At Council Bluff in present Fort Atkinson, Nebraska, Clark prepares a peace pipe anticipating that the Otoes will soon arrive for a council. Two men search for lost horses and others search for the Otoes. Neither are found. Clark declares the area a field for botanists, and Lewis prepares a specimen of wild black currant.
Otoes Still at Large
August the 1st 1804 a fair morning Despatched two men after the horses lost yesterday, one man back to the place from which the messinger was Sent for the Ottoes [Otoes] to See if any Indians was or had been there Since our deptr. he return’d and informed that no person had been there Sence we left it . . . . Prepared the Pipe of Peace verry flashey.
—William Clark
Clark’s Birthday
This being my birth day I order’d a Saddle of fat Vennison, an Elk fleece & a Bevertail to be cooked and a Desert of Cheries, Plumbs, Raspberries Currents and grapes of a Supr. quallity.
—William Clark
Field for a Botanist
Tallgrass Prairie
© 2 August 2100 by Kristopher K. Townsend. Permission to use granted under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.
the Praries Contain . . . a great Variety of Plants & flours not Common to the U S. What a field for a Botents [botanist] and a natirless [naturalist]
—William Clark
Also on this Day
Lewis took celestial observations, the horses could not be found, hunters were successful, and the mosquitoes were bothersome.
Lost Specimen No. 12
No. 12. 1st of August 1804. one of our hunters brought us a bough of the purple courant, which is frequently cultivated in the Atlantic states; the fruit was ripe; I presume it is a native of North America— here it grows generally in the praries but is not very abundant.—
—Meriwether Lewis
Moulton identifies this lost specimen, received by John Vaughn in 1805 (see The Donation Book), as Ribes americanum, wild black currant.[1]Gary E. Moulton, ed. Journals, “Fort Mandan Miscellany”, vol 3:454, 468.
Notes
| ↑1 | Gary E. Moulton, ed. Journals, “Fort Mandan Miscellany”, vol 3:454, 468. |
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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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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).