse Prairie Creek 99horses

introduction to North Amer-ica 116

and Lehmi Shoshone 2, 105of Nez Perce Indians 116on return journey 141for Rocky Mountain cross-

ing 73theft of, during return trip

145, 146horse-trading 105, 108, 109,

139, 140Howard, Thomas P. 74Hudson’s Bay Company 27,

66–67“Hungery Creek” 112, 114, 142Hunter, George 4hunting 46, 81, 114. See also

game

Iillness

during Lewis’s Great Fallsexpedition 87–88

during Lolo pass excursion117, 118

on Missouri 42at Nez Perce encampment

115–116of Sacagawea 90–91seasickness near Pacific

Ocean 130sexually transmitted disease

72Independence Day

1804 411805 92, 931806 145

Indian raids. See raidsIndians. See American

Indiansinsects 41–42interpreter 165g

Charbonneau 73, 106Cruzatte 52–53Drouillard 33Gravelines 55Labiche 40Sacagawea 74, 106

iron-framed boat experiment20–21, 91, 93

iron goods 65Irving, Washington 34, 34

J“Janey” (Sacagawea). See Saca-

gaweaJefferson, Jane Randolph 8Jefferson, Mount 138Jefferson, Peter 9, 10Jefferson, Thomas 2

and American PhilosophicalSociety 13

and Columbia River 15diplomatic and legislative

preparations for expedi-tion 18–19

and early days of UnitedStates 10

and “Estimate of the EasternIndians” 70

and hope of Lewis & Clark’ssafe return 152

instructions for expeditionx, 46–48, 81, 141

and John Ledyard’s North-west Passage plans 12

and Meriwether Lewis 1–2,16–19, 40, 141, 153

and Lewis’s death 156and Louisiana Purchase 26,

27and Mackenzie’s expedition

15and Mandan’s Welsh ances-

try 59orders for expedition 23–24other expeditions ordered

by 4and prairie dogs 45and search for Northwest

Passage 10–14on Sioux’s importance 50and trade diplomacy 67

Jefferson peace medal 48, 49,116, 123, 126, 148

Jefferson River 95, 99Jessaume, René 60–61, 63, 75,

152Joliet, Louis 8A Journal of Captain Cook’s Last

Voyage to the Pacific Ocean(John Ledyard) 11

journals x–xii, xi, 24, 31, 34–35,40, 68–70, 160–161

Judith’s River 83, 156

KKaskaskia, Fort 33keelboat 29, 30, 31, 37, 165gKentucky 25King, Nicholas 27Knife River 59–60Kooskooskee River 116–117


LLabiche, François 39–40Lafayette, Marquis de 155Lakota Sioux 50, 66, 70–71Lancaster, Pennsylvania 21Laramide Orogeny 96The Last of the Buffalo (C. M.

Russell) 79latitude 33, 165glaxatives 21, 23Ledyard, John 11–13Lehmi Pass 2–6, 5, 105–106, 108Lehmi River 103, 105, 107–109Lehmi Shoshone (Snake Indi-

ans) 74, 104–105Lepage, Jean-Baptiste 63, 75,

80Le Page du Pratz, Antoine 23Lewis, Meriwether ix, 5, 89, 143,

157air gun 49, 49, 61, 107animal life observations 3,

31, 46, 78, 79, 116and Blackfeet Indians

147–150and British traders 67–68and Cameahwait’s secret

plan to abandon mission108–109

on Charbonneau 73on Charbonneau’s Creek 80and Clark, commission as

commander 24–25, 30and Clark, meeting in

Clarksville 32–33and Clark, reuniting with on

return journey 151at Decision Point 85, 86duties as commander 24–25early life 16–17as ethnographer xGreat Falls expedition

87–88, 90and Hidatsa Indians 66on Indian behavior 138, 141and Jefferson 14, 16–19,

23–24, 153

Lakota Sioux, attemptedpursuit of 71

Lehmi Pass discovery 2–6life after expedition 156–157and Little Rocky Mountains

84–85and Louisiana Purchase 26,

27, 36Mandan, New Year’s celebra-

tion with 71–72maps for expedition 27and Marias River excursion

147meeting with Shoshone

106–107Missouri River forks 95, 99Missouri river journal entry

ix, 76Native Americans, official

role with 47and Nez Perce Indians

115–116, 141–142and Pacific Ocean 130on personal obligations 107at Pittsburgh 29–31plant life observations 3,

102, 135, 149and portage 91–93preparations for expedition

20–23reception by Congress/Jef-

ferson after journey 155reckless behavior by 40reports of early part of jour-

ney 68–70return route 143–151, 144mand Sacagawea 64, 74–75,

82in St. Louis 33–34and Shoshone 99–107shot in buttocks 150spelling, in journals xiistandard oration to Indians

49–50, 53, 55suicide of 156and Teton Lakota 53–55on White Cliffs 85

on wildlife on Great Plains46

on winter at Fort Mandan65

winter of 1803–1804 33–36and Yellowstone River 80

Lewis, William 16Lewis and Clark. See also Clark,

William; Corps of Discovery;Lewis, Meriwether

aftermath of expedition155–163

with Indians 115place among American

explorers ix–xas writers x–xii See also

journalsLewis and Clark Pass 145La Liberté (French engagé) 48library, for expedition 23Library of Congress 10Lisa, Manuel 34, 150Little Missouri River 72Little Rocky Mountains 83–86Little Thief 49, 50Livingston, Robert 26Lizette (daughter of Sacagawea)

156lodge, earthen 60Logan, John xLoisel, Regis 40Lolo Trail 112, 114. See also Bit-

terroot Mountainslongitude 33, 166gLong Narrows 124Lost Trail Pass 109Louisiana Purchase 25–29, 28,

33–34, 36, 68Louisiana Territory 10, 14Loyal Land Company 9–10

MMackay, James 27MacKenzie, Alexander 15, 23,

27MacKenzie, Charles 68Madison River 95

Index B 177

malaria 42Mandan, Fort 1, 62, 62–75, 64mMandan Indians 27, 60, 60–62,

61, 63, 64m, 82Mandan villages 55–75,

151–152Manuel, Fort 159maps. See also cartography

for expedition 27from Mandan/Hidatsa 72of route of journey. See

under Corps of DiscoveryAntoine Soulard and 34Twisted Hair’s route to sea

116from Yakima 123

Marias (Maria’s) River 87, 143,147, 149

Marquette, Jacques 8Martínez de Yrujo, Carlos 18Massac, Fort 32–33Maury, James 9–10Maury, Matthew 16McClellan, Robert 152McCracken, Hugh 68McMurtry, Larry ix, xii, 159McNeal, Hugh 5, 99medallion. See Jefferson peace

medalmedicine 142Medicine River 91meridian 166gMichaux, André 13–14Middle Rockies 98Milk River 81, 85Minnetaree. See Hidatsa Indiansmissionary 166gMississippi River 26, 33Missouri Breaks 85Missouri Indians 48–50Missouri River ix, 9, 87–101

and Chouteau brothers 34contemporary condition of

160daily life on 40–43French discovery of 8Great Falls 87–88, 90–91

and Great Plains 43–46and Hidatsa maps 72and Jefferson’s orders for

mission 24journey on, April 7, 1805–

July 30, 1805 76–95journey on, May 14–October

26, 1804 38–56as potential key to North-

west Passage 8relations with Indians along

46–55return journey on 150–154and search for Northwest

Passage 8–10Three Forks of 94–95

Missouri Territory 155Mitutanka 60, 71Model 1803 short rifles 20Montana 81–83, 158–159Monticello 1, 3, 18mosquitoes 147Moulton, Gary xii, 161Mount Adams 126mountain men 150Mount Hood 15, 126Mount Jefferson 138Mount St. Helens 15musket 105, 166gMusselshell River 72, 83

NNakota Sioux 50Napoleon Bonaparte 26, 29Native Americans. See American

Indiansnaturalist/naturalism 166g

Clark’s observations of plantlife 44–45, 120

Jefferson’s opinion ofLewis’s potential as natu-ralist 18

Lewis’s observation of ani-mal life 3, 31, 46, 78, 79,116

Lewis’s shipment to Jeffer-son 1

shipment of samples ofplants and seeds 68

natural resources 67Nature’s Cattle (C. M. Russell)

41navigation 23, 33, 166gNew France, end of 10Newman, John 33, 43, 75New Orleans 26New Year’s Day

1804 351805 711806 131, 133

Nez Perce Indians 66, 108,114–118, 116, 141–142, 145

Northern Rockies 98North West Companies 66–68Northwest Passage, search for

7–19, 23–24Notes on the State of Virginia

(Thomas Jefferson) 10Nuptadi (Mandan village) 60,

71, 76

Oobjective of expedition 23–24Ohio River 29–33Old Toby 108, 109, 111, 118Ordway, John

discovery of journal 161at Great Falls of Missouri

147hunting on Great Plains 79on Lakota Sioux view of

Americans 71and Mandan Indians 64as part of permanent expe-

dition party 37and prairie dogs 45and return journey 145on return to St. Louis 153and Robert McClellan 152temporary command (1804)

36and Tetons 53on York and Arikara 55

“Oregon River” hypothesis 14


Oregon territory 14Osage Indians 36, 37Otoe Indians 48–50Ouchita River 4

PPacific Northwest 11, 15. See

also Columbia RiverPacific Ocean, approach to

128–131paleontology 31, 166gthe Partisan 52, 53“passage to India.” See North-

west Passagepassenger pigeons 31peace pipe 55Peace River 15pelicans 43, 43Philadelphia 13, 21, 161Pike, Zebulon Montgomery 4pirogue 31, 35, 166gPittsburgh 29–30Plains Indians 66–67, 67, 78,

79. See also specific tribes, e.g.:Mandan Indians

plantation 166gplant life

Clark’s observations of44–45, 120

Lewis’s observations of 3,102, 135, 149

Sacagawea’s identification ofedible 81

shipment of samples 68Platte River 46, 47, 68Point Ellice 130Pomp (Jean-Baptiste Charbon-

neau) 75, 83, 91, 107, 145,151, 156

Pompey’s Pillar (Pompy’s Tower)145, 146, 146–147

portage 72, 91–93, 92m, 166gPortage Creek 91Portugal 7, 8Potts, John 79, 93, 157prairie dog 1, 45, 45

preparationsfor expedition 18, 20–37for return journey 133, 135

provisions. See foodPryor, Nathaniel 32, 37, 42, 146,

147

Rraids, Indian 70–71rattlesnake 90Raymond, Fort 150record-keeping 24Red River 4Reed, Moses 43, 75return journey 133–154, 139m,

144m, 153mReunion Point 151Revolutionary War. See Ameri-

can Revolutionrheumatism 55rifles 20River Which Scolds at All Others

(Milk River) 72, 81, 85Rocky Mountains 4, 27, 73,

93–94, 96–98, 102–117. Seealso Little Rocky Mountains

Ronda, James xRush, Benjamin 21, 21, 23Rush’s Pills 115“Rush’s Thunderbolts” 23Russia 13Ryan dam 160

SSacagawea 73, 89–90

and Cameahwait’s plans108

and Charbonneau’s boat-handling mishap 82–83

and Columbia River excur-sion 121

delivery of baby 64, 73–75and edible plants 81end of journey 151food-gathering on Great

Plains 77

illness prior to portage90–91

life after expedition 159names/nicknames of 89–90at Pacific Ocean 133Portage flood 91reaction to return to home

95route-finding expedition

107and Shoshone 93, 94, 106as translator 74, 106and Yellowstone excursion

145sage grouse xiSahaptian-speaking Indians

124St. Charles, Missouri 39,

152–153St. Louis 33–38, 34, 153, 156Saint-Domingue 26Salish. See Flathead Indianssalmon 104, 104, 105, 115, 122Salmon River 108, 109salt 133samples, of plants and seeds 68Sandy River 126science, Jefferson’s interest in

10–11, 23, 24Seaman (dog) 31, 75, 138Seaside, Oregon 160–162sexually transmitted disease 72Shannon, George 30, 46, 128,

142, 157Sheheke. See Big WhiteShields, John 32, 36, 65, 66, 99,

100Short Narrows 124Shoshone

and horses 73and Nez Perse 141route-finding expedition

107and Sacagawea 74search for, July–August 1805

2–3, 5, 95, 99–107

Index B 179

Sibley, John 4significance of Lewis and Clark’s

expedition 161–163sign language 33Sioux. See Dakota Sioux; Lakota

Sioux; Nakota Sioux; YanktonNakota Sioux

Skilloot Indians 128slavery. See Yorksmallpox 59, 61Smith, Jedediah 150Snake Indians (Lehmi

Shoshone) 104–105Snake River 120, 122–123Soulard, Antoine 34“southern fork” of Columbia

107Southern Rockies 97–98sovereignty 166gSpain

and Thomas Freeman expe-dition 4

and Louisiana Purchase 26and Pacific Coast 15reaction to proposal of

Lewis and Clark expedi-tion 18

and St. Louis 34and search for Northwest

Passage 7, 8Spanish Bluff 4spelling, in journals xiispontoon. See espontoonspring 1805, preparations for

72–73squirrels 31supplies, for expedition 20–23,

22, 23, 27

TTetoharsky 116, 118, 121–122,

125, 126Teton Lakota 52–55, 70, 152Texas 4theft 119, 128, 135, 138, 145,

148

Thompson, John B. 74Three Affiliated Tribes 61Three Forks of the Missouri 72,

94–95, 143Thwaites, Reuben Gold 161Tillamook Head (Seaside, Ore-

gon) 160–161Tillamook Indians 133tipi 78Toussaint (son of Toussaint

Charbonneau) 156traders, British 66–68trade/trade goods

and Cameahwait 109with Chinook Indians

127–128effect of Louisiana Purchase

on 68and Hudson’s Bay/North

West Companies 66–67iron items 65with Mandan 57, 61–62with Nez Perce 141on return journey 133, 136,

139–140, 142with Shoshone 103, 105with Yankton Nakota Sioux

52trading networks, of Plains Indi-

ans 66–67Trail Creek 5translation. See interpreterTraveler’s Rest Creek (Lolo

Creek) 111, 142tributary 166gTwisted Hair 115, 118, 121–122,

124–126, 141Two Medicine River 148

UUmatilla Indians 140United States

territory as of 1802 17mwestward expansion of

15–16Upper and Lower Cascades 126

Upper Louisiana Territory 155,156

U.S. Army 16–17

VVancouver, George 14venereal disease. See sexually

transmitted diseaseLa Verendrye, Pierre 57–58Virginia 16A Voyage of Discovery to the

North Pacific (George Vancou-ver) 15

Voyages from Montreal...throughthe Continent of North Amer-ica (Alexander Mackenzie)15, 23

WWalla Walla Indians 123Wanapam Indians 122Wappatoe Island 128, 136Warfington, Richard 37, 39, 63,

68, 75, 93Washington, D.C. 47, 52, 57Washington, George 10, 13watershed 166gWatkuweis 115Wattason. See Hidatsa Indiansweapons 20Weippe Prairie 114, 142“Welsh Indians” 59, 109Werner, William 74the West, after Lewis and Clark

expedition 160–163Western Columbia River

126–130whale 133Wheelen, Israel 23whiskey 41, 83Whiskey Rebellion 16White Bears Island 91, 145White Cliffs 85White Earth River 72, 80Whitehouse, Joseph 33, 39, 71,

112

Wi-Jun-Jon (Assiniboine chief)56

Willamette River excursion 138Willard, Alexander H. 42–43, 65,

128Wind Mountain 137Windsor, Richard 74winters during expedition

33–36, 57–75, 130–135Winter Village of the Manitaries

(Hidatsa) in Dakota Territory(Karl Bodmer) 58

Wiser, Peter M. 74Wishram-Wasco Indians 126

Wood, Camp 34, 130Wood River 34writing. See journals

YYakama Indians 122, 123Yankton Nakota Sioux 50–52,

152Yellepit 123, 140–141Yellowstone River 145–147York (slave)

and Arikara council 55at Fort Mandan 63lack of pay for 32

and Lehmi Pass excursion106

life after expedition 157,159

Mandan reaction to 56and New Year’s Day (1805)

celebrations 71as part of permanent expe-

dition party 37search for Shoshone 93

Zzoology 166g


Across America-The Lewis & Clark Expedition

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