Original journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, 1804-1806 printed from the original manuscripts in the library of the American Philosophical Society and by direction of its committee on historical documents |
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Journalizing methods |
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| VII. |
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| VIII. |
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 | Original journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, 1804-1806 |  |
Journalizing methods
It was the daily custom of
the captains to make rough notes,
with rude outline maps, plans, and
miscellaneous sketches,[24]
in
When encamped for a protracted period, these were developed
into more formal records. In this development,
each often borrowed freely from the other's notes—
Lewis, the better scholar of the two, generally rewriting
in his own manner the material obtained from Clark; while
the latter not infrequently copied Lewis practically verbatim,
but with his own phonetic spelling. Upon returning to St.
Louis, these individual journals were for the most part transcribed
by their authors into neat blank books—bound in
red morocco and gilt-edged—with the thought of preparing
them for early publication. After this process, the original
field-books must have been cast aside and in large measure
destroyed; for but one of these[25] is now known to exist.
There have come down to us, however, several note-books
which apparently were written up in the camps.
Collectively, these journals of
the captains cover each and
every day the expedition was out—
largely a double record,
although there are occasional periods when we
have the
journal of but one of them.[26]
The manuscripts
well exemplify
the habits and characteristics of the two men—
Clark, the
more experienced frontiersman of the two, expressing himself
often amusingly eccentric orthography; Lewis, in more correct
diction, inclined to expatiate on details, especially with regard
to Indians and natural history, and frequently revealing a
poetic temperament and a considerable fund of humor.
Clark was the
draughtsman of the party. His maps, sketches of birds, fishes,
leaves,
etc., in the note-books of both Lewis and himself, and on separate sheets of
paper (for which latter, see our atlas volume), are worthy of an engineer
with better
training than he had received. They are all carefully
reproduced in the prevent work.
We have much more of Clark in these journals, than of Lewis.
The lacunæ in
the Lewis manuscripts, as compared with the dates
covered by Clark, are as follows:
May 14, 16–19, 21-September 15; September 18-December 31 = 228
days.January 1–February 2; February 14–April 6; August 27–September 8;
September 11–17, 23-November 28; December 1–31 = 168 days.August 13-September 26 = 45 days. But during much of this period
Lewis was disabled from a wound, and therefore unable to write.
1804
1805
1806
The only apparent gap in
the Clark journals, is the brief period from February 3
to 12 (inclusive),
1805 = 10 days. But the omission is only nominal, for under
February 13th
he gives a summary of events during this period of absence; see vol. i,
p.
253, note, and pp. 259–261. Actually, we have from Clark a perfect record
of
his movements day by day throughout the expedition.
Whether the
missing Lewis entries (441 days, as compared with Clark; but we
may
eliminate 41 for the period when he was disabled, thus leaving 400) are still in
existence or not, is unknown to the present writer. There appears to be no
doubt
that he regularly kept his diary. It is possible that the missing
notes, in whole or in
part, were with him when he met his death in
Tennessee, and were either accidentally
or purposely destroyed by
others.
| Original journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, 1804-1806 | |