In April, word came that France had agreed to sell the Louisiana Territory to the United States for $15 million. There were approximately 820,000 square miles in the Louisiana Territory. For about three cents an acre, Jefferson doubled the size of the country.
Jefferson asked his private secretary, Meriwether Lewis, to lead the proposed expedition. In turn, Lewis asked a friend, a fellow Virginian and army officer, William Clark, to share in the leadership of the adventure. Lewis wrote a long letter to Clark in June 1803. He described the expedition, and concluded his letter:
Thus my friend you have so far as leasure will at this time permit me to give it to you, a summary view of the plan . . . If therefore there is anything under those circumstances, in this enterprise, which would induce you to participate with me in it’s fatiegues, it’s dangers and it’s honors, believe me there is no man on earth with whom I should feel equal pleasure in sharing them as with yourself . . .
Clark’s reply one month later was warm and enthusiastic:
The enterprise &c. is Such as I have long anticipated and am much pleased with . . . I will chearfully join you in an “official Charrector” as mentioned in your letter, and partake of the dangers, difficulties, and fatigues, and I anticipate the honors & rewards . . . My friend I do assure you that no man lives whith whome I would perfur to undertake Such a Trip &c. as your self. . . .
These two men would lead the expedition for two and a half years, along a trail almost 8,000 miles in length. The success of the Corps of Discovery was based, in part, on the respect and admiration the two men had for each other. They knew and understood each other’s strengths and weaknesses, and they saw themselves as partners in the “enterprise.” They were friends.
Clark brought his slave, York, along with him. York was the only black member of the Corps of Discovery. Many of the other men were serving in the United States Army and volunteered for the journey.
Six men kept diaries of their journey: the two captains, three sergeants — Charles Floyd, Patrick Gass, and John Ordway — and one private, Joseph Whitehouse. These men wrote in their journals in the rain, the wind, and the snow, huddled around a smoking campfire, and at their leisure at Fort Mandan. They wrote after a hearty meal of venison steak and on empty stomachs. They wrote when they were ill, when they were tired and cold, and when there was “joy in camp.”
The Corps of Discovery spent their first winter together at Camp DuBois, at the confluence of the DuBois [Wood], Missouri and Mississippi rivers. Here, the two captains trained their new recruits and purchased additional supplies, including food, trade goods, and equipment for camping, medical emergencies, and mapmaking.
On May 14, 1804, the Corps of Discovery proceeded on, up the Missouri River. Over the next two and half years, the words, “we proceeded on” would be a familiar entry in the men’s journals.
As they followed the Missouri River through the Louisiana Territory, the Corps of Discovery met numerous Indian nations. The journal pages were filled with information about the people they met: their clothing, shelter, methods of subsistence, and customs, traditions, and beliefs.
For example, on August 13, 1805, Lewis described the traditional Shoshoni smoking ceremony:
They seated themselves in a circle around us and pulled of their mockersons before they would receive or smoke the pipe. this is a custom among them as I afterwards learned indicative of a sacred obligation of sincerity in their profession of friendship given by the act of receiving and smoking the pipe of a stranger. . . .
Clark was the expedition’s cartographer. He used a large, blank map to trace their route, and to fill in the unfamiliar spaces across the Louisiana Territory, the Rocky Mountains, and the Pacific Northwest. Whenever Native Americans shared their knowledge of geography with him or drew their own maps for him, Clark was careful to incorporate the information into his own maps.
The men filled their journals with descriptions of the land, the flora, and the fauna. Sergeant John Ordway described the area near the Three Forks of the Missouri River:
Some of the high knobs are covred with grass. A fiew Scattering pine trees on them. the River crooked Shallow and rapid. Some deep holes where we caught a number of Trout.
The Corps of Discovery spent their second winter [1804–1805] with the Hidatsa-speaking Indians on the Missouri River. The expedition’s carpenter, Sergeant Patrick Gass, directed the men in the construction of a triangle-shaped stockade called Fort Mandan. Here, the two captains hired Toussaint Charbonneau and his 16-year-old Agaiduka Shoshoni wife, Sacajawea, “to act as an Interpreter & interpretress for the snake Indians” in the Rocky Mountains.
In the spring of 1805, the expedition departed Fort Mandan. There were now 33 people in the Corps of Discovery — the two captains, three sergeants [Patrick Gass, John Ordway, and Nathaniel Pryor], 23 enlisted men, York, three interpreters [Drouillard, Charbonneau, and Sacajawea], the infant [Jean-Baptiste Charbonneau], and Seaman [Lewis’s dog].
From Fort Mandan, the Corps of Discovery followed the Missouri River across the northern Great Plains, using canoes and the two pirogues. With the help of the Shoshoni, Flathead, and Nez Percé Indians, the Corps of Discovery safely crossed the Rocky Mountains on foot. Horses they had purchased from the Shoshoni carried their food, clothing, medical supplies, and trade goods.
Safely across the Rocky Mountains, the Corps of Discovery camped along the Clearwater River, near several large villages of Nez Percé Indians. They branded their horses, and left them to the care of the Nez Percé until they returned the following spring. The men made five dugout canoes, and on October 7, the Corps of Discovery proceeded on, down the Clearwater, Snake, and Columbia rivers toward the Pacific Ocean. Sahaptian-speaking Nez Percé, Palouse, Wanapum, and Yakima Indians guided the party through some of the most treacherous rapids on the three rivers.
On November 7, 1805, as the fog lifted at the expedition’s camp on the north shore of the Columbia River, William Clark wrote:
Great joy in camp we are in View of the Ocian, this great Pacific Octean which we been so long anxious to see. and the roreing or noise made by the waves brakeing on the rockey Shores my be heard distictly.
The Corps of Discovery chose the south side of the Columbia River for their 1805–1806 winter encampment. They built Fort Clatsop near the Netul River and several villages of Chinookan-speaking Clatsop Indians. The expedition was busy that rainy winter hunting elk, making salt, clothing, and moccasins, trading with the Chinook and Clatsop Indians, and filling their journals with descriptions of the tribes they met, and the flora and fauna they had seen. Clark completed many of his maps.
On March 23, 1806, the two captains presented the fort to the Clatsop Indians, and proceeded on, back up the Columbia River, then overland through southeastern Washington to the Nez Percé villages on the Clearwater River. On the east side of the Rocky Mountains, the Corps of Discovery separated into several small parties, some to return to the supplies cached at the Great Falls of the Missouri River, some to explore northwestern Montana, and others to explore the Yellowstone River.
On September 23, 1806, the Corps of Volunteers for Northwest Discovery returned to St. Louis. Ordway described the day:
. . . about 12 oCLock we arrived in Site of St. Louis fired three Rounds as we approached the Town . . . the people gathred on the Shore and Huzzared three cheers . . . the party all considerable much rejoiced that we have the Expedition Completed . . . we entend to return to our native homes to See our parents once more as we have been So long from them. — finis
After the successful return of the Corps of Discovery in 1806, the government rewarded the men for their work. In March 1807, Congress voted to give each man double pay and land grants of 320 to 1,600 acres. Only two members of the expedition were not paid for their services — York and Sacajawea.
Jefferson directed the Corps of Discovery to locate and confirm the existence of the fabled
Northwest Passage. The route the Corps of Discovery followed was believed to be the “most practicable” route across the continent. It was not, and the dream of the Northwest Passage was laid to rest. The Corps brought back much information, including geology, flora and fauna, and the cultures of the Indian nations. For better or for worse, this information would direct the policies and plans of the United States for decades to come.
Meriwether Lewis was selected by President Thomas Jefferson to be the official leader of the epic expedition of the Corps of Discovery. Because of his success on the journey, Lewis has been called “The greatest pathfinder this country has ever known.” The Lewis and Clark expedition was widely hailed upon its return and Lewis reaped the benefits of this acclaim. He was appointed governor of the Louisiana Territory in 1808.
William Clark became friendly with Meriwether Lewis when they served together in the military in 1795, and quickly accepted his invitation in 1803 to serve as co-leader of the Corps of Discovery. William Clark returned from that adventure and became a respected administrator of Indian affairs during the early years of American expansion into the West.
Both Lewis and Clark kept written accounts of their journey. Here is Clark’s elk skin–bound journal with astronomical and altitude measurements and observations (the explorers’ way of determining their exact location), from October 26, 1805. The night before, he wrote this: “. . . as it was necessary to make Some Celestial observations we formed our camp on the top of a high point of rocks, which forms a kind of fortification in the Point between the river & Creek. . . .”
A keelboat was used for the first part of the voyage. It could be sailed, rowed, or poled along. This is a drawing from Clark’s field notebook of the boat as he saw it.
The meeting at Council Bluffs was crucial to the success of the expedition, as it was the first council between Lewis and Clark and the Indians. It set the stage for the many conversations and negotiations that were to come. Noted by Clark on August 3, 1804, at Council Bluffs: “. . . our Party paraded & Delivered a long Speech to them expressive of our journey the wishes of our Government, Some advice to them and Directions how They were to Conduct themselves. . . .”
Given to various Indian leaders as a proclamation of peace, the United States peace medal worn by the Indian chief in the foreground was a treasured possession. Any Indian who accepted a medal was expected to be loyal to the United States. With the exception of John Adams, every president from George Washington to Benjamin Harrison issued peace medals embossed with his likeness on one side. At Council Bluffs, Clark wrote: “. . . we Sent him the speech flag Meadal & Some Cloathes. After hearing what they had to say Delivered a Medal of Second Grade to one for the Ottos & one for the Missourie and present 4 medals of third Grade to the inferior chiefs two for each tribe.”
The Corps of Discovery spent the winter of 1804–1805 at this Mandan village. It was essential that the expedition establish good relations with the local people in order to encamp there for the winter. Upon their arrival, Clark wrote: “. . . I walked up & Smoked a pipe with the Chiefs of this Village they were anxious that I would Stay and eat with them, my indisposition provented my eating which displeases them, untill a full explenation took place. . . .”
At the confluence of the Yellowstone and Missouri rivers, Lewis put down his thoughts in his April 25, 1805 journal entry: “. . . I ascended the hills from whence I had a most pleasing view of the country, particularly of the wide and fertile vallies formed by the missouri and yellowstone rivers, which occasionally unmasked by the wood on their borders disclose their meanderings for many miles in their passage through these delightfull tracts of country.”
When the expedition neared Three Forks on Monday, July 22, 1805, Lewis wrote of Sacajawea: “The Indian woman recognizes the country and assures us that this is the river on which her relations live, and that the three forks are at no great distance. This piece of information has cheered the sperits of the party who now begin to console themselves with the anticipation of shortly seeing the head of the missouri yet unknown to the civilized world.”
Painting hides was an important art form of the Plains Indians. This painted buffalo robe is probably the oldest known one in existence. Lewis and Clark obtained it from the Mandans and sent it back to President Jefferson in the spring of 1805. Depicted on it is a 1797 battle between the Mandans-Minitaris and the Teton Sioux-Arikaras.
The pocket sextant was made in the late 1700s. Using a compass, a sextant, and a watch, explorers like Lewis and Clark were able to make rough maps, chart rivers, and fix their positions.
This modern map of the continental United States shows the approximate locations of Camp Wood, where the journey began, Fort Mandan, and Fort Clatsop, where the expedition finally saw the Pacific.
Kathryn Lasky has long been fascinated by the west of the 19th century. She has written several books set in the early American west including Beyond the Divide, which told the story of the Gold Rush of 1849; Alice Rose and Sam set in the silver mining town of Virginia City, Nevada; as well as The Bone Wars about the first excavations for fossil dinosaur bones in the Montana and Wyoming territories in the 1870s.
“I think sometimes,” says Lasky, “that I have a special gene that responds to landscapes and the landscape of the west has an incredibly strong appeal for me. Whenever I write a book about the west, in addition to the human characters, there is another character and that is the land itself . . . Imagine what Lewis and Clark must have thought as this magnificent country unfolded before them.”
For Lasky to be able to write a fictional diary of the Lewis and Clark expedition was a dream come true. She had often thought of writing about the expedition but it almost seemed simply too large, too big. And Lewis and Clark were as mighty in their heroism as the powerful river they traveled.
“It would be like trying to dam a river to even attempt to tell the story of these two men. They loomed too large for me to grasp. I could never seem to get a hook into it. But then when the My Name Is America series began I realized that there could be a hook — a boy, slightly damaged by a rough and tumble life, maybe a bit frightened, but gritty and determined.”
Kathryn Lasky says that “Augustus Pelletier just showed up in my imagination — begging to go on the expedition — a natural, if unfinished hero. The perfect boy for this book.”
In Kathryn Lasky’s mind the Lewis and Clark expedition is one of the greatest accomplishments in American History. It was not only that these men were brave, but they had wit and imagination. Kathryn found that one of the most moving parts in the entire men’s journals was the occasion during which Lewis and Clark held a vote to decide on who should be Sergeant Floyd’s replacement. This was not only the first election held west of the Mississippi but the first time a black man and a slave, York, was allowed to participate in the democratic process on the continent of America.
Kathryn Lasky has received many awards for her writing, including the Newbery Honor, the Boston Globe – Horn Book Award, and the Washington Post Children’s Book Guild Award for Nonfiction. She is the author of more than forty books for children and adults, including, most recently, the Guardians of Ga’Hoole and the Wolves of the Beyond series, as well as the Daughters of the Sea books. She won a Newbery Honor for her book Sugaring Time, a National Jewish Book Award for The Night Journey, and the Washington Post Children’s Book Guild Award for her contribution to children’s nonfiction. She has also written Marie Antoinette, Princess of Versailles, and several Dear America diaries, in addition to two historical fiction books — Beyond the Burning Time, an ALA Best Book for Young Adults, and True North — for Scholastic. She lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts, with her family.
Grateful acknowledgment is made for permission to use the following:
Cover art by Mike Heath | Magnus Creative.
Meriwether Lewis, collection of the New-York Historical Society, 1971.125.
Wi
lliam Clark, portrait by Charles Willson Peale, courtesy of Independence National Historical Park.
William Clark’s journal, ink on paper, elk skin, Missouri History Museum, St. Louis, 26081.
Clark’s field notebook, sketch of a boat, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University.
Meeting at Council Bluffs, woodcut, by Patrick Goss, North Wind Picture Archives.
Young Omahaw, War Eagle, Little Missouri, and Pawnees, by Charles Bird King, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC/Art Resource.
Bird’s-eye View of the Mandan Village, 1800 Miles Above St. Louis, by George Catlin, ibid.
Junction of the Yellowstone and the Missouri, watercolor, by Karl Bodmer, the Granger Collection.
Lewis and Clark at Three Forks, oil on canvas, by E. S. Paxson, mural at the Montana State Capitol, courtesy of the Montana Historical Society, X1912.07.01.
Robe, buffalo skin with painted detail, courtesy of the Peabody Museum of Archeology and Ethnology, Harvard University, 99-12-10/53121, 60740433.
Pocket sextant, Science Museum/Science & Society Picture Library.
Map by Heather Saunders.
While the events described and some of the characters in this book may be based on actual historical events and real people, Augustus Pelletier is a fictional character, created by the author, and his journal and its epilogue are works of fiction.
Blazing West, the Journal of Augustus Pelletier, the Lewis and Clark Expedition Page 11