At winter camp on the present Wood River in Illinois, the enlisted men are ordered to carry 100 balls for their rifles—or two pounds of buckshot if they have a musket. In St. Louis, Lewis collects the expedition’s first plant specimen, now lost.
One Hundred Lead Balls
© 2014 by Kristopher K. Townsend. Permission to use granted under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.
Arming the Men
I continued to fix Tents Covering, adjuust the Load &c. order every man to have 100 Balls for ther Rifles & 2 lb. of Buck Shot for those with mussquest &. F
—William Clark
Field Pennycress
Thlaspi arvense
Kristian Peters, permission granted via the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.
Lost Specimen No. 1
No. 1. a species of Cress, taken at St. Louis May 10th 1804. it is common in the open growns on the Mississippi bottoms, appears in the uncultivated parts of the lots gardens and orchards, the seed come to maturity by the 10th of May in most instances.—
—Meriwether Lewis
Moulton speculates that this lost specimen, received by John Vaughn in 1805 (See The Donation Book.), is Thlaspi arvense, field pennycress.[1]Gary E. Moulton, ed. Journals, “Fort Mandan Miscellany”, vol 3:451, 466.
Weather Diary
Thermometer at rise
Weather Wind at Thermometer at 4 oCk. P.M. Weather Wind at 4 oCk. P.M River 54 above Cloudy N. E 75 above fair N. W fall 3 ½ in. distant thunder, sutery this evening
—Meriwether Lewis[2]To assist the reader, the editor of this web page has omitted the date column, merged the “River” columns, and spelled out some abbreviations.
Winter Camp at Wood River (Camp Dubois) is a High Potential Historic Site along the Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail managed by the U.S. National Park Service. The site, near Hartford, Illinois, is managed as Lewis and Clark State Historic Site and is open to the public.
Notes
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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.
This page was funded in part by the Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail, U.S. National Park Service.
This site is provided as a public service by the
Lewis and Clark Trail Alliance
with cooperation and funding from the following organizations:
- Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail
- Montana Committee for the Humanities
- Idaho Governor's Lewis and Clark Trail Committee
- The Capital Gallery (Lewis and Clark Fort Mandan Foundation)
- Yellowstone Public Radio
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).