The first news
In February, 1806, when the expedition was upon the
Pacific
coast, President Jefferson sent to Congress a message
enclosing, among
other matters, a letter from Lewis,
dated at Fort Mandan in the previous
April, just as
the explorers were leaving for the upper country,[27]
at that
point the party had passed their first winter. This
communication,
describing the experiences of the expedition
as far as Fort Mandan, was
accompanied by brief reports of
explorations on the Red and Washita rivers
by Dr. Sibley,
Dr. Hunter, and William C. Dunbar, together with statistics
of the Western tribes and other data of the kind; the illassorted
whole being promptly printed as a
public document.[28]
Based upon this fragmentary publication there
soon sprung
up, both in England and America, a long list of popular corn-pilations
telling the story of the Lewis
and Clark expedition
during its first year, expanded with miscellaneous
information
about the Western Indians, picked up here and there—
some
of it singularly inaccurate.[29]
