30. Floyd Monument, Sioux City, IA

View south

"Much Lamented"

n Saturday, 18 August 1804, Sgt. Charles Floyd wrote his ninety-seventh and last consecutive daily journal entry: "our men Returnd and Brot with them the man and Brot with them the Grand Chief of the ottoes and 2 Loer ones and 6 yours [warriors?] of thare nathion." The man referred to was deserter Pvt. Moses Reed, who had deserted on 4 August and this afternoon was tried and convicted despite the three Oto chiefs' pleas for leniency. Reed was sentenced to run the gauntlet four times, then dishonorably discharged.

It was Meriwether Lewis's thirtieth birthday, so "the evening was Closed with an extra Gill of Whiskey & a Dance untill 11 oClock." The next morning, twenty-two-year-old Charles Floyd "was taken violently bad with the Beliose Cholick and is dangerously illwe attempt in Vain to releive him, I am much concerned for his Situation . . . nature appear exosting fast in him."

On the twentieth the Corps proceeded thirteen miles, while young Floyd quickly grew worse. A little past noon they landed, and presently Floyd said, "I am going away." He died, perhaps of perotinitis from a ruptured appendix, "with a great deel of Composure." His comrades buried him atop a nearby bluff overlooking the Missouri River, "with the Honors of War, much lamented." Clark continued, "After paying all the honor to our Decesed brother, we Camped in the mouth of floyds river . . . a butifull evening."

The hundred-foot-tall sandstone obelisk in the photo was dedicated to Sergeant Floyd's memory on Memorial Day 1901. Today Floyd's grave is separated from the Missouri River, to the west, by Interstate 29.

From Discovering Lewis & Clark from the Air
Photography by Jim Wark
Text by Joseph Mussulman
Reproduced by permission of Mountain Press.