WILLIAM CLARK
Early in the course of these preparations Lewis determined,
with Jefferson's consent, to secure a companion who should
share his
honors and responsibilities. His choice fell upon
Captain William Clark,
four years his senior, but who had
been the friend of his boyhood in
Virginia, and his comrade in
Wayne's Indian campaigns.
A notable family
The Clarks, a
large and now widely-ramified family group,
had long lived in Albermarle
County, Virginia, near the seat
of the Lewis family, and here were born
the two
oldest children of John Clark and his wife Ann
Rogers
—Jonathan (1750–1816) and George Rogers
(1752–1818). In
1754 John Clark removed to the neighborhood
of Charlottesville, Caroline County, where William,
their ninth child, was born August 1st, 1770. This branch of
the
family—preceded several years by George Rogers Clark,
who had
become famous because of his campaign against Kaskaskia
and Vincennes—moved to Kentucky
in 1784, their
estate being Mulberry Hill, on Beargrass Creek, near
Louisville.
The Clark home was the centre of hospitality and sociability
for
the region roundabout. It was frequented not only by sturdy
pioneers of the Kentucky movement, with their tales of Indian
warfare, and other perils and hardships of the early settlements;
but the second generation of Kentucky emigrants also found
here a
welcome—gentlemen and lawyers of the new settlements,
Revolutionary soldiers seeking
homes in the growing
West, men of enterprise, culture, and promise,
permanent
founders of a new civilization.
Military services
Among them all,
young "Billy" was a marked favorite. In
his nineteenth year he marched in
the ranks of Colonel John
Hardin's expedition against the tribesmen north
of
the Ohio River; the following year he was despatched
upon a
mission to the Creeks and Cherokees; and
in 1791 was ensign and acting
lieutenant on the Wabash Indian
expedition, under General Scott. "Your
brother William,"
writes one of the family friends,[12]
"is gone out as
a cadet with
Genl. Scott on the Expedition. He is a
youth of solid and
promising parts, and as brave as Cæsar." Two
years later
(1793) we find him commissioned as a first lieutenant in the
Fourth sub-legion, in General Anthony Wayne's Western
Army.
After being engaged as an engineer in constructing forts
along the line of advance, he was, late in the season, sent upon
a
perilous expedition up the Wabash as far as Vincennes,
during which his
progress was for several weeks blocked by
ice. The next year (1794) we
read of him as being in charge
of a train of seven hundred pack-horses and
eighty men, transporting
supplies to Fort
Greenville. Attacked by the savages,
he lost five men, but gallantly
repulsed the enemy and won
praise from Wayne, under whom he later (August
20) fought
in the Battle of Fallen Timbers. Twice (1795) he was entrusted
by his general with important
commissions to the
Spaniards, an account of which is to be found in the
Spanish
Papers of the Draper Manuscripts, in the Wisconsin Historical
Library. It is said that no officer impressed the Spanish with
a
more wholesome respect than young Lieutenant William
Clark. His four
years' service in the Western Army had
familiarized him with the methods
of handling large bodies of
men under military discipline, and given him
opportunity to
exercise the courage and resource needed to deal with
savage
foes; and it put him in touch with the prominent men of his
time. It had also—an important consideration, in view of
his
subsequent career—once more thrown him into the company
of
Meriwether Lewis, now a fellow campaigner, and upon
at least one
expedition he was Lewis's superior officer.
[13]
Retiring
from the army in 1796—apparently with the
brevet rank of captain,
for thereafter he was given that title—
William Clark lived quietly
at home with his family, chiefly
occupied in seeking to adjust the tangled
affairs of his brother,
George Rogers, who had been sued by many persons
for supplies
furnished in the Illinois campaigns. In the attempted
settlement
of these claims, William not only gave his time and effort, but
sacrificed the small estate he had himself accumulated.
Lewis's invitation
Such was the
situation of his affairs when, on the sixteenth
of July, 1803, he received
a letter from his friend Captain
Lewis[14]
—dated
Washington, June 19th—in which the latter,
after giving confidential information of the projected
expedition
to the Pacific, proposed that
Clark "participate with me
in it's fatiegues, it's dangers and it's
honor," assuring
him that "there is no man on earth with whom I
should feel equal pleasure in sharing them as with
yourself." Clark
promptly responded to this cordial offer,
saying, "as my situation in life
will admit of my absence the
length of time necessary to accomplish such
an undertaking, I
will cheerfully join you."
It will be seen that
Lewis's letter, owing to the slowness of
Western mails, was nearly a month
in reaching Clark. Failing
to hear from his
comrade as soon as he had expected,
and fearing that he could not go,
Lewis opened tentative
negotiations with Lieutenant Moses Hooke of his own
regiment
(the First Infantry), who was then in
charge of military
stores at Pittsburg. In a letter to Jefferson (July 26,
1803)[15]
Lewis describes him as a young man "about 26 years of age,
endowed
with a good constitution, possessing a sensible well
informed mind, is
industrious, prudent and persevering and
withall intrepid and
enterprising." A few days later, however
(August 3), Lewis, then at
Pittsburg, anxiously waiting for his
keel-boat to be completed, received
Clark's acceptance, and
promptly expressed to the latter that he felt
"much gratifyed
with your decision; for I could neither hope, wish, or
expect
from a union with any man on earth, more perfect support or
further aid in the discharge of the several duties of the mission,
than that, which I am confident I shall derive from being
associated
with yourself."
