Trail Diplomacy
Lewis and Clark left behind among many Indians a legacy of nonviolent contact. Those who came later enjoyed that legacy and too often betrayed it.
On the Trail
June 21, 1804
Camden Bend difficulties
At present Camden Bend in Missouri, experienced boatman Pvt. Cruzatte looks for the best channel around an island. He reports that one rapid roars like a waterfall. In passing the island, Clark feels fortunate that only window was broken and some oars lost. He also describes the trees growing in the rich bottomlands.
June 21, 1805
The portage begins
The portage around the Great Falls of the Missouri begins in earnest as enlisted men carry cargo to the plain high above present Belt Creek. They cart one dugout up the steep slope and then load it with the iron-framed boat, tools, and other items needed to establish a camp above the falls.
June 21, 1806
Retracing their steps
While retracing their steps to Weippe Prairie, Lewis expresses “mortification in being thus compelled.” On the way, they meet two Nez Perce men who bring with them three stray horses and a mule. Pvt. Shannon and George Drouillard are at the Nez Perce villages (present Kamiah, Idaho) seeking guides.
Eastern Beginnings
10 January–30 August 1803
The Lewis and Clark Expedition ostensibly began in February 1801 when President Thomas Jefferson wrote a letter to Army commander General James Wilkinson requesting that Lieutenant Meriwether Lewis become the President’s personal secretary. Exploration of North America’s western half had long been a goal of the president, and now he had a young protégé who might lead such an expedition.
On 18 January 1803, Lewis hand-delivers to the U.S. Congress the President’s request to fund what would become known as the Lewis and Clark Expedition. The President works in Washington City and Monticello to craft instructions and line up the best talent to assist Lewis. In France, three diplomats negotiate with Napoleon Bonaparte to purchase the Louisiana Territory.
Meriwether receives training, supplies and equipment in Philadelphia and avails himself of armaments and specialized equipment—including a collapsable iron-framed boat—at the Schuylkill and Harpers Ferry arsenals. By July 1803, everything is at Fort Fayette in Pittsburgh. All Lewis needs is a large boat to carry everything down the Ohio. He also needs to know if William Clark will accept his invitation to join him.
Day-by-Day Pages In-depth Articles
Up the Missouri
14 May–20 July 1804
On 14 May 1804—after more than a year of preparation and travel—the boats leave Camp River Dubois and head up the Missouri River. At St. Charles, the two captains, Clark’s slave York, interpreter George Drouillard, eight or nine French engagés, 34 enlisted men, and Lewis’s dog Seaman depart in three boats: the barge and two large pirogues.
Everyone quickly learns of the struggles and hazards of moving up the Missouri with its many sawyers and sandbars. Despite the overloaded boats and several close calls, they safely pass many landmarks made familiar by earlier traders from St. Louis.
Crossing the present state of Missouri and then heading north along the Kansas-Missouri border, they pass the homelands of the Omaha, Kansa, Otoe, and Pawnee. On 21 July, they reach the mouth of the Platte where only a handful of traders had ever continued north towards the Knife River Villages.
Day-by-Day Pages In-depth Articles
Portaging the Falls
13 June–12 July 1805
On 12 June 1805, Lewis leaves Decision Point at the mouth of the Marias to find the Great Falls of the Missouri. He finds them “truly magnifficent and sublimely grand”.
After traveling separate routes from Decision Point, Clark and Lewis reunite at what would become known as Lower Portage Camp. Clark leaves to survey a portage route, and Lewis attends to Sacagawea whose condition has become “Somewhat dangerous”.
Wheels and trucks are built from cottonwood trees, and the dugouts are hauled two miles up Belt Creek. Lewis leads the first canoe overland to the White Bear Islands where he focuses on construction of the iron-framed boat.
Several trips are needed—as are several truck repairs—to get all the canoes and baggage to the upper portage camp. While site seeing during the last stage, Clark, Sacagawea, and Jean Baptiste are nearly swept away in a flash flood.
Celebrating the Fourth of July, they drink the last of whiskey. Then, due to a lack of pitch pine in the area, the cover of the iron-framed boat leaks too much water to be of practical use and is cached.
Clark moves a few miles up the river and his crew builds two more canoes so that they can continue up the Missouri.
Day-by-Day Pages In-depth Articles
Roads to the Buffalo
10 June–14 July 1806
With the acquisition of horses, Native Nations crossing the Rocky Mountains to hunt for bison became more common. Two of their trails are used by the captains—in separate groups—to return to the bison-rich plains.
After crossing the Bitterroot Mountains on what is known today as the Lolo Trail, the expedition divides forces at Travelers’ Rest. Lewis takes one group east and north up the Blackfoot River and then over Lewis and Clark Pass. They return to their old camp above the Great Falls of the Missouri to retrieve supplies and specimens cached there.
From Travelers’ Rest, Clark goes up the Bitterroot River and crosses the Continental Divide at present Gibbons Pass. They cross the Big Hole Valley and return to Fortunate Camp where they had cached tobacco, food, and most of the canoes.
At the Headwaters of the Missouri, Sgt. Ordway’s detachment paddles the canoes down the Missouri destined for the portage of the Great Falls. Clark’s group–along with all the horses—travel up the Gallatin River valley on their way to the Yellowstone River.
Day-by-Day Pages In-depth Articles
Featured Members
Thomas Howard
Private
On 23 January 1806, Lewis dispatched Howard and Werner to the Salt Camp on the ocean beach, to bring back a supply of salt. When they had not returned by the 26th, Lewis feared they had gotten lost.
Hugh McNeal
Private
Lewis wrote that “McNeal had exultingly stood with a foot on each side of this little rivulet and thanked his god that he had lived to bestride the mighty & heretofore deemed endless Missouri.”
Jean Baptiste Charbonneau
The youngest member
This 9-page series examines the life of Jean Baptiste Charbonneau—the infant son of Sacagawea who traveled across the continent with the Lewis and Clark Expedition. He was educated in St. Louis and Europe, a mountain man, military guide, and California miner.
Quick Links
Meriwether Lewis William Clark Sacagawea York Jean Baptiste Charbonneau Seaman All Members
Native Nations Encountered
Northwest Coast
Plateau / Southwest
Northeast
Featured Artist: John Mix Stanley
The Bears Tooth
Fort Owen—Flathead Village
Lolo Hot Springs
The American portraitist, artist and illustrator John Mix Stanley (1814-1872), served as one of the official artists with the Stevens railroad survey party to the Northwest. His record of highlights along the route often combined documentary verisimilitude with romantic fantasy.
More
Horse Travel
To cross the Rocky Mountains, the Lewis and Clark Expedition needed horses and the skills to manage them. Despite their seemingly constant struggle to find missing and stolen horses, as a kind of calvary unit, they left hoof prints on approximately 1,500 miles of western terrain.
Tools and Techniques
Synopsis of the Expedition
by Harry W. Fritz
Other Topics
Other topics include music, holidays, High Potential Historic Sites, and an index of articles from We Proceeded On.
A Military Corps
Throughout the expedition the soldiers were expected to conform to the rules and routines of the frontier soldier of 1803.
Expedition Members
Scientific Explorations
Their work in the emerging fields of botany, ethnography, geography, geology, and zoology are now considered classics of early American scientific literature.
Native American Nations
The Lewis and Clark Expedition benefited from the Indians’ knowledge and support. Maps, route information, food, horses, open-handed friendship—all gave the Corps of Discovery the edge that spelled the difference between success and failure.
Calendar
Expedition Calendar
Links to every day-by-day page in a calendar format spanning 31 August 1803 to 26 September 1806. A page every day!
The Boats
Starting at Pittsburgh, traveling to the Pacific Ocean, and then returning to St. Louis, the Lewis and Clark Expedition traveled approximately 10,600 miles. Of that, 85%—over 9,000 miles—was by boat. To understand travel in the early 1800 American West is to understand the boats and challenges of river navigation.
The Arts
Because of the literate journalists, historians and visual artists can tell the Expedition’s story. When they celebrated with song and dance, we too can share in the experience.
Language
From clichés and colorful sayings of the time to Native American languages, these pages feature the art of language.
People
The success of the Lewis and Clark Expedition was due to its many members and the people they met, including politicians, Eastern gentleman scientists, traders, and the many people already living in the American west.
Hunting and Fishing
Although hunting and fishing were often considered a ‘gentleman’s sport’ especially in Europe, hunting and fishing for Native Americans and Americans alike were a matter of survival. The success of the Lewis and Clark Expedition depended on the success of its hunters.
Medicine on the Trail
From major crisis such as the death of Sgt. Floyd, Lewis’s gunshot wound, and the illness of Sacagawea to minor events such as sexually transmitted diseases, mosquito-born illnesses, and deep cuts, the medical aspects of the Lewis and Clark Expedition provide an interesting topic of study.
The Fur Trade
Given President Jefferson’s directive to establish commerce, the captains worked extensively within a long-established network of North American fur trade. Part of their mission was to help establish the United States of America’s position within that industry.
Related Explorers
Lewis and Clark were among several significant explorers of North America both before and after the expedition.
Louisiana’s Purchase
The President’s representatives in Paris had bargained successfully with Napoleon’s bureaucrats not only to buy the port of New Orleans, then the keystone of the continent, but also to acquire, at three cents an acre, an area extending from the Mississippi River to . . . where? No one knew until Meriwether Lewis stood at the crest of the Rocky Mountains at a place known today as Lemhi Pass, on 12 August 1805.
Legacies
Legacy is a very slippery sort of term. If we could erase our myth concepts of Lewis and Clark … it might reawaken something really extraordinary in our national consciousness.
The Trail
Starting with its genesis in Jefferson’s Monticello, Lewis’s training and preparations in Philadelphia, and the barge’s excursion down the Ohio River, the route they took, often called the Lewis and Clark Trail, crosses the continent weaving an epic tale of western exploration treasured by many today.
Experience the Lewis and Clark Trail
The Lewis and Clark Trail Experience—our sister site at lewisandclark.travel—connects the world to people and places on the Lewis and Clark Trail.
Discover More
- The Lewis and Clark Expedition: Day by Day by Gary E. Moulton (University of Nebraska Press, 2018). The story in prose, 14 May 1804–23 September 1806.
- The Lewis and Clark Journals: An American Epic of Discovery (abridged) by Gary E. Moulton (University of Nebraska Press, 2003). Selected journal excerpts, 14 May 1804–23 September 1806.
- The Lewis and Clark Journals. by Gary E. Moulton (University of Nebraska Press, 1983–2001). The complete story in 13 volumes.
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Lewis and Clark Trail Alliance
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