THE EXPEDITION
The Louisiana Purchase
It will be remembered that when Jefferson instituted the
ambitious enterprise, the original records of which we
are here
publishing for the first time, the trans-Mississippi
was
the property of France, although still in the
hands of Spain. This fact
gave rise to the secrecy
with which the preparations were invested. But
upon the
second of May, 1803,
[16]
the American
commissioners in Paris
had signed a treaty with Napoleon by which
Louisiana was
sold to the United States.
[17]
Lewis's
invitation to Clark shows
that some inkling of this unexpected and
startling negotiation
had reached Jefferson by that date (June 19); but
the official
news thereof did not arrive in Washington until the first
days
in July. The circumstance in no way altered Lewis's arrangements,
save that it was no longer
necessary to maintain that
privacy as to the purpose of the exploration,
which had been
hitherto enjoined upon him.
Personelle
At River Dubois Camp
Organized as a military detachment, under the orders of
the
secretary of war—although President Jefferson remained
the moving
spirit—the party, when complete, consisted
of twenty-nine persons officially recognized on
the rolls; with
French and half-breed interpreters, Clark's
negro slave York, and the
Indian woman Sacajawea as super-numeraries
—forty-five in all, including the two captains.[18]
Lewis
—who had bidden good-bye to his friends at the White
House on the
morning of July 5th—embarked at Pittsburg
on the thirty-first of
August; but owing to shallows in the
Ohio River, and the necessity of
stopping at some of the forts
to obtain volunteers from their garrisons,
his passage was slow,
At Louisville he picked up Clark and several young
Kentucky
recruits. December was a third spent, before the
expedition
went into winter camp at River Dubois,
in Illinois, opposite the mouth of
the Missouri,
where the men were rigorously drilled both as soldiers and
frontiersmen. It had been Lewis's intention to camp at some
distance
up the Missouri; but the lateness of the season, the
technical objections
raised by Spanish officials, and Jefferson's
characteristic
suggestion[19]
that a camp on the east side, in
American territory, would save the
appropriation by allowing
the men
to draw their winter's rations from the War Department,
induced him to stop at River
Dubois.
The journals show that the winter was a busy one—Clark
being engaged at camp for the most part, in organizing and
disciplining the party, and accumulating stores and boats for
the
long up-river journey; while Lewis was often in St. Louis,
consulting with
French fur-traders and others who knew the
country. On March 9th and 10th,
1804, we find him the chief
official witness at the formal transfer of
Upper Louisiana—
at first from Spain to France, and then from
France to the
United States.
The first season
The expedition started from Camp
River Dubois on May
14th, "in the presence of many of the neighboring
inhabitants,
and proceeded on under a jentle brease up the Missouri."
The long and painful up-stream journey
during the summer and autumn of 1804 was followed
by a winter spent in log huts enclosed by
a stout palisade,
among the Mandan Indians not far from the present
Bismarck,
North Dakota. Making a fresh start from Fort Mandan,
upon
the seventh of April, 1805, there ensued a toilsome experience
all the way to the headspring of
Jefferson Fork of the
Missouri, which was reached August 12th. Then came
the
crossing of the rugged, snow-clad Bitterroot Mountains, which
here constitute the divide, and the descent of the foaming
rapids
and cataracts of the Columbia, until the Pacific Coast
was reached in
November. By Christmas the party were safely
housed within Fort Clatsop, a
rude structure—like Fort
Mandan, log huts within a palisade
covering a plot of ground
some fifty feet square.[20]
At Fort Clatsop
Another dreary
but busy winter was spent in studying the
natives and making other
scientific observations in the neighborhood,
and filling their large note-books with these
interesting data. This
was not the season, however,
for meeting any of the numerous trading
mariners
who frequented the Northwest Coast; thus the letter of credit
which Jefferson had given to Lewis proved of no avail, and
for
several months the explorers were obliged to exercise great
ingenuity in making trinkets with which to obtain
supplies from
the natives, who exhibited an avaricious
temperament.
The return
Leaving Fort Clatsop the twenty-third of March, 1806, the
return of the expedition was delayed by heavy snows on the
mountainous divide, and much hardship was experienced.
The actual crossing of the range
commenced
June 15th. By the first of July the party had arrived at
Travellers' Rest Creek, where the native trails converged, and
here
they divided into two sections—Lewis's party going
direct to the
Falls of the Missouri, and afterwards exploring
Maria's River with a view
to ascertaining its availability as a
fur-trade route to the north; Clark
and his contingent proceeding
to the head of
navigation of the year before, and then
crossing over to the Yellowstone
and descending that stream
to its junction with the Missouri. Parting
company on the
third of July, it was the twelfth of August before the two
branches of the expedition reunited on the Missouri, several
days
below the mouth of the Yellowstone. Their final happy
arrival at St.
Louis, on the twenty-third of September, after an
absence of two years,
four months, and nine days, is one of the
familiar events in American
history.
