By boat up the Potomac River from Washington hastened young Captain
Lewis, to pack his arms and supplies at Harper’s Ferry, and forward
them by wagon for Pittsburg. He got to Pittsburg ahead of them; and
there remained until the last of August, overseeing the building of a
barge or flat-boat. He enlisted some men, too――six of them, picked with
care, and sworn into the service of the United States Army.
On August 31, with his recruits, on his laden flat-boat he launched
out to sail, row, and float, towed by oxen (a “horn breeze,” this was
termed), down the Ohio.
At Mulberry Hill, near Louisville, Captain William Clark was
impatiently awaiting. He had enlisted nine men, all of Kentucky, the
“dark and bloody ground.” If any men could be relied on, they would
be Kentuckians, he knew. His negro servant, York, who had been his
faithful body-guard since boyhood, was going, too.
Captain Clark took charge of the barge, to proceed with it and the
recruits and York down the Ohio into the Mississippi, and thence up
the Mississippi to St. Louis. Captain Lewis turned across country, by
horse, on a short cut, to pick up more men along the way.
He struck the Mississippi River fifty miles below St. Louis, where the
United States Army post of Kaskaskia faced the Province of Louisiana
across the river. Here he enlisted four men more, selected from a score
that eagerly volunteered. Word of the great expedition had travelled
ahead of him, and he could have filled the ranks seven times over. But
only the strongest, and those of clean reputation, could qualify for
such a trip. These thought themselves fortunate.
Now up along the river, by military road, hastened Captain Lewis, for
the old town of Cahokia, and crossed the river to St. Louis at last. He
was in a hurry.
“We’ll winter at La Charette, Captain,” he had said to Captain Clark,
“where Daniel Boone lives. Boone can give us valuable information, and
we’ll be that far on our journey, ready for spring. Charette will be
better for our men than St. Louis.”
Glad was Captain Clark to spend the months at La Charette. Daniel
Boone had been his boyhood friend in Kentucky――had taught him much
wood-craft. But when, in mid-December, Captain Clark, the redhead,
anxious to push on to La Charette, seventy miles up the Missouri,
before the ice closed, with York and his nine Kentuckians and five
other recruits whom he had enlisted from Fort Massac at the mouth of
the Ohio tied his keel-boat at the St. Louis levee, he was met by
disagreeable information.
“We’ll have to winter here,” informed Captain Lewis. “The Spanish
lieutenant-governor won’t pass us on. He claims that he has not been
officially notified yet to transfer Upper Louisiana to the United
States――or, for that matter, even to France. So all we can do is to
make winter camp on United States soil, on the east side of the river,
and wait. I’m sorry――I’ve engaged two more boats――but that’s the case.”
“All right,” assented Captain Clark. “Both sides of the river are ours,
but I suppose we ought to avoid trouble.”
So the winter camp was placed near the mouth of Wood River, on the east
bank of the Mississippi, about twenty miles above St. Louis. Log cabins
were erected; and besides, the big keel-boat was decked fore and aft,
and had a cabin and men’s quarters. Consequently nobody need suffer
from the cold.
Captain Lewis stayed most of the time in St. Louis, arranging for
supplies, studying medicine, astronomy, botany and other sciences, and
learning much about the Indians up the Missouri. Captain Clark looked
after the camp, and drilled the men almost every day.
St. Louis was then forty years old; it contained less than 200 houses,
of stone and log, and about 1000 people, almost all French. The
lieutenant-governor, who lived here in charge of Upper Louisiana of
“the Illinois Country” (as all this section was called), was Don Carlos
Dehault Delassus, also of French blood, but appointed by Spain.
Indignant now was Spain, objecting to the new ownership by the United
States, and asserting that by the terms of the bargain with France
that government had promised not to dispose of the province to any
other nation. But this evidently had made no difference to Napoleon.
Not until November 30, of 1803, while Captain Lewis was on his road
from Kaskaskia to St. Louis and Captain Clark was toiling with his
keel-boat up from the mouth of the Ohio (both captains thinking that
they had a clear way ahead), was the Spanish flag in New Orleans hauled
down, and the French flag hoisted. On December 20 the representative of
the French government there, Monsieur Pierre Clement Laussat, and his
men, saluted the hoisting of the Stars and Stripes, formally delivered
Lower and Upper Louisiana to the United States.
Nevertheless, Lieutenant-Governor Delassus, of Upper Louisiana, waited
for official instruction. Distances were great, he wished to receive
orders what to do. In St. Louis Captain Lewis waited; in the camp at
Wood River Captain Clark waited; the Missouri froze over and they could
not go on anyway.
Christmas was celebrated, and the memorable year 1803 merged into the
new year 1804. Finally, by letter, date of January 12, 1804, from
Monsieur Laussat at New Orleans, Lieutenant-Governor Delassus was
notified that dispatches were on the road to Captain Amos Stoddard,
of the United States Artillery, and commanding at Fort Kaskaskia,
empowering him to represent France at St. Louis and take over from
Spain the district of Upper Louisiana. He was then to turn it over to
himself as representative of the United States.
On February 25 Captain Stoddard announced that he was ready to receive
Upper Louisiana in the name of France. March 9 was set as the day.
Captain Lewis was invited to be present at the ceremony, as an official
witness. Captain Clark probably came over; perhaps some of the men, for
all the countryside gathered at the great event.
A number of Indians from up the Mississippi and up the Missouri, and
out of the plains to the west, had witnessed the ceremony of transfer.
They did not understand it all. They said that the United States had
captured St. Louis. On March 12 their good friend, Lieutenant-Governor
Delassus, issued an address to them, explaining that now they had a new
father, and he introduced to them the new United States chiefs who had
come――Captain Stoddard and Captain Lewis.
But the Delawares, the Sacs, the Osages, and others――they still were
dissatisfied, and especially the Osages. Captain Lewis was particularly
anxious to please the Osages, for they were the first of the powerful
tribes whom he might encounter, up the Missouri. He tried to talk with
the chiefs in St. Louis; by a trader sent a letter on to the Osage
village, asking the head chiefs to meet him at the river and exchange
peace presents.
Beyond the Osages dwelt the Otoes, the Missouris, the ’Mahas (Omahas),
the Sioux, the Arikaras, the Mandans, the Minnetarees; and then, who
could say? Few white men, even the French traders, had been farther.
How would all these tribes, known and unknown, receive the strange
Americans?
Spring had come, the ice was whirling down, in rotted floes, out of the
north, the channel of the crooked Missouri was clearing, and every man
in the expedition was keen to be away, following the honking geese into
this new America over which the flag of the United States waved at last.
Now the expedition had grown to full strength. There were the two
captains; the fourteen soldiers enlisted at Pittsburg, Fort Massac
and Fort Kaskaskia; the nine Kentuckians, enrolled at Mulberry Hill
near Louisville; George Drouillard (or Drewyer, as he was called),
the hunter from Kaskaskia who had been recommended by Captain Clark’s
brother the general; Labiche and one-eyed old Cruzatte, French
voyageurs or boatmen engaged by Captain Lewis at St. Louis; nine other
boatmen, and Corporal Warfington and six privates from the Kaskaskia
troops in St. Louis, who were to go as far as the next winter camp, and
then return with records and trophies; and black York, Captain Clark’s
faithful servant, who was going just as far as his master did.
So forty-five there were in all, to start. Except York, those who were
going through had been sworn in as privates in the United States Army,
to serve during the expedition, or until discharged on the way, if so
happened. Charles Floyd, one of the young Kentuckians; Nathaniel Pryor,
his cousin, and John Ordway, enrolled at Kaskaskia from among the New
Hampshire company, were appointed sergeants.
For outfit they had their flint-lock rifles, especially manufactured;
flint-lock pistols, hunting knives, powder contained in lead canisters
or pails to be melted into bullets when emptied, tents, tools,
provisions of pork, flour, etc., warm extra clothing for winter, old
Cruzatte’s fiddle, George Gibson’s fiddle, medicines, including the new
kine-pox with which to vaccinate the Indians, the captains’ scientific
instruments, a wonderful air-gun that shot forty times without
reloading, and a cannon or blunderbuss.
Seven large bales and one emergency box had been packed with their
stores; and there were fourteen other bales and one sample box of
gifts for the Indians: gay laced coats, flags, knives, iron tomahawks,
beads, looking-glasses, handkerchiefs (red and blue), paints (yellow,
blue and crimson), not forgetting three kinds of medals――first-class
and second-class, of silver, and third-class, of pewter――for chiefs
to hang about their necks as token of friendship from their new great
white father at Washington. The knives and tomahawks had been made at
Harper’s Ferry.
Three boats were ready: the keel-boat built at Pittsburg, and two
pirogues bought at St. Louis. The keel-boat or batteau was to be the
flag-ship. It was a kind of flat-boat or barge, fifty-five feet long;
of heavy planks, with bow overhanging and a little pointed, and square
overhanging stern fitted with a keel and with a tiller rudder. It had
places for eleven oars on a side, and carried a sail. Along either
gunwale was a plank path or walking-board, from which the men might
push with poles.
Much ingenuity and care had Captain Lewis spent on this flag-ship.
Under a deck at the bows the crew might sleep; and under the deck
at the stern was the cabin for the officers; in the middle were
lockers, for stowing stuff――and the lids when raised formed a line of
breastworks against bullets and arrows! The blunderbuss was mounted in
the bows, the flag floated from a staff. The boat drew only three feet
of water.
The two pirogues were smaller, open flat-boats or barges; one painted
red, the other white; one fitted with six oars, the other with seven.
They also had sails.
At Harper’s Ferry Captain Lewis had ordered the steel framework of
a canoe. This was “knocked down,” in sections, and stowed in the
keel-boat, later to be put together and covered with bark or skins, for
use in the shallow waters far up-river.
And there were two horses, which should accompany the boats by land,
for scouting and hunting purposes.
April passed; May arrived. The Missouri was reported free of ice, and
was rising rapidly. The trees had budded and greened, the grasses
were getting high, game would be plentiful, the Indians would be
leaving their villages for their spring hunts, and ’twas time that
the expedition should start. In their camp at Wood River the men drew
on the supply of quill pens, ink horns and paper and wrote farewell
letters home. In St. Louis Captain Clark and Captain Lewis were given
farewell dinners. By Doctor Saugrain, the learned physician and
scientist under whom he was studying, Captain Lewis was presented with
a handful of matches――curious little sticks which, when briskly rubbed
against something, burst into flame. The Indians would marvel at these.
Shortly before four o’clock in the afternoon of May 14, this 1804, the
start was made. The St. Louis people gathered along the river bank on
that side, to watch the boats move up. The blunderbuss was discharged,
in salute; the cannon of the fort answered. Captain Clark, bidding
goodbye from the deck of the keel-boat, was in full dress uniform of
red-trimmed blue coat and trousers, and gold epaulets, his sword at his
belt, his three-cornered chapeau on his red head. The sails swelled in
the breeze, the men at the oars sang in French and shouted in English.
Drewyer the hunter rode one horse and led the other. All, save Captain
Clark, were dressed for business――Corporal Warfington’s squad from St.
Louis in United States uniform, the nine Kentuckians in buckskins, the
fourteen soldiers and civilians, enlisted at the posts, in flannel
shirts and trousers of buckskin or coarse army cloth, the French
boatmen in brightly fringed woollens, with scarlet ’kerchiefs about
their heads. Rain was falling, but who cared!
Captain Lewis did not accompany. He was detained to talk more with the
Osages who had come down. He hoped yet to make things clear to them.
But he would join the boats at the village of St. Charles, twenty miles
above.
In the sunshine of May 16 they tied to the bank at St. Charles. At the
report of the cannon――boom!――the French villagers, now Americans all,
came running down and gave welcome.
Sunday the 20th Captain Lewis arrived by skiff from St. Louis, and with
him an escort of the St. Louis people, again to cheer the expedition
on its way. Not until Monday afternoon, the 21st, was the expedition
enabled to tear itself from the banquets and hand-shakings, and onward
fare in earnest, against the wind and rain.
Tawny ran the great Missouri River, flooded with the melted snows
of the wild north, bristling with black snags, and treacherous with
shifting bars. On either hand the banks crashed in, undermined by the
changing currents. But rowing, poling, hauling with ropes, and even
jumping overboard to shove, only occasionally aided by favoring breeze,
the men, soldiers and voyageurs alike, worked hard and kept going. On
leaving St. Charles the two captains doffed their uniforms until the
next dress-up event, and donned buckskins and moccasins.
Past La Charette, the settlement where Daniel Boone lived――the very
last white settlement on the Missouri, toiled the boats; now, beyond,
the country was red. Past the mouth of the Osage River up which lived
the Osage Indian; but no Osages were there to treat with them. Past the
mouth of the Kansas River, and the Little Platte; and still no Indians
appeared, except some Kickapoos bringing deer. Rafts were encountered,
descending with the first of the traders bringing down their winter’s
furs: a raft from the Osages, shouting that the Osages would not
believe that St. Louis had been “captured,” and had burnt the Captain
Lewis message; from the Kansas, from the Pawnees up the Big Platte,
from the Sioux of the far north.
Off a Sioux raft old Pierre Dorion, one of the traders, was hired by
the captains to go with the expedition up to the Sioux, and make them
friendly. He had lived among the Yankton Sioux twenty years.
Through June and July, without especial incident, the expedition
voyaged ever up-river into the northwest, constantly on the look-out
for Indians with whom to talk.
The two captains regularly wrote down what they saw and did and
heard; a number of the men also kept diaries. Sergeant Charles Floyd,
Sergeant John Ordway, Sergeant Nathaniel Pryor, Private Patrick Gass,
Private Joseph Whitehouse, Private Robert Frazier and Private Alexander
Willard――they faithfully scrawled with their quill pens, recording
each day’s events as they saw them. The journals of Floyd, Gass, and
Whitehouse have been published, so that we may read them as well as the
journals of the captains.
Not until the first of August, and when almost fifty miles above the
mouth of the Platte River, was the first council with the Indians
held. Here a few Otoes and Missouris came in, at a camping-place on
the Nebraska side of the Missouri, christened by the two captains the
Council-bluffs, from which the present Iowa city of Council Bluffs,
twenty miles below and opposite, takes its name.
Now in the middle of August the expedition is encamped at the west
side of the river, about fifteen miles below present Sioux City, Iowa,
waiting to talk with the principal chiefs of the Otoes and the Omahas,
and hoping to establish a peace between them. But the Omahas had fled
from the small-pox, and the Otoes were slow to come in.
The voyageur Liberté and the soldier Moses Reed were missing from the
camp; a party had been sent out to capture them as deserters.
Eight hundred and thirty-six miles had been logged off, from St. Louis,
in the three months.
Here the story opens.