Grateful Tunes

Pelah Hoyt: According to Mussulman, in those days, anytime was a time for music. The men probably sang marching songs as they carried their boats and gear around the great falls of the Missouri, or sang when the men finally returned to Travelers Rest near Lolo Montana, after crossing the Bitterroot Mountains.

Joseph Mussulman: Coming back when they left those "tremendous mountains," as Clark put it, having suffered cold and hunger, the likes of which they had never experienced before, and never would want to experience again. Clark is almost prayerful coming back; we made it, we made it. I can imagine that somebody at a quite time, at dusk, might have begun:

Through many dangers, toils and snares,
I have already come,
T'was grace that kept me safe thus far,
And grace will lead me home.

September 14, 1806...they get back to Saint Louis on the 23rd, so they are somewhere near Fort Leavenworth Kansas, and they are going home, man they are moving fast, as fast as they can. They are making 50 to 60 miles a day. Nine days from the end of the journey Clark wrote in his journal, "Our party received a dram"--they had picked up some more alcohol from some traders they had met going upstream--"Our party received a dram and some songs until eleven o'clock at night, in the greatest harmony." He's pleased that they're enjoying themselves.