The Osage delegation that left St. Louis in late October with Meriwether Lewis and William Clark arrives in Washington City. New York Senator, physician, naturalist, and expedition supporter Samuel Latham Mitchell records the event in a letter to his wife Catharine.
Four Osage Warriors
by Charles B. J. F. de Saint Mémin (1770–1852)
Courtesy The New York Historical, emuseum.nyhistory.org/objects/14114/unidentified-osage-warrior-wearing-bird-headdress accessed 8 January 2026.
With the aid of a physiognotrace, St. Mémin executed portraits of at least five Osage men who visited Washington City summer 1804 and winter 1806–1807. Only the first one (above left) includes his name in its label: Cachasunghia.
Osage Delegation Arrives
Washington. Decr. 21 . (Sunday) 1806
My Dear
Five of the Osages who came with Capt Lewis have arrived here. Last Evening I saw them. The are tall & whitish like the rest whom we have seen. The Capt. has gone to Virginia to visit his Relations after his Journey to the Pacific Ocean; and will probably be here in a few weeks.
Farewell, my dear creature, and continue your good Opinion of your loving and ardent friend
Sam L Mitchill[1]Samuel L. Mitchill to Catharine Mitchill, 1806 Correspondence, 1801-1829 [Box 2, Folder 9], quod.lib.umich.edu/m/mitchill/mitchill.0209.001/1.
Notes
| ↑1 | Samuel L. Mitchill to Catharine Mitchill, 1806 Correspondence, 1801-1829 [Box 2, Folder 9], quod.lib.umich.edu/m/mitchill/mitchill.0209.001/1. |
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- 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.
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