Watercolor provided by waynewilsonart.com
Kickapoo update
At winter camp across the Mississippi above St. Louis, the man sent up the river to check the status of a Kickapoo war party returns with a letter from François Saucier, the commander of Portage des Sioux.
A Hidatsa vocabulary
Fur trade clerks Charles McKenzie and François-Antoine Larocque end their visit at Fort Mandan in present North Dakota. A Hidatsa man helps the captains record a vocabulary of his language.
Homeward bound
The dugouts are loaded, and they leave Fort Clatsop to begin their homeward-bound journey. Fighting high waves, they round Tongue Point and camp near the John Day River.
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
12 December 1803–13 May 1804
In mid-December 1803, construction of winter quarters begins. In accordance with the wishes of the Spanish Governor, Lewis could work in St. Louis and the soldiers could build a garrison in Illinois across from the mouth of the Missouri. The Wood river cantonment is known today as Camp River Dubois.
In St. Louis, Lewis learns about the Missouri River from established St. Louis traders and purchases more Indian gifts and equipment from local merchants. Across the river, the captains would need ot establish military discipline and the soldiers would need to become a team.
Both captains and key personnel cross the Mississippi frequently, and in March, Lewis and Clark witness the official transfer of Upper Louisiana from Spain to France. One day later, France transfers the territory to the United States.
With the arrival of several St. Charles French boatmen from St. Charles on 11 May 1804, departure up the Missouri is imminent.
Day-by-Day Pages In-depth Articles
26 October 1804–6 April 1805
On 2 November 1804 below the Knife River Villages, work begins on the expedition’s winter fortification. The men’s quarters, storage rooms, and the 16-foot pickets, are designed for defense against hostile Indians, especially the Sioux, who would be quite troublesome, although they never attacked the fort directly. “This place we have named Fort Mandan,” Lewis recorded, “in honour of our Neighbours”—their kind and congenial Mandan Indians. Here they celebrate their second Christmas and New Year’s Day.
On 28 February 1805, sixteen enlisted men are assigned to hew six canoes from cottonwood logs, and they finish them in 22 days. Meanwhile, the rest of the men make rope, leather clothing and moccasins, cured meat, and battle axes to trade for corn. Lewis prepares botanical, zoological, and mineralogical specimens for shipping back to President Jefferson. Clark works on his Fort Mandan maps.
By the time they are ready to leave Fort Mandan, they add some key members to the permanent party: Toussaint Charbonneau, his wife and infant son—Sacagawea and Jean Baptiste, and French trader Jean-Baptiste Lepage. Each would play critical roles in the expedition’s journey to the Pacific Ocean.
Day-by-Day Pages In-depth Articles
23 March–9 June 1806
The desire to return to St. Louis motivates the paddlers as they head up the Columbia River. Across from the Sandy River, they stop to hunt and dry meat. They explore the Willamette and Sandy hoping that one of them is the fabled river that comes from California.
Below Celilo Falls, they begin trading for horses and by the time they reach the Walla Walla River, they have enough horses to take the overland Travois Trail back to the Snake River. They then continue by horse up the Clearwater River.
At Kamiah in present Idaho, they establish a “Long Camp” among the Nez Perce to wait for mountain snows to melt. Sgt. Ordway takes a side trip to the Salmon and Snake rivers where some Nez Perce fishers are catching salmon.
After five weeks sharing with the Nez Perce, they head to the mountain trails that will take them to the land of the buffalo.
Day-by-Day Pages In-depth Articles
Northern Lights at Fort Mandan
Portage of the Great Falls
Three French Traders
Michael Haynes’ artwork has been enjoyed by even the most casual Lewis and Clark fan in publications, museum displays, historical re-enactments, and hundreds of interpretive signs along the historic trail. His 2003 collaboration with Robert J. Moore, Jr., Lewis & Clark: Tailor Made, Trail Worn, the Army Life Clothing, & Weapons of the Corps of Discovery changed the trajectory of expedition interpretation from fur traders to professional soldiers in the 1803 American frontier. The book remains the standard reference used by historical re-enactors and museum displays.
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.
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.
Lewis and Clark were among several significant explorers of North America both before and after the expedition.
From clichés and colorful sayings of the time to Native American languages, these pages feature the art of language.
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.
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.
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.
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!
Learn about the people—and one dog—who were members of the Lewis and Clark Expedition.
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.
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.
Their work in the emerging fields of botany, ethnography, geography, geology, and zoology are now considered classics of early American scientific literature.
Explore the methods they used to get stuff done—from building canoes to making rope.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
The entire story is told in these five webpages.
Other topics include music, holidays, High Potential Historic Sites, and an index of articles from We Proceeded On.
Throughout the expedition the soldiers were expected to conform to the rules and routines of the frontier soldier of 1803.
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.
This site is provided as a public service by the
Lewis and Clark Trail Alliance
with cooperation and funding from the following organizations:
Unless otherwise noted, journal excerpts are from The Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, edited by Gary E. Moulton, 13 vols. (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1983-2001).