History of the expedition under the command of Captains Lewis and Clark, to the sources of the Missouri, thence across the Rocky Mountains and down the river Columbia to the Pacific Ocean. Performed during the years 1804-5-6. By order of the government of the United States. |
LIFE OF CAPTAIN LEWIS. |
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 | History of the expedition under the command of Captains Lewis and Clark, to the sources of the Missouri, thence across the Rocky Mountains and down the river Columbia to the Pacific Ocean. |  |
LIFE OF CAPTAIN LEWIS.
In compliance with the request conveyed in your letter
of May 25, I have endeavoured to obtain, from the relations
and friends of the late governor Lewis, information of such
incidents of his life as might be not unacceptable to those
who may read the narrative of his western discoveries. The
ordinary occurrences of a private life, and those also while
acting in a subordinate sphere in the army, in a time of
peace, are not deemed sufficiently interesting to occupy the
public attention; but a general account of his parentage,
with such smaller incidents as marked his early character
are briefly noted: and to these are added, as being peculiarly
within my own knowledge, whatever related to the public
mission, of which an account is now to be published. The
result of my inquiries and recollections shall now be offered,
to be enlarged or abridged as you may think best; or otherwise
to be used with the materials you may have collected
from other sources.
Meriwether Lewis, late governor of Louisiana, was born
on the eighteenth of August, 1774, near the town of Charlottesville,
in the county of Albemarle, in Virginia, of one
of the distinguished families of that state. John Lewis, one
before the revolution. Another of them, Fielding Lewis,
married a sister of general Washington. His father, William
Lewis, was the youngest of five sons of colonel Robert
Lewis, of Albemarle, the fourth of whom, Charles, was one
of the early patriots who stepped forward in the commencement
of the revolution, and commanded one of the regiments
first raised in Virginia, and placed on continental establishment.
Happily situated at home, with a wife and young
family, and a fortune placing him at ease, he left all to aid
in the liberation of his country from foreign usurpations,
then first unmasking their ultimate end and aim. His good
sense, integrity, bravery, enterprise, and remarkable bodily
powers, marked him as an officer of great promise; but he
unfortunately died early in the revolution. Nicholas Lewis,
the second of his father's brothers, commanded a regiment
of militia in the successful expedition of 1776, against the
Cherokee Indians; who, seduced by the agents of the British
government to take up the hatchet against us, had committed
great havoc on our southern frontier, by murdering and
scalping helpless women and children, according to their
cruel and cowardly principles of warfare. The chastisement
they then received closed the history of their wars, and prepared
them for receiving the elements of civilization, which,
zealously inculcated by the present government of the United
States, have rendered them an industrious, peaceable,
and happy people. This member of the family of Lewises,
whose bravery was so usefully proved on this occasion, was
endeared to all who knew him by his inflexible probity,
courteous disposition, benevolent heart, and engaging modesty
and manners. He was the umpire of all the private
differences of his county—selected always by both parties.
He was also the guardian of Meriwether Lewis, of whom
we are now to speak, and who had lost his father at an early
age. He continued some years under the fostering care of a
tender mother, of the respectable family of Meriwethers,
for enterprise, boldness, and discretion. When only eight
years of age he habitually went out, in the dead of night,
alone with his dogs, into the forest to hunt the raccoon and
opossum, which, seeking their food in the night, can then
only be taken. In this exercise, no season or circumstance
could obstruct his purpose—plunging through the winter's
snows and frozen streams in pursuit of his object. At thirteen
he was put to the Latin school, and continued at that
until eighteen, when he returned to his mother, and entered
on the cares of his farm; having, as well as a younger brother,
been left by his father with a competency for all the
correct and comfortable purposes of temperate life. His talent
for observation, which had led him to an accurate knowledge
of the plants and animals of his own country, would
have distinguished him as a farmer; but at the age of twenty,
yielding to the ardour of youth, and a passion for more
dazzling pursuits, he engaged as a volunteer in the body of
militia which were called out by general Washington, on
occasion of the discontents produced by the excise taxes in
the western parts of the United States; and from that situation
he was removed to the regular service as a lieutenant
in the line. At twenty-three he was promoted to a captaincy;
and, always attracting the first attention where punctuality
and fidelity were requisite, he was appointed paymaster
to his regiment. About this time a circumstance occurred
which, leading to the transaction which is the subject
of this book, will justify a recurrence to its original idea.
While I resided in Paris, John Ledyard, of Connecticut, arrived
there, well known in the United States for energy of
body and mind. He had accompanied captain Cook on his
voyage to the Pacific ocean; and distinguished himself on
that voyage by his intrepidity. Being of a roaming disposition,
he was now panting for some new enterprise. His
immediate object at Paris was to engage a mercantile company
in the fur-trade of the western coast of America, in
land to Kamschatka, cross in some of the Russian vessels to
Nootka Sound, fall down into the latitude of the Missouri,
and penetrate to, and through, that to the United States.
He eagerly seized the idea, and only asked to be assured of
the permission of the Russian government. I interested, in
obtaining that, M. de Simoulin, minister plenipotentiary of
the empress at Paris, but more especially the baron de
Grimm, minister plenipotentiary of Saxe-Gotha, her more
special agent and correspondent there in matters not immediately
diplomatic. Her permission was obtained, and an
assurance of protection while the course of the voyage
should be through her territories. Ledyard set out from
Paris, and arrived at St. Petersburgh after the empress had
left that place to pass the winter, I think, at Moscow. His
finances not permitting him to make unnecessary stay at St.
Petersburgh, he left it with a passport from one of the ministers;
and at two hundred miles from Kamschatka, was
obliged to take up his winter quarters. He was preparing,
in the spring, to resume his journey, when he was arrested
by an officer of the empress, who by this time had changed
her mind, and forbidden his proceeding. He was put into a
close carriage, and conveyed day and night, without ever
stopping, till they reached Poland; where he was set down
and left to himself. The fatigue of this journey broke down
his constitution; and when he returned to Paris his bodily
strength was much impaired. His mind, however, remained
firm, and he after this undertook the journey to Egypt. I
received a letter from him, full of sanguine hopes, dated at
Cairo, the fifteenth of November, 1788, the day before he
was to set out for the head of the Nile; on which day, however,
he ended his career and life: and thus failed the first
attempt to explore the western part of our northern continent.
In 1792, I proposed to the American Philosophical Society
that we should set on foot a subscription to engage some
that is, by ascending the Missouri, crossing the Stony
mountains, and descending the nearest river to the Pacific.
Captain Lewis being then stationed at Charlottesville,
on the recruiting service, warmly solicited me to obtain for
him the execution of that object. I told him it was proposed
that the person engaged should be attended by a single
companion only, to avoid exciting alarm among the Indians.
This did not deter him; but Mr. Andre Michaux, a
professed botanist, author of the Flora Boreali-Americana,
and of the Historie des Chesnes d'Amerique, offering his
services, they were accepted. He received his instructions,
and when he had reached Kentucky in the prosecution of
his journey, he was overtaken by an order from the minister
of France, then at Philadelphia, to relinquish the expedition,
and to pursue elsewhere the botanical inquiries on
which he was employed by that government: and thus failed
the second attempt for exploring that region.
In 1803, the act for establishing trading houses with the
Indian tribes being about to expire, some modifications of it
were recommended to congress by a confidential message of
January 18th, and an extension of its views to the Indians
on the Missouri. In order to prepare the way, the message
proposed the sending an exploring party to trace the Missouri
to its source, to cross the Highlands, and follow the
best water-communication which offered itself from thence
to the Pacific ocean. Congress approved the proposition,
and voted a sum of money for carrying it into execution.
Captain Lewis, who had then been near two years with me
as private secretary, immediately renewed his solicitations
to have the direction of the party. I had now had opportunities
of knowing him intimately. Of courage undaunted;
possessing a firmness and perseverance of purpose which
nothing but impossibilities could divert from its direction;
careful as a father of those committed to his charge, yet
steady in the maintenance of order and discipline; intimate
to the hunting life; guarded, by exact observation of
the vegetables and animals of his own country, against losing
time in the description of objects already possessed; honest,
disinterested, liberal, of sound understanding, and a fidelity
to truth so scrupulous, that whatever he should report would
be as certain as if seen by ourselves; with all these qualifications,
as if selected and implanted by nature in one body
for this express purpose, I could have no hesitation in confiding
the enterprise to him. To fill up the measure desired,
he wanted nothing but a greater familiarity with the technical
language of the natural sciences, and readiness in the
astronomical observations necessary for the geography of
his route. To acquire these he repaired immediately to
Philadelphia, and placed himself under the tutorage of the
distinguished professors of that place, who with a zeal and
emulation, enkindled by an ardent devotion to science, communicated
to him freely the information requisite for the
purposes of the journey. While attending too, at Lancaster,
the fabrication of the arms with which he chose that
his men should be provided, he had the benefit of daily communication
with Mr. Andrew Ellicot, whose experience in
astronomical observation, and practice of it in the woods,
enabled him to apprise captain Lewis of the wants and difficulties
he would encounter, and of the substitutes and resources
offered by a woodland and uninhabited country.
Deeming it necessary he should have some person with
him of known competence to the direction of the enterprise,
in the event of accident to himself, he proposed William
Clarke, brother of general George Rogers Clarke, who was
approved, and, with that view, received a commission of
captain.
In April, 1803, a draught of his instructions was sent to
captain Lewis, and on the twentieth of June they were signed
in the following form:
of infantry of the United States of America:
"Your situation as secretary of the president of the United
States, has made you acquainted with the objects of my
confidential message of January 18, 1803, to the legislature;
you have seen the act they passed, which, though expressed
in general terms, was meant to sanction those objects, and
you are appointed to carry them into execution.
"Instruments for ascertaining, by celestial observations,
the geography of the country through which you will pass,
have been already provided. Light articles for barter and
presents among the Indians, arms for your attendants, say
for from ten to twelve men, boats, tents, and other travelling
apparatus, with ammunition, medicine, surgical instruments,
and provisions, you will have prepared, with such aids
as the secretary at war can yield in his department; and from
him also you will receive authority to engage among our
troops, by voluntary agreement, the number of attendants
abovementioned; over whom you, as their commanding officer,
are invested with all the powers the laws give in such
a ease.
"As your movements, while within the limits of the United
States, will be better directed by occasional communications,
adapted to circumstances as they arise, they will
not be noticed here. What follows will respect your proceedings
after your departure from the United States.
"Your mission has been communicated to the ministers
here from France, Spain, and Great Britain, and through
them to their governments; and such assurances given them
as to its objects, as we trust will satisfy them. The country
of Louisiana having been ceded by Spain to France, the
passport you have from the minister of France, the representative
of the present sovereign of the country, will be a
protection with all its subjects; and that from the minister
of England will entitle you to the friendly aid of any traders
of that allegiance with whom you may happen to meet.
"The object of your mission is to explore the Missouri
river, and such principal streams of it, as, by its course and
communication with the waters of the Pacific ocean, whether
the Columbia, Oregan, Colorado, or any other river,
may offer the most direct and practicable water-communication
across the continent, for the purposes of commerce.
"Beginning at the mouth of the Missouri, you will take
observations of latitude and longitude, at all remarkable
points on the river, and especially at the mouths of rivers,
at rapids, at islands, and other places and objects distinguished
by such natural marks and characters, of a durable
kind, as that they may with certainty be recognised hereafter.
The courses of the river between these points of observation
may be supplied by the compass, the log-line, and by
time, corrected by the observations themselves. The variations
of the needle, too, in different places, should be noticed.
"The interesting points of the portage between the heads
of the Missouri, and of the water offering the best communication
with the Pacific ocean, should also be fixed by observation;
and the course of that water to the ocean, in the
same manner as that of the Missouri.
"Your observations are to be taken with great pains and
accuracy; to be entered distinctly and intelligibly for others
as well as yourself; to comprehend all the elements necessary,
with the aid of the usual tables, to fix the latitude and
longitude of the places at which they were taken; and are to
be rendered to the war-office, for the purpose of having the
calculations made concurrently by proper persons within the
United States. Several copies of these, as well as of your
other notes, should be made at leisure times, and put into
the care of the most trust-worthy of your attendants to
guard, by multiplying them against the accidental losses to
which they will be exposed. A further guard would be, that
one of these copies be on the cuticular membranes of the
paper-birch, as less liable to injury from damp than common
paper.
"The commerce which may be carried on with the people
inhabiting the line you will pursue, renders a knowledge
of those people important. You will therefore endeavour
to make yourself acquainted, as far as a diligent pursuit of
your journey shall admit, with the names of the nations and
their numbers;
"The extent and limits of their possessions;
"Their relations with other tribes or nations;
"Their language, traditions, monuments;
"Their ordinary occupations in agriculture, fishing,
hunting, war, arts, and the implements for these;
"Their food, clothing, and domestic accommodations:
"The diseases prevalent among them, and the remedies
they use;
"Moral and physical circumstances which distinguish
them from the tribes we know;
"Peculiarities in their laws, customs, and dispositions;
"And articles of commerce they may need or furnish,
and to what extent.
"And, considering the interest which every nation has
in extending and strengthening the authority of reason and
justice among the people around them, it will be useful to
acquire what knowledge you can of the state of morality,
religion, and information among them; as it may better enable
those who may endeavour to civilize and instruct them,
to adapt their measures to the existing notions and practices
of those on whom they are to operate.
"Other objects worthy of notice will be—
"The soil and face of the country, its growth and vegetable
productions, especially those not of the United States;
"The animals of the country generally, and especially
those not known in the United States;
"The remains and accounts of any which may be deemed
rare or extinct;
"The mineral productions of every kind, but more particularly
metals, lime-stone, pit-coal, and saltpetre; salines
such circumstances as may indicate their character;
"Volcanic appearances;
"Climate, as characterized by the thermometer, by the
proportion of rainy, cloudy, and clear days; by lightning,
hail, snow, ice; by the access and recess of frost; by the
winds prevailing at different seasons; the dates at which particular
plants put forth, or lose their flower or leaf; times
of appearance of particular birds reptiles or insects.
"Although your route will be along the channel of the
Missouri. yet you will endeavour to inform yourself, by inquiry,
of the character and extent of the country watered
by its branches, and especially on its southern side. The
North river, or Rio Bravo, which runs into the gulf of
Mexico, and the North river, or Rio Colorado, which runs
into the gulf of California, are understood to be the principal
streams heading opposite to the waters of the Missouri,
and running southwardly. Whether the dividing
grounds between the Missouri and them are mountains or
flat lands, what are their distance from the Missouri, the
character of the intermediate country, and the people inhabiting
it, are worthy of particular inquiry. The northern
waters of the Missouri are less to be inquired after, because
they have been ascertained to a considerable degree, and are
still in a course of ascertainment by English traders and
travellers; but if you can learn any thing certain of the most
northern source of the Missisipi, and of its position relatively
to the Lake of the Woods, it will be interesting to us.
Some account too of the path of the Canadian traders from
the Missisipi, at the mouth of the Ouisconsing to where
it strikes the Missouri, and of the soil and rivers in its course,
is desirable.
"In all your intercourse with the natives, treat them in
the most friendly and conciliatory manner which their own
conduct will admit; allay all jealousies as to the object of
your journey; satisfy them of its innocence; make them acquainted
commercial dispositions of the United States; of our wish to
be neighbourly, friendly, and useful to them, and of our dispositions
to a commercial intercourse with them; confer
with them on the points most convenient as mutual emporiums,
and the articles of most desirable interchange for them
and us. If a few of their influential chiefs, within practicable
distance, wish to visit us, arrange such a visit with them,
and furnish them with authority to call on our officers on
their entering the United States, to have them conveyed to
this place at the public expense. If any of them should wish
to have some of their young people brought up with us, and
taught such arts as may be useful to them, we will receive,
instruct, and take care of them. Such a mission, whether
of influential chiefs, or of young people, would give some
security to your own party. Carry with you some matter
of the kine-pox; inform those of them with whom you may
be of its efficacy as a preservative from the small-pox, and
instruct and encourage them in the use of it. This may be
especially done wherever you winter.
"As it is impossible for us to foresee in what manner you
will be received by those people, whether with hospitality
or hostility, so is it impossible to prescribe the exact degree
of perseverance with which you are to pursue your journey.
We value too much the lives of citizens to offer them to probable
destruction. Your numbers will be sufficient to secure
you against the unauthorized opposition of individuals,
or of small parties; but if a superior force, authorized, or
not authorized, by a nation, should be arrayed against your
further passage, and inflexibly determined to arrest it, you
must decline its further pursuit and return. In the loss of
yourselves we should lose also the information you will have
acquired. By returning safely with that, you may enable
us to renew the essay with better calculated means. To your
own discretion, therefore, must be left the degree of danger
you may risk, and the point at which you should decline,
and to bring back your party safe, even if it be with less
information.
"As far up the Missouri as the white settlements extend,
an intercourse will probably be found to exist between
them and the Spanish posts of St. Louis opposite Cahokia,
or St. Genevieve opposite Kaskaskia. From still further
up the river the traders may furnish a conveyance for letters.
Beyond that you may perhaps be able to engage Indians
to bring letters for the government to Cahokia, or
Kaskaskia, on promising that they shall there receive such
special compensation as you shall have stipulated with them.
Avail yourself of these means to communicate to us, at seasonable
intervals, a copy of your journal, notes and observations
of every kind, putting into cypher whatever might
do injury if betrayed.
"Should you reach the Pacific ocean, inform yourself of
the circumstances which may decide whether the furs of
those parts may not be collected as advantageously at the
head of the Missouri (convenient as is supposed to the waters
of the Colorado and Oregan or Columbia) as at Nootka
Sound, or any other point of that coast; and that trade be
consequently conducted through the Missouri and United
States more beneficially than by the circumnavigation now
practised.
"On your arrival on that coast, endeavour to learn if
there be any port within your reach frequented by the sea
vessels of any nation, and to send two of your trusty people
back by sea, in such way as shall appear practicable, with a
copy of your notes; and should you be of opinion that the
return of your party by the way they went will be imminently
dangerous, then ship the whole, and return by sea,
by the way either of Cape Horn, or the Cape of Good Hope,
as you shall be able. As you will be without money, clothes,
or provisions, you must endeavour to use the credit of the
United States to obtain them; for which purpose open letters
the executive of the United States, or any of its officers, in
any part of the world, on which draughts can be disposed
of, and to apply with our recommendations to the consuls,
agents, merchants, or citizens of any nation with which we
have intercourse, assuring them, in our name, that any aids
they may furnish you shall be honourably repaid, and on
demand. Our consuls, Thomas Hewes, at Batavia, in Java,
William Buchanan, in the Isles of France and Bourbon, and
John Elmslie, at the Cape of Good Hope, will be able to
supply your necessities, by draughts on us.
"Should you find it safe to return by the way you go,
after sending two of your party round by sea, or with your
whole party, if no conveyance by sea can be found, do so;
making such observations on your return as may serve to
supply, correct, or confirm those made on your outward
journey.
"On reentering the United States and reaching a place
of safety, discharge any of your attendants who may desire
and deserve it, procuring for them immediate payment of all
arrears of pay and clothing which may have incurred since
their departure, and assure them that they shall be recommended
to the liberality of the legislature for the grant of
a soldier's portion of land each, as proposed in my message
to congress, and repair yourself, with your papers, to the
seat of government.
"To provide, on the accident of your death, against anarchy,
dispersion, and the consequent danger to your party,
and total failure of the enterprise, you are hereby authorized,
by any instrument signed and written in your own
hand, to name the person among them who shall succeed to
the command on your decease, and by like instruments to
change the nomination, from time to time, as further experience
of the characters accompanying you shall point out
superior fitness; and all the powers and authorities given to
yourself are, in the event of your death, transferred to, and
and his successors, in like manner to name each his successor,
who, on the death of his predecessor, shall be invested
with all the powers and authorities given to yourself. Given
under my hand at the city of Washington, this twentieth
day of June, 1803.
"President of the United States of America."
While these things were going on here, the country of
Louisiana, lately ceded by Spain to France, had been the
subject of negociation at Paris between us and this last
power; and had actually been transferred to us by treaties
executed at Paris on the thirtieth of April. This information,
received about the first day of July, increased infinitely
the interest we felt in the expedition, and lessened the
apprehensions of interruption from other powers. Every
thing in this quarter being now prepared, captain Lewis left
Washington on the fifth of July, 1803, and proceeded to
Pittsburg, where other articles had been ordered to be provided
for him. The men too were to be selected from the
military stations on the Ohio. Delays of preparation, difficulties
of navigation down the Ohio, and other untoward
obstructions, retarded his arrival at Cahokia until the season
was so far advanced as to render it prudent to suspend
his entering the Missouri before the ice should break up in
the succeeding spring.
From this time his journal, now published, will give the
history of his journey to and from the Pacific ocean, until
his return to St. Louis on the twenty-third of September,
1806. Never did a similar event excite more joy through
the United States. The humblest of its citizens had taken
a lively interest in the issue of this journey, and looked forward
with impatience for the information it would furnish.
Their anxieties too for the safety of the corps had been kept
from time to time on uncertain authorities, and uncontradicted
by letters, or other direct information, from the time
they had left the Mandan towns, on their ascent up the river
in April of the preceding year, 1805, until their actual
return to St. Louis.
It was the middle of February, 1807, before captain Lewis,
with his companion captain Clarke, reached the city of
Washington, where congress was then in session. That
body granted to the two chiefs and their followers the donation
of lands which they had been encouraged to expect
in reward of their toil and dangers. Captain Lewis was
soon after appointed governor of Louisiana, and captain
Clarke a general of its militia, and agent of the United
States for Indian affairs in that department.
A considerable time intervened before the governor's
arrival at St. Louis. He found the territory distracted by
feuds and contentions among the officers of the government,
and the people themselves divided by these into factions and
parties. He determined at once to take no side with either;
but to use every endeavour to conciliate and harmonize them.
The even-handed justice he administered to all soon established
a respect for his person and authority; and perseverance
and time wore down animosities, and reunited the
citizens again into one family.
Governor Lewis had, from early life, been subject to hypochondriac
affections. It was a constitutional disposition
in all the nearer branches of the family of his name, and
was more immediately inherited by him from his father.
They had not, however, been so strong as to give uneasiness
to his family. While he lived with me in Washington I
observed at times sensible depressions of mind: but knowing
their constitutional source, I estimated their course by what
I had seen in the family. During his western expedition,
the constant exertion which that required of all the faculties
after his establishment at St. Louis in sedentary occupations,
they returned upon him with redoubled vigour, and
began seriously to alarm his friends. He was in a paroxysm
of one of these, when his affairs rendered it necessary for
him to go to Washington. He proceeded to the Chickasaw
Bluffs, where he arrived on the sixteenth of September,
1809, with a view of continuing his journey thence by water.
Mr. Neely, agent of the United States with the Chickasaw
Indians, arriving there two days after, found him extremely
indisposed, and betraying at times some symptoms of a derangement
of mind. The rumours of a war with England,
and apprehensions that he might lose the papers he was
bringing on, among which were the vouchers of his public
accounts, and the journals and papers of his western expedition,
induced him here to change his mind, and to take
his course by land through the Chickasaw country. Although
he appeared somewhat relieved, Mr. Neely kindly
determined to accompany and watch over him. Unfortunately,
at their encampment, after having passed the Tennessee
one day's journey, they lost two horses, which obliging
Mr. Neely to halt for their recovery, the governor proceeded,
under a promise to wait for him at the house of the
first white inhabitant on his road. He stopped at the house
of a Mr. Grinder, who not being at home, his wife, alarmed
at the symptoms of derangement she discovered, gave him
up the house and retired to rest herself in an out-house, the
governor's and Neely's servants lodging in another. About
three o'clock in the night he did the deed which plunged his
friends into affliction, and deprived his country of one of her
most valued citizens, whose valour and intelligence would
have been now employed in avenging the wrongs of his country,
and in emulating by land the splendid deeds which have
honoured her arms on the ocean. It lost too to the nation
the benefit of receiving from his own hand the narrative
to extend for them the boundaries of science, and
to present to their knowledge that vast and fertile country,
which their sons are destined to fill with arts, with science,
with freedom and happiness.
To this melancholy close of the life of one, whom posterity
will declare not to have lived in vain, I have only to add,
that all the facts I have stated are either known to myself,
or communicated by his family or others, for whose truth I
have no hesitation to make myself responsible; and I conclude
with tendering you the assurances of my respect and
consideration.
| History of the expedition under the command of Captains Lewis and Clark, to the sources of the Missouri, thence across the Rocky Mountains and down the river Columbia to the Pacific Ocean. | |