Early History of Yellowstone National ParkRead about the history of the Yellowstone Plateua, a land of natural wonder.

The following Web sites will provide you with additional information about the Corps of Discovery, the Lewis and Clark Bicentennial, and Native Americans

There would be no kind of similar relationship between the Tetons and Lewis and Clark, however. At the first council with the leaders of the Teton tribe, the expedition went through its practiced ritual for meeting Indians, parading in uniform and demonstrating an air gun. The display did little to impress the Tetons, who perceived the Americans as competitors for control of trade in the region. Tensions increased between the two sides, nearly resulting in an armed conflict. Fortunately, the Teton chief Black Buffalo intervened and brought things back to a more diplomatic level.

After another argument between the Tetons and the expedition nearly escalated into fighting, Lewis and Clark continued upriver.

Not only did they prove to be Sacagawea’s band, but their leader, Chief Cameahwait, turned out to be none other than her brother. On August 17, after five years of separation, Sacagawea and Cameahwait had an emotional reunion. Then, through their intepreting chain of the captains, Labiche, Charbonneau, and Sacagawea, the expedition was able to purchase the horses it needed.

Her activities as a member of the Corps included digging for roots, collecting edible plants and picking berries; all of these were used as food and sometimes, as medicine. On May 14, 1805, the boat Sacagawea was riding in was hit by a high wind and nearly capsized. She recovered many important papers and supplies that would otherwise have been lost, and her calmness under duress earned the compliments of the captains.

n 1800, when she was about 12 years old, Sacagawea was kidnapped by a war party of Hidatsa Indians -- enemies of her people, the Shoshones. She was taken from her Rocky Mountain homeland, located in today’s Idaho, to the Hidatsa-Mandan villages near modern Bismarck, North Dakota. There, she was later sold as a slave to Toussaint Charbonneau, a French-Canadian fur trader who claimed Sacagawea and another Shoshone woman as his “wives.” I

Eight months after her death, Clark legally adopted Sacagawea’s two children, Jean Baptiste and Lisette. Baptiste was educated by Clark in St. Lous, and then, at age 18, was sent to Europe with a German prince. It is not known whether Lisette survived past infancy.

The only written documents that have been found positively identifying that elderly woman are the listing of her name on a November 1, 1877 census roll of the Wind River Shoshone and Bannock Indians, and the woman’s April 9, 1884 death certificate. Both of these official documents clearly record her name as “Bazil’s Mother.” At age 100 in 1884, Bazil’s Mother would have been born in 1784, making her 21 years old in 1805 -- the year Sacagawea set out with Lewis and Clark. Most 20th century books, encyclopedias, and movies have perpetuated this theory, creating the mistaken identity of the Wind River woman.

Florentine Films used the interviews found here in “Lewis and Clark: The Journey of the Corps of Discovery.” Conducted with John Logan Allen, Stephen E. Ambrose, Gerard Baker, Dayton Duncan, Erica Funkhouser, William Least Heat-Moon, and James P. Ronda, the interviews were excerpted as necessary; in turn, the excerpts were integrated into the film

The lessons plans and activities developed for this Web site comprise a multidisciplinary unit that uses television and computers as learning tools in the subject areas of science, mathematics, social studies, and language arts. Although the lessons are written for middle level students, they do contain suggested extensions and adaptations to facilitate their use with elementary and secondary students. Each lesson could also be modified to be conducted at home.

Interviews offers full-length, unedited interviews (RealAudio and text) with seven of the experts featured in the film "Lewis and Clark."

The Journals are a searchable, chronological compilation of excerpts from the journals of seven members of the Corps of Discovery, including Lewis and Clark. They span March 3, 1804, to September 26, 1806.

On this date he dies at the home of his eldest son, Meriwether Lewis Clark.

(Later, legends arise that it was Charbonneau’s other wife that died, that Sacagawea lived until the late 1800s and died on the Shoshone reservation in Wyoming; even fewer historians give much weight to this.)

The men see a cow on the shore and raise a cheer at the sign that they are finally returning to the settlements; that day they reach La Charette.

In the East, President Jefferson welcomes a delegation of Missouri, Oto, Arikara, and Yankton Sioux chiefs who had met Lewis and Clark more than a year earlier. Jefferson thanks them for helping the expedition and tells them of his hope “that we may all live together as one household.” The chiefs respond with praise for the explorers, but doubts about whether Jefferson’s other “white children” will keep his word.

Lewis’s 31s birthday. Though he has just become the first American citizen to reach the Continental Divide and has concluded successful negotiations for horses, in his journal entry he turns introspective, writing that “I had as yet done but little, very little indeed.” He vows “in future, to live for mankind, as I have heretofore lived for myself.”

(along with another Shoshone girl).

And obviously in dealing with Cameahwait and the Shoshonis. And she brought a woman’s touch to this expedition. I like to think as she was nursing Pomp at night around the campfire, that scene had to have had a great effect on the men, to hear a woman’s laugh at night around the campfire bolstered spirits. To have Sacagawea say to them, “That’s the Beaverhead, we’re getting close to the Three Forks, we’re on the right trail.” All that lifted spirits when spirits were very low and they thought they’d never come to an end of this journey. 

So, I think the number one human lesson of the Lewis and Clark expedition is, what can be accomplished by a team of disciplined men who are dedicated to a common purpose.

Here you have 32 men who had become so close, so bonded, that everyone of them could recognize a cough in the night and know who it was. They could hear a footstep and know who it was. They knew who liked salt on their meat and who didn’t. They knew who’s the best shot on the expedition. Who is the fastest runner. Who is the man who could get a fire going the quickest on a rainy day. They knew, because they sat around the campfire, about each other’s parents and loved ones. Each other’s hopes.

And this is one of those stories that reaches out and says, there is a place in this story for you.

I think that we’ve seized on them because they remind us about the journey. Life is a journey. They were on the road. We’re on the road too. We see that in our literature, in our writing. From Pilgrim’s Progress and Canterbury Tales to John Wayne in Stagecoach. We think about life as a journey. The Lewis and Clark journey is so accessible.

We’re forever going somewhere.

If the Civil War is our Iliad, then this is our odyssey.

There’s something in there for, for everybody. It’s accessible to so many people for so many different reasons. If you’re interested in an adventure, a road trip – it’s got that, you know. Two guys go West. If you’re interested in science, you know, they’re out discovering new plant, new animals, new territory. If you’re interested in, “What did the Indians look like before the United States moved West,” it tells you that, it answers those questions for you. Whatever it is that you want, it’s there. It’s a tremendous cast of characters, it’s an adventure story, it’s science, it’s history.

it was the beginning of an end.

We, we, we started going from a dependency on the environment, on the spiritualism of the land, to a dependency on the traders and the military and everything else that came after Lewis and Clark. So it, it, we, we, we essentially lost.

In a nutshell, what happened to our people in the years after Lewis and Clark is that we went downhill. In a nutshell, we lost.

But he was spared.

But he took it with him everywhere he went and it was a member of the expedition.

And from the descriptions of the event, the Indian chief who saw this, an Otoe chief, just cried at the sight of this. They just beat the holy hell out of Hall for this, because that was their whiskey that he had stolen.

“Well, you know, I can understand how the Indians with, armed as they are with just some bows and arrows might be frightened of this monster. But in the hands of an experienced woodsman with a good rifle, they’re nothing to be afraid of.” Well, about 2 days later, they come across another grizzly bear and they fire 8 or 9 shots into it can’t kill it. It chases them off the, off the Plain and into the river. They meet another one who chases some men up a tree. Everywhere they’re going, they’re meeting these big grizzly bears that they just have trouble killing. And finally, Lewis sits down one night to write in his journal, he says, “I find the curiosity of our men with respect to this animal is pretty much satisfied.”

And so the peace medal is a wonderful symbol of difference. Europeans saw it as a sign of subjection. Of accepting European power. But native people who took those peace medals saw it in a very different way. Saw it as a gift. Saw it as recognizing that we are equals.

The Frenchmen came in for example, the British came in for example from Hudson Bay territory, what is now Canada, and did the same thing.

I want to say it again, York crossed the river, he crossed the mountains, he saw what freedom meant. And then re-entered a world of slavery where slavery was everywhere.

York was not his servant, he was his slave.

hink about this as an African-American man reentering the world of races and enslavery. Having seen life on the other side of the mountains, in a real sense, as a man who’s crossed the river Jordan.

York came as, as a first black man they ever seen, and that was different. So he was very worship, he wasn’t ostracized by any means at all. In fact, he was just the opposite.

Putting up the captain’s tents, managing the sails, plying his oar, doing all the things that everyone else did. He made his contribution. And he was a part of the team.

He got to vote.

He was devoted to William Clark.

I think that if you took a survey of everyone who hadn't seen the film or read Steven Ambrose's excellent book, [they would] their image of Lewis and Clark would be two explorers, their dog, and later on an Indian woman guiding them..."

More often than not the topic chooses me. That is to say that I see myself as an emotional archaeologist, looking into, not so much the dry dates and events of the past, but the emotional glue that makes those dry facts stick to us..

A woman alone, a woman wearing the cast off clothing of others.

who was person out of time,

Sacagawea came back to St. Louis a citizen of the West and someone who had citizenship no place.

So she was a living white flag, so to speak as they as they moved along. She was a sign of peace, better than anything they could have found.

it’s SaKagawea

Clearly, she was able to direct them topographically at certain key moments to help them along and it was it was truly a stroke of luck that when they got on the other side of Lemhi pass came down the western side of the Continental Divide that she ran into into her her people again and to her great surprise, her brother was now the chief.

Sacagawea played an important role, not as a guide as she’s been mythologized into, but as a person who could read the landscape fairly well. I think she could read rivers. She could read a valley, you know. She had a sense of what the landscape said about direction and where they, where they were going. She had some, she had, she had some sense of what could be eaten along the way. Apparently she showed Clark how to dig up onions some pl.., at some point along the way. She understood, knew about camas root which is a root that they ate quite a lot of in the expedition. She was, she was good at looking for food.

So they really wanted someone who could speak Shoshoni.

She’d been traded back and forth between different Minitari braves apparently, before she was won by Charbonneau in a gamble, in a game, in a gamble really. He won her from, to, from another, he won her from another Minitari brave in the, in this gamble and, and he also at that time, when he had, when he won her, he’d already had another wife, so I think she was his second common-law wife. And she was fourteen. Within a few months she was pregnant.

She was captured by the Hidatsa in a war raid, they were war party, which was common. They would capture the women and children. And not necessarily make slaves out of them, but take them into the tribe and marry them and they would live with them.

Kept the peace among the Indians on the Mississippi River, and pretty far west actually, for 30 years, and became a distinguished citizen of St. Louis.

I think somewhere deep down, he knew that he needed somebody he could count on. And the person he could count the most on was William Clark. I think he, he offered Clark not only to be a co-captain, but he said, “If you can’t do this,” when he wrote him a letter, “if you can’t do this, how about going at least part way up the river. And then go home.” But I think that somewhere deep down, Meriwether Lewis knew that he couldn’t make it on his own.

If you look at, at Clark’s maps as, as field exercises in and by themselves, as opposed to looking at them as finished products of, of cartography, you, you see a, a, a beauty in the ability of, of this guy to, to recognize the landscape, to convert what he’s seeing in a horizontal perspective into that vertical map perspective. It, it’s the hardest thing that people do in, in dealing with space

Clark was the the man who had the practicality always to be able to to find a solution, whatever the problem was.

He left St. Louis in July of 1809 to make a trip to Washington to explain to the government that all these chits were legitimate. During the course of that journey he tried to kill himself, was restrained by the crew. Finally got down to today’s Memphis, Tennessee, and set off overland, over the Natchez Trace, to go to Washington with his journals, to make his explanations to the government. And on that trip, at a place called Grinder’s Inn, just across the Mississippi-Tennessee border on the Natchez Trace, he killed himself.

Meriwether Lewis a manic depressive

He was brash, sometimes impulsive. One of the cabinet members warned Jefferson, “Well, watch out. Lewis might try to do some things too brashly, too rashly, and endanger the whole expedition.”

He knew Jefferson’s mind.

Lewis was Thomas Jefferson’s right hand man in the White House.

You never have that sense in reading the journals that that Lewis was a participant in this.

They told him that there might be woolly mammoths wandering in the West. That there were mountains made out of salt. The volcanoes erupting. That there were Indians who had blue eyes and spoke a Welsh language.

Like many Enlightenment people, he wanted to learn more. I mean, he was insatiable for knowledge, and he wanted to know what was out there farther west.

So, on one hand, it sounds as though Tallyrand was right. Jefferson’s interest in the West was really the result of some accidents, some circumstances.

When in fact, those ideas were really very complex.

But it would be bound together by a political idea, the idea of liberty. And he wanted to spread that liberty all the way out to the West Coast and make this one great nation, joined together by democratic principals as expressed in his Northwest Ordinance, which was, I think, one of his greatest of many gifts to the American people.

And they were always dreaming of more land.

And Virginia planters were extraordinarily wasteful people. They would go into, it was almost (tight air?) country that Jefferson grew up in. And they would go into as yet uncultivated areas, gird the trees, plow around them, plant tobacco, after three years, move on to another field, using what they had the most of, labor, slave labor.

Instead, they received and accepted an invitation to send a delegation to Washington D.C., where they might begin trade discussions with President Jefferson

Before departing, the captains negotiated a peace agreement between the Nez Perces and Wishram, a settlement that was celebrated that same evening in music and dance.

“great father.”

Chief Yelleppit enjoyed the prestige of hosting his foreign visitors, yet also sought to trade for the expedition’s goods, especially items like kettles. To establish goodwill with the Corps, Yelleppit awarded Clark with a white horse, and supplied the rest of the expedition with firewood and roasted fish. In exchange, Yelleppit received Clark’s sword, 100 rounds of ammunition and some trade items.

The Indians bargained with him for the blubber, and in exchange for 300 pounds and some oil, the Tillamooks received some trade goods.

Horses would be crucial for such a mountainous trek, and the Corps hoped to acquire some from the Shoshones’ impressive herd of about 700. In the days before Lewis had met the Indians, he had written, “If we do not find [the Shoshones], I fear the successful issue of our voyage will be very doubtful.”

In August 1805, the Lemhi Shoshones were living in the mountains, sustained only by roots, berries and, infrequently, fish and small game. They were preparing for another buffalo-hunting venture to the plains.

The Oto Indians were part of the Southern Sioux tribes who lived along the Missouri River near the present-day border of Missouri and Nebraska. They were buffalo-hunters and farmers who lived in oven-shaped, earth-covered houses grouped into towns.

Twisted Hair and other chiefs met for council with Clark and with Meriwether Lewis, who had by then arrived with the rest of the Corps. Communication, even signaling, was difficult because the Nez Perce spoke a notably different dialect than many of the Indians to the east. The council was reduced to an exchange of gifts, but both groups seemed satisfied.

During the council, the Indians were told they were the “children” of a new “great father” who would provide them with trade and protection in place of their unreliable commerce with the French and the Spanish. It was a speech Lewis would deliver to numerous tribes throughout the journey.

In contrast, relations between the Mandans and the Corps were friendly throughout the duration of the expedition’s stay. The Mandans supplied the Americans with food throughout the winter at their newly constructed home, Fort Mandan, in exchange for a steady stream of trade goods. When food became scarce, members of the Corps accompanied the Mandans on a buffalo hunt. Sheheke and Black Cat, chiefs from Matootonha and Roohaptee, met often with Lewis and Clark, and the Corps participated in a host of Mandan ceremonial rituals. As other tribes unfamiliar with black people had been before, the Mandans were mesmerized by the color of York’s skin, and attributed great spiritual power to him because of it.

Like the Mandans, the Hidatsas were actively involved in trade with their many visitors. Hidatsa farmers grew corn, tobacco, squash and beans, which they exchanged for everything from meat products to horses. Unlike the Mandans, however, the Hidatsas regularly sent war parties westward against the Shoshones and Blackfeet.

The only negative incident between the two groups – the expedition’s theft of a Clatsop canoe – was concealed from the Clatsops.

They informed Lewis and Clark that there was a good amount of elk on the south side of the Columbia, information that influenced the Corps to build Fort Clatsop where they did. When the expedition’s food supplies were running low, the Clatsops informed the Corps that a whale had washed ashore some miles to the south.

During their stay at Fort Clatsop, the Corps depended on the local Indians for food. But the Chinooks and the Clatsops charged what Lewis and Clark considered unreasonable prices, and the captains were unhappy with this practice, along with the thefts. Visits by the Chinooks to Fort Clatsop were limited, and the Indians were not allowed to stay in the fort overnight. Both captains’ journals noted low opinions of the Chinookan customs and appearance.

This relationship had lasted more than 20 years, and during that time, the Blackfeet – armed with guns – had been able to dominate their Nez Perce and Shoshone rivals

The Arikaras were primarily farmers. Their major crops were corn, beans and squash, but they also grew tobacco, watermelon and pumpkins. Some years, when crops did not grow in sufficient numbers, the Arikaras supplemented their food supply by hunting buffalo. Farm fields were owned by family groups, and women did the farming. The women used two simple yet effective tools to do their work: digging sticks fashioned from the shoulder blades of buffalo or deer, and rakes made by fastening reeds to a long handle.

This map traces the Corps of Discovery's historic journey west (in red) and trip home (in blue). Click on any of the eleven states to read excerpts from the Lewis and Clark journals, discover which Native American tribes the Corps of Discovery encountered in that region, and find information about Lewis and Clark bicentennial events and related organizations in that state.

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Ambrose, Stephen E. Undaunted Courage: Meriwether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson, and the Opening of the American West. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996

So the expedition had a limitless line of credit, and rightly so, in Jefferson’s view. He was asking Meriwether Lewis and William Clark not only to chart the new territory of the United States, but the nation's destiny.

He viewed commercial growth in the west as the key to a United States stronghold in the region.

At that time, however, people were skeptical that one nation could govern an entire continent. The distance between the Appalachians and the Mississippi, the limited transportation options, and the unanswered questions about the western land were barriers to westward expansion.

Jefferson and many of his contemporaries were plantation owners. He and other “Virginia gentlemen” ascribed to a distinct lifestyle. On their vast estates, they led lives of refinement and enlightenment, hosting balls and dinners or discussing politics, philosophy and religion.

“[O]ne of the Shawnees a respectable looking Indian offered me three beverskins for my dog with which he appeared much pleased...I prised much for his docility and qualifications generally for my journey and of course there was no bargain.”

Finding little game and exposed to the fierce winter storms blowing in from the ocean on the north shore, the party elected to cross the river, where local Indians advised that deer and elk were plentiful. An actual vote of the members was recorded; it included the vote of a woman, Sacagawea, and a black man, York.

But when York returned to daily life, he again became a slave. He asked Clark for his freedom, or to be hired out near Louisville to be closer to his wife, who had a different owner. At first, Clark refused, but in 1809, he sent York to Kentucky.

As the Corps progressed up the Missouri River, Dorion was commissioned to collect and transport selected chiefs from the Yankton Sioux, Omaha, Oto, and Missouri tribes downstream to visit St. Louis and Washington. These visits were critical in helping President Thomas Jefferson cement and formalize relations with the tribes.

In 1866, he left Auburn with two companions and headed toward new gold discoveries in Montana. Enroute, Jean Baptiste, at the age of 61, died of pneumonia and was buried in a remote, primitive cemetery in the tiny Jordan Valley hamlet of Danner, Oregon. On March 14, 1973, his gravesite was entered into the National Register of Historic Places.

Clark, leading a small detachment that included the Charbonneau family, explored the Yellowstone River during the return trip. On July 25, 1806, they came upon an unusual, free standing sandstone formation on the south shore of the river that Captain Clark named “Pompy’s Tower” after the one-and-a-half year-old Jean Baptiste. Called today, “Pompeys Pillar,” Clark, under a protected, natural over-hang, etched his own name and the July 25 date, his birthday. Clark’s etching, now preserved under an unbreakable glass shield, is considered the only lasting physical evidence that the Corps left on the landscape during the journey. In addition to the pillar, Clark named a nearby stream “Baptiests Creek” in honor of the boy.

Toussaint was a product of the rough and tumble life of a fur trader. He has been maligned by virtually every writer of the expedition, in both fiction and non-fiction alike.. Considering the context of time, place, and social values under which he lived, his unseemly traits have been accentuated and embellished in those writings, influenced by behavioral standards socially enlightened two centuries after the expedition.

The two Charbonneau children, Jean Baptiste and Lisette, were formally entrusted to Clark’s care under a guardianship appointment by a St. Louis Orphan’s Court proceeding, August 11, 1813.

Charbonneau was again temporarily relieving Drouillard at the helm of the white pirogue.

Sacagawea spoke both Shoshone and Hidatsa; Toussaint spoke both Hidatsa and French. The captains, however, did not speak French. To solve this dilemma, the officers called upon Private Francois Labiche, who spoke both French and English. This interpreter chain would require the captains to speak to Labiche in English; he to Toussaint in French; he to Sacagawea in Hidatsa, and she to speak in Shoshone to her tribal people.

His was an experienced woodsman and a productive hunter throughout the mission.

Blacksmithing was a trade he had apparently had learned prior to his enlistment, a craft that served him well during the journey as an assistant to John Shields.

Whitehouse kept a journal which was published in fragramentary form in 1905. It has now been reissued, supplemented with newly found paraphrase text, as Volume 11, of the Journals of the Lewis & Clark Expedition, Gary E. Moulton, Editor (University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln, 1997).

Werner avoided further infractions, and serving satisfactorily but without distinction throughout the expedition.

He is one of those noted as “killed” in Clark's 1825-1828

He is recorded as “killed” on Clark's 1825-1828

March 23, 1806, the explorers departed Fort Clatsop, homeward bound. The captains recorded: “Altho’ we have not fared sumptuously this winter and spring at Fort Clatsop, we have lived quite as comfortably as we had any reason to expect.” Eastward, Shannon was honored through creation of a geographic legacy. when a tributary to the Yellowstone River (Montana) was named “Shannon’s Creek” by Captain Clark.

n actual “election” was held that included the vote of a woman, Sacagawea, and a black man, York. The explorers favored crossing the river to the south side (Oregon), where Indians had informed them, elk and deer were plentiful.

Clark wrote that that Shannon “nearly Starved to Death, he had been 12 [of the 16] days without any thing to eate but Grapes & one Rabit, which he Killed by shooting a piece of hard Stick in place of a ball . . . the man had like to have Starved to death in a land of plenty for the want of Bullitts or something to kill his meat.”

On May 14, 1804, the expedition departed from Camp Dubois. As Captain Clark wrote in his journal: “[S]et out at 4 oClock P.M...and proceeded on under a jentle brease up the Missouri.” the party traveled in their 55 foot long keelboat and two smaller river boats called “pirogues.” Through the long, hot summer the men laboriously worked their way upriver on the first leg of their Pacific bound mission.

George Shannon was born in Pennsylvania in 1787, of Irish-Protestant ancestry. One of the “Nine young men from Kentucky” Captain William Clark enlisted Shannon at Louisville on October 19, 1803, he was a relative of Governor Shannon of Kentucky, and at age 18, was considered mature for his years. Shannon was perhaps the one man on the expedition who either of the captains would have been most likely to meet at home on terms of social equality.

He was killed by Blackfeet Indians near the Three Forks in the same ambush that John Colter narrowly managed to escape.

As he did not perform the labors incident to the summer of 1804, it would be proper to give him the gratuity only of two-thirds as much as is given to others of his rank.”

Upon arrival at the friendly Shoshone villages that were home to Sacagawea in August 1805, Labiche again played a critical role in translating between Indian and American tongues. One of the captains would speak to him in English. He would then translate their remarks into French for Charbonneau, who would then pass them to Sacagawea in Hidatsa. Finally, Sacagawea would translate from Hidatsa into Shoshone

Although Clark noted that “Howard never drinks water,” there is no record of his abusing the enlisted mens’ liquor allotment privileges. Howard was, however, court marshaled for scaling the Fort Mandan stockade wall when returning after hours from a visit to the Mandan Indian village.

He had penchant for spirituous liquor, which together with other army infractions resulted in court marshal penalties that were not of sufficient severity to dismiss him from the party.

Apart from his reputation as one of the expedition’s best fishermen

At the time of his enlistment by Captain William Clark at Clarksville, Indiana Territory, October 26, 1803, he was listed among the “Nine young men from Kentucky.”

Frazer kept a journal and received special permission from the captains to publish it, but the publication never took place and journal is apparently lost. Frazer did publish a prospective, which reads in part: “An accurate description of the Missouri and its several branches; of the mountains separating the Eastern from the Western waters; of Columbia river and the Bay it forms on the Pacific Ocean; of the face of the Country in general; of the several Tribes of Indians on the Missouri and Columbia Rivers; of the vegetable, animal and mineral productions discovered in those Extensive region. This work will be contained in about four Hundred pages Octavo and will be put to the press so soon as there shall be sufficient subscriptions to defray the expenses. Price to subscribers three dollars.”

Two of the most active and enterprising young men who accompanied us. It was their peculiar fate to have been engaged in all the most dangerous and difficult scenes of the voyage, in which they uniformly acquited themselves with much honor.” Both were discharged on October 10, 1806.

The next day, a skirmish took place with a party of Blackfeet Indians in which two Indians perished, the only Indian fatalities of the entire 8,000 mile round trip.

Cruzatte often entertained the explorers with his exuberant fiddle-playing, keeping spirits high during non-work periods..

In addition to possessing geographical knowledge, Cruzatte had spent several winters trading up the Missouri as far as the Platte River. An expert riverman, he was assigned to the crucial position of bowman in the keelboat for his ability to spot the slack water eddies that would assist in advancing the boats upstream.

Private Pierre Cruzatte was of French and Omaha Indian extraction.

It was during this period that he barely escaped being killed by “outrunning the Blackfeet, who had stripped him stark naked, in a race that became an American legend.”

One evening, while on guard duty, Collins tapped a whiskey barrel and proceeded to get drunk with Private Hall. At dawn, they were placed under arrest and tried later that morning. Collins pleaded not guilty to the charge of “getting drunk on his post this morning out of whiskey put under his Charge as a Sentinel and for Suffering Hugh Hall to draw whiskey out of the Said Barrel intended for the party.” He was found guilty and sentenced to one hundred lashes on his bare back, which was carried out later that afternoon.

He walked with little pain afterwards.

Bratton and Alexander Willard, the two members of the Corps trained in blacksmithing and gunsmithing, were crucial to this effort. They set up a forge and bellows that had, until that time, been little used on the journey.

Bratton was involved in a dangerous animal encounter that occurred on May 11, 1805, in what is now northeastern Montana. While walking along the shore, seeking relief from painful boils, he came into close contact with a grizzly bear. Bratton shot the bear dead center. Though wounded, the powerful bear chased Bratton more than half a mile before he was able to hail other Corps members, who were rowing up river. The party was able to trace the bear’s steps by following a trail of blood, whereupon they killed it, preserving its hide and salvaging its meat for rendering into grease for cooking.

ratton, considered by Clark to be one of “the best young woodsmen & Hunters in this part of the Countrey,” was apprenticed as a blacksmith at an early age. He also became an excellent gunsmith. All of these qualities made him a very useful man in the Corps.

Bratton’s family migrated to Kentucky about 1790, qualifying him as one of the “Nine young men from Kentucky.”

After the expedition, Nathaniel Pryor lived and traded among the Osage Indians, especially the Clermont band, in present-day northeast Oklahoma. He married one of them and began a family. He represented the tribe in negotiations with nearby military Forts Smith and Gibson. In 1830, Clark appointed Pryor sub-agent for the Clermont band, but Pryor died the following year on June 10, 1831.

A number of the men, led by Pryor, broke up the fight, a rare instance of a serious interchange between the Americans and Indians throughout the journey.

Considered “a man of character and ability,” Pryor often was assigned responsibilities of army administration, such as appointment as “Presiding” authority at the June 29, 1804, court marshal of Privates John Collins and Hugh Hall, both charged with getting drunk while on duty. The penalties were severe. Collins was sentenced to “receive one hundred Lashes on his bear Back,” and Hall 50 lashes.

On the return trip from the Pacific Ocean, Ordway was given the task of leading a party of 10 men to the head of the Jefferson River, where the Corps had left its canoes before crossing the mountains.

His many responsibilities included issuing provisions, appointing guard duties, keeping all registers and records, and commanding the group during absences of Lewis and Clark. He was also instructed to keep a journal, and his descriptions about the Native American life provide a valuable historical account.

Lewis interceded, and enlisted Gass on January 3, 1804, after Gass had made a personal appeal to him. Gass was not among the original three sergeants appointed at Camp Dubois. He was elected to fill the rank of sergeant by the vote of the men upon the death of Sergeant Charles Floyd on August 20, 1804.

A 100 foot high sandstone masonry obelisk, second in size only to that of the Washington Monument, was dedicated in fitting ceremonies on Memorial Day 1901.

. In the spirit of President Jefferson’s instructions and perhaps drawing from an agrarian background, Floyd judged land quality, including soil conditions, enroute up the Missouri.

Considered a “man of much merit” by Captain Clark, he kept an uninterrupted daily record from May 14, 1804, until August 18, two days prior to his untimely death on August 20. Floyd’s death was the only fatality among expedition members during the two years, four months and nine days of their transcontinental odyssey.

William Clark possessed many physical and mental qualities that were beneficial as a leader of the Corps. Clark was over six feet tall and had a strong and muscular physical frame. The only major exception to his physical health was an obscure digestive ailment from which he suffered. He was quite proficient at eliciting information from native tribes during the expedition, which he recorded in his journal-writing and sketches. With less formal educational training than Lewis, Clark filled his journals with frequent grammatical and spelling errors, and long and confusing language.

On May 7, 1804, Clark, to the agonizing disappointment of both leaders, received his commission. It was for the rank of Second Lieutenant in the Corps of Artillerists. Clark had been addressed as “Captain” by both Lewis and the men, continuously, since Clark had boarded the keelboat, October 26, 1803, and he would remain “Captain” throughout the journey. To legitimize the pseudo rank, an organizational unit designation to which Clark would be attached was necessary when he signed official documents, such as detachment orders, court martial proceedings, “Indian Certificates,” and similar formal records

Clark, the more rugged frontiersman, would supervise the building of their 1803-1804 winter camp.

The mission was to be concurrently a diplomatic one.

Clark “learned how to build forts, draw maps, lead pack trains through enemy country, and fight the Indians on their ground.” On two occasions, Clark was sent to spy on the Spanish, who at the time were exploring and building forts high up the east bank of the Mississippi.

Barton’s Elements of Botany Antoine Simon Le Page du Pratz’s History of Louisiana Richard Kirwan’s Elements of Mineralogy A Practical Introduction to Spherics and Nautical Astronomy The Nautical Almanac and Astronomical Ephemeris a four-volume dictionary a two-volume edition of Linnaeus (the founder of the Latin classification of plants) tables for finding longitude and latitude map of the Great Bend of the Missouri River

All of Clark’s brothers were Revolutionary War veterans, including the famed George Rogers Clark, who commanded Virginia’s troops in the Kentucky region during Jefferson’s term as Virginia governor.

In September 1809, after much difficulty in trying to mediate between the Natives and commercial interests, Lewis fled St. Louis for Washington to plead his case before the new administration. He caught a riverboat to Memphis, during which his feelings of melancholy were enhanced by his continued drinking, and he twice attempted to take his own life. Later, while staying in a roadhouse along the Natchez Trace, Lewis took his own life by shooting himself first in the forehead then in the breast. He was buried next to the tavern, and today the site is marked by a monument that was erected in his honor in 1846.

At the same time, other efforts to publish the accounts of Sergeant Gass and Private Frazer discouraged Lewis, and he never followed through with providing the publishers with the manuscript.

“In obedience to your orders we have penetrated the continent of North America to the Pacific Ocean, and sufficiently explored the interior of the country to affirm with confidence that we have discovered the most practicable rout which does exist across the continent by means of the navigable branches of the Missouri and Columbia Rivers.”

As part of his diplomatic position, Lewis was often the leader in conducting speeches and granted “certificates” to the various Native American tribes

Lewis and the President offered him a permanent commission as captain (jumping him up a full rank), with equal rank to Lewis should he accept the command.

The mission was to be more diplomatic, in that it would require the explorers to communicate the transfer of sovereignty to every Indian tribe and foreign interest occupying the lands within the Missouri watershed. This increase in importance warranted a need for a second-in-command to be named to assist Lewis on the journey.

His father, who had served as a lieutenant in the Continental Army, died in November 1779 after his horse fell into an icy stream while he was homeward bound

LePage held the rank of private, and Charbonneau, together with his Shoshone Indian wife, Sacagawea, who would be burdened with their infant boy, Jean Baptiste, were recruited as interpreters. The Fort Mandan-to-Fort Clatsop personnel were of white, black, and red racial origins, plus mixtures of the three.

Two members originally recruited for the Pacific bound party, Privates Moses Reed and John Newman, were dismissed before the explorers reached Fort Mandan. Reed was convicted for desertion, and Newman for “mutinous acts.” Stiff sentences, including “100 lashes on [Newman’s] bear back” were imposed through trials by court martial proceedings. Due to the remote, wilderness places of their crimes, both remained with the party over the Fort Mandan winter, doing hard labor. They were sent downriver aboard the keelboat in the spring of 1806