Specific instructions explain how to record latitude and longitude and how to make other useful measurements. These instructions recall earlier ones Jefferson had given John Ledyard and André Michaux. Jefferson not only emphasized accuracy but also stressed the importance of making multiple copies of the records for safekeeping. Lewis should record such “objects worthy of notice” as animals, climate, fossils, minerals, and soil. Jefferson could have retitled “Instructions to Lewis” as “Hints to Americans Traveling in North America.”
Jefferson wanted Lewis to gather ethnological data, too, so he consulted Benjamin Rush, who gave him a detailed set of guidelines. Jefferson simplified Rush’s guidelines considerably. Whereas Rush was more a man of pure science, Jefferson was a scientist who kept an eye toward practical matters. Rush—“always for going to the bottom of things”—requested information that would be difficult to obtain. He wanted to know at what age Indian women begin and cease to menstruate. He also wanted Lewis to take the pulse of children, adults, and elders morning, noon, and night.16 In “Instructions,” Jefferson alternately emphasized gathering information on disease prevention and cures. He wanted Lewis to gather as much information as possible about Indian languages and asked him to compile basic vocabulary lists.
He mentioned the native inhabitants again as he emphasized the peaceful nature of the expedition:
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 with the position, extent, character, peaceable and 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 points most convenient as mutual emporiums, and the articles of most desirable interchange for them and us.17
Stressing the importance of avoiding unnecessary risk, Jefferson explained, “We value too much the lives of citizens to offer them to probable destruction.” If confronted by superior forces, Lewis and his men should return to safety instead of engaging them in combat. Their safety and the preservation of their new information should be paramount: “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, only saying, we wish you to err on the side of your safety, and to bring back your party safe, even if it be with less information.”18
“Instructions” also suggests what Lewis should do upon reaching the Pacific. Ideally, the expedition should return overland. If possible, a few men should take a copy of a complete set of records and return by water. If an overland return journey proves impossible, then Lewis should get a passing ship to take him and his party wherever it happens to be going. Jefferson wrote:
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 purposes open letters of credit shall be furnished you, authorizing you to draw on 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.19
“Instructions to Lewis” is Jefferson’s “Passage to India.” His meticulous preparations are impressive, but his imaginative vision is stunning. He not only saw Lewis and his party crossing the continent, but also foresaw the possibility of them sailing around the world, turning their continental journey into a round-the-world excursion. The United States already had men stationed at key points around the circumference of the globe. Crossing North America and sailing from the Pacific Coast, the intrepid American could connect the world together.
Jefferson addressed “Instructions” solely to Lewis because Clark had yet to join the expedition. Not until after Jefferson wrote these instructions did Lewis invite William Clark to join as co-leader. Lewis knew Clark well and recognized his leadership skills. The two had served together under Anthony Wayne in the Battle of Fallen Timbers. Some years older than Lewis, Clark had more wilderness experience. The two men complemented one another and, needless to say, proved a successful team.20
When Jefferson presented the set of instructions to Lewis, he was unaware that the United States had officially acquired Louisiana. He received the news the first week of July. The purchase of Louisiana from France, as he explained in “Life of Captain Lewis,” “increased infinitely the interest we felt in the expedition, and lessened the apprehensions of interruption from other powers.”21
Jefferson officially announced the cession of Louisiana on July 4, 1803. Samuel Harrison Smith, who attended the Independence Day festivities at the White House, reported the celebration to his wife, who was out of town. Concerning the Louisiana Purchase, Smith wrote, “This mighty event forms an era in our history, and of itself must render the administration of Jefferson immortal.” The military welcomed the dawn with an eighteen-gun salute. At noon, company gathered at the President’s House. Smith, who had attended Jefferson’s previous Independence Day celebrations, found this one the best yet: “It was more numerous than I have before marked it, enlivened too by the presence of between 40 and 50 ladies clothed in their best attire, cakes, punch, wine &c in profusion.”22
“Life of Captain Lewis” says nothing about the holiday celebrations. Jefferson did mention that Lewis did not leave the city until July 5, implying that Lewis intentionally stayed to celebrate Independence Day. The implication reinforces Lewis’s patriotism and underscores the Lewis and Clark Expedition as a nationalistic venture.
Writing his biography of Lewis as a preface to History of the Expedition, Jefferson was deprived of retelling the story of the expedition itself. Once he set Lewis and Clark on their journey across the continent, he could do no more at this point in his story than introduce the narrative that follows.
“Life of Captain Lewis” does not mention the communications Jefferson received from Lewis and Clark during their expedition, but they exchanged multiple letters through the summer and into the fall of 1803, as Lewis and Clark made their way to St. Louis. During this period, Jefferson was busy gathering information about the huge new territory the United States had acquired. He assembled the various accounts of Louisiana into a form suitable for both Congress and the increasingly curious reading public. His distillation of these various accounts appeared as a pamphlet titled An Account of Louisiana, being an Abstract of Documents, in the Office of the Department of State, and of the Treasury. A largely unadorned set of facts, Jefferson’s Account of Louisiana is punctuated by colorful details. Some indicate his gullibility; others, his prescience. All serve to bring the land of Louisiana alive for his readers. His admiration of the explorers is obvious, his understanding of the potential of Louisiana’s resources boundless, and his recognition of its natural wonders both beautiful and awesome. Consider what he had to say about the following topics:
On communication in Louisiana:
Many of the present establishments are separated from each other by immense and trackless deserts, having no communication with each other by land, except now and then a solitary instance of its being attempted by hunters, who have to swim rivers, expose themselves to the inclemency of the weather, and carry their provisions on their backs for a time, proportioned to the length of their journey. This is particularly the case on the west of the Mississippi, where the communication is kept up only by water between the capital and the distant settlem
ents; three months being required to convey intelligence from the one to the other by the Mississippi.
On the west side of the Mississippi in upper Louisiana:
It is elevated and healthy, and well watered with a variety of large, rapid streams, calculated for mills and other water-works…. Some of the heights exhibit a scene truly picturesque. They rise to a height of at least three hundred feet, faced with perpendicular lime and free-stone, carved into various shapes and figures by the hand of nature, and afford the appearance of a multitude of antique towers.
On Louisiana as a source of salt:
There exists, about one thousand miles up the Missouri, and not far from that river, a salt mountain…. This mountain is said to be one hundred and eighty miles long, and forty-five in width, composed of solid rock salt, without any trees, or even shrubs on it.
On the effects of hurricanes in lower Louisiana:
The whole lower part of the country … is subject to overflowing in hurricanes, either by the recoiling of the river, or reflux from the sea on each side; and, on more than one occasion, it has been covered from the depth of two to ten feet, according to the descent of the river, whereby many lives were lost, horses and cattle swept away, and a scene of destruction laid…. These hurricanes have generally been felt in the month of August. Their greatest fury lasts about twelve hours. They commence in the southeast, veer about to all points of the compass, are felt most severely below, and seldom extend more than a few leagues above New Orleans. In their whole course they are marked with ruin and desolation.23
Jefferson presented this information to Congress on November 14, 1803. Two days later, he sent a copy of An Account of Louisiana to Lewis. In the cover letter accompanying this pamphlet, Jefferson expressed concern about how far Lewis and Clark intended to go before winter. He received no response. In January 1804, he wrote two follow-up letters, asking their whereabouts and informing Lewis that he had been elected to the American Philosophical Society, a prestigious honor designed to secure for the Society some of the curiosities the explorers were accumulating.
Lewis and Clark welcomed the Indians they encountered to travel east to Washington to meet President Jefferson. Several accepted the offer. On Wednesday, July 11, 1804, White Hairs, a principal chief of the Great Osages, arrived at the head of a delegation of twelve men and two boys. Jefferson was thoroughly impressed by their stature and their demeanor. He conveyed his impressions to members of his cabinet. He told Treasury Secretary Albert Gallatin they were “certainly the most gigantic men we have ever seen.” To Navy Secretary Robert Smith he called them “the finest men we have ever seen.” Jefferson informally welcomed them the next day and presented a formal welcome speech a few days later.24
His formal welcome reveals his mastery of the rhetoric of Indian diplomacy. Instead of using the typical, and increasingly clichéd, language of the Indian treaty—burying the hatchet, brightening the chain—Jefferson structured his address using the metaphor of fatherhood. President Jefferson presents himself as the Great Father to his children the Osage. He begins his address with the words “My children,” which he repeats at the start of his next three paragraphs. He expresses hope for friendship and commiserates with the Osages’ recent tragedy, a massacre at the hands of the Sauk:
My children. I sincerely weep with you over the graves of your chiefs and friends, who fell by the hands of their enemies lately descending the Osage river. Had they been prisoners, and living, we would have recovered them: but no voice can awake the dead; no power undo what is done. On this side the Missisipi where our government has been long established, and our authority organised our friends visiting us are safe. We hope it will not be long before our voice will be heard and our arm respected, by those who mediate to injure our friends, on the other side of that river.25
Jefferson’s use of the first person plural reinforces the fact that he is speaking for the entire nation. His message depicts the United States as the Indians’ protector and avenger. Recognizing the importance of Indian oral tradition, Jefferson made the voice a prominent motif in this address. The act of enforcing the law of the land is a matter of making others hear the voice of the United States.
While maintaining the fatherhood metaphor, Jefferson also introduced the notion of brotherhood. Explaining what the Louisiana Purchase means to them, he stated:
My children. By late arrangements with France and Spain, we now take their place as your neighbors, friends and fathers: and we hope you will have no cause to regret the change. It is so long since our forefathers came from beyond the great water, that we have lost the memory of it, and seem to have grown out of this land, as you have done. Never more will you have occasion to change your fathers. We are all now of one family, born in the same land, and bound to live as brothers; and the strangers from beyond the great water are gone from among us.26
Despite the metaphors, despite the hierarchical relationship Jefferson establishes, this address has a frankness that is refreshing. Two centuries had passed since the first permanent English settlement was established. Several generations of Americans now knew no other home. Born in America, they were as much a part of the land as were the Indians.
The day Chief White Hairs arrived in Washington, July 11, another momentous event was taking place at Weehawken, New Jersey, where Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton met to fight a duel. This conflict had been brewing for a long time. The two had been political rivals since the late 1780s, and Burr had frequently been the object of Hamilton’s wrath, both in public and in private. As vice president, Burr had antagonized the Republican Party, which replaced him with George Clinton as vice presidential candidate in the 1804 national election. Burr ran for governor of New York but was roundly defeated. Meanwhile, Hamilton’s incessant attacks on Burr showed no sign of surcease. When Hamilton refused to take back the derogatory comments he made during the New York governor’s race, Burr demanded satisfaction. Hamilton accepted the challenge.
Burr fired first, sending a ball through Hamilton’s torso. As Hamilton fell to the ground, he fired wildly. Once the smoke cleared, Burr remained standing, but Hamilton was on the ground with the ball lodged in his spine. He died the next day. Many Americans considered Burr a cold-blooded murderer.27 His adventures in the West would menace Jefferson during his second term as president.28
In his address to Chief White Hairs, Jefferson depicted the United States as a land of harmony, where truth and justice reigned. The reality was somewhat different. A place where the nation’s second highest officer used physical violence to avenge a personal wrong hardly seems like an exemplar of modern civilization. Generally speaking, Jefferson considered the duel a barbarous way to settle a dispute. But in the story of his second term in office, violence or the threat of violence forms a prominent leitmotif.
The fall of 1804 Jefferson was elected to his second term—the first landslide victory in presidential history. George Clinton was chosen vice president. The winter he spent preparing for his second term as president, Lewis and Clark spent at Fort Mandan. Once the Missouri melted the following spring, they sent their barge back. Accompanying the numerous specimens they had gathered, Lewis sent a detailed letter describing their progress and a copy of Clark’s journal.
Jefferson took the information from Lewis and Clark, combined it with information from explorers he had sent to other parts of North America, and compiled Message from the President of the United States Communicating Discoveries Made in Exploring the Missouri, Red River, and Washita, by Captains Lewis and Clark, Doctor Sibley, and Mr. Dunbar, which he presented to Congress on February 19, 1806. He heard nothing more from the expedition for several months.
In June 1806, Jefferson received some sad news about George Wythe. The previous year his grandnephew George Wythe Sweeney, a notorious gambler, had stolen several books from Wythe’s library and tried to sell them at public auction. After that scheme failed, he forged his granduncle’s name on a half dozen checks drawn on the Bank of Virgin
ia. Desperate for money, Sweeney devised an even more nefarious scheme: to murder his granduncle to receive his inheritance. On May 25, 1806, he put a huge quantity of arsenic in Wythe’s morning coffee. Michael, a house servant, also drank some of the coffee. Both became violently ill, experiencing bouts of uncontrollable vomiting and diarrhea. Michael died first. The autopsy determined that he had been poisoned. There was only one suspect.
Wythe lived long enough to add a codicil to his will, disinheriting his grandnephew.
“Let me die righteous,” he said on Friday, June 6. Wythe died two days later on Sunday, the eighth.29
He bequeathed his scientific instruments and his library to Jefferson. As might be surmised by Wythe’s professional and scholarly interests, his library was filled with law books and annotated editions of Greek and Latin classics. There were a number of titles Jefferson already had in his library, especially among his law books. He sold or gave away some of these duplicates. For example, he received from Wythe’s estate a copy of the 1738 English edition of Grotius’s Rights of War and Peace, with annotations by the French jurist Jean Barbeyrac. He already had the 1724 French edition of Grotius’s work with Barbeyrac’s notes. Being a two-volume quarto, the French edition was more convenient, so Jefferson held onto it, letting someone else have Wythe’s copy of Grotius.30
Jefferson also received Wythe’s copy of the two-volume folio edition of Lord Raymond’s Reports of Cases of King’s Bench and Common Pleas. Since he already had the three-volume octavo edition published in Dublin in 1792, he gave Wythe’s copy of Raymond’s Reports to his nephew Dabney Carr, Jr., who had passed the bar ten years earlier and was currently serving as the commonwealth’s attorney for Albemarle County. The gift shows that Jefferson was continuing to further the education of his nephews, even after they had become established.31
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