(1773–unknown), Private
by Barbara Fifer, Joseph A. Mussulman
His name appears only one time, when he is listed as a member of Corporal Warfington’s detachment bringing the keelboat back from Fort Mandan. He may not have even made it that far.
(ca. 1780–unknown), Corporal
This man is perhaps the most mysterious of the expedition’s mystery men. Journal entries indicate he may have left the expedition on 12 June 1804 riding back to St. Louis with Chouteau Fur Company traders.
(1784–unknown), Private
by Barbara Fifer
Dame’s sole claim to notice in the captains’ journals was the fact that he shot an American white pelican at what the captains named Pelican Island, near today’s Little Sioux, Iowa.
Private, U.S. Army
by Barbara Fifer
For John Boley, assigned to the return party, the Corps’ 1804 travels apparently whetted an appetite for frontier exploration. After reaching St. Louis on the keelboat in 1805, he volunteered for Zebulon Pike’s expedition that was to leave on August 9.
Demons
by Joseph A. Mussulman
In 1673 French explorers Père Marquette and Louis Joliet listened to local Indians’ warnings about this place and erected a cross atop the ninety-foot-high rock to disempower the demons said to be lurking in the treacherous whirlpool at its base.
Early American settlement
“Arrived oposite three new habitation of some Americans who had settled under the Spanish government,” wrote Lewis on 22 November 1803. “This settlement is on a bottom called, Tywappety.” Major Amos Stoddard described the area in 1812.
Cairo to Cahokia, Illinois
On 20 November 1803, after nearly a week encamped at the mouth of the Ohio, the new recruits would be tested while propelling the large boat—known today as the keelboat—against Mississippi River current. They safely navigated around the Grand Tower, but learned at Fort Kaskaskia that the Spanish would not allow them past St. Louis.
Secret Agent Number 13
by Arlen J. Large
James Wilkinson was one of the most duplicitous, avaricious, and altogether corrupt figures in the early history of the United States. At the time of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, he was a paid agent of the Spanish government.
Western headquarters
by Jo Ann Brown-Trogdon
Six years before signing on with the Lewis and Clark Expedition, George Drouillard took part in a sensitive international mission for the United States Army. This mission was probably just one of Drouillard’s many services to the United States in the last decade of the eighteenth century.
Life in the 1803 U.S. Army
by Robert J. Moore
A multitude duties awaited the hapless private, and idle hands and feet were never knowingly allowed in a military camp. Most fatigue duties rewarded the men with an extra gill (1/4 of a pint) of whiskey each day.
Worth their salt
by Joseph A. Mussulman
Early Roman soldiers received an allowance of salt, which was called a salarium—a “salary.” A good soldier had to be “worth his salt.” What sort of salaries did the men of the Corps of Discovery earn?
Objects worthy of notice
by Joseph A. Mussulman
Among the “objects worthy of notice” President Jefferson instructed Meriwether Lewis to watch for en route were saltpetre deposits and salines. By “salines” Jefferson meant salt flats, salt marshes, salt pans, salt springs, and rock or “fossil” salt deposits.
Anthem of the American West
by Joseph A. Mussulman
For more than a hundred years the American bison has been enshrined as a symbol of the American West in the first line of a song known around the world, “Home on the Range.”
Instruments resembling tambourines are mentioned several times in the journals, but always in descriptions of Indian music, except for Sergeant Ordway’s comment on New Year’s Day of 1805.
An interview with an elder
These songs are used in honorings, giveaways, recognition of society members, and respect for veterans. Blackfeet reporter Pelah Hoyt talked with Professor of Music Joseph Mussulman about the expedition and its music.
Familiar water
by Joseph A. Mussulman
Lewis, Clark, and their crew must have passed the mouth of the Wabash about 5 November 1803. The captains had crisscrossed the area in the course of their military duties, and in 1792 Clark had gained one of his first experiences in river navigation.
(1785–1851)
by Doug Erickson, Joseph A. Mussulman
America’s greatest ornithologist, John James Audubon, was just starting his career when Lewis and Clark returned, and there is ample evidence that he drew inspiration from Lewis and Clark’s writings.
Jefferson's ciphers
by Joseph A. Mussulman
It was Thomas Jefferson who gave cryptography in America its greatest impetus. Sometime in 1803 Jefferson presented Meriwether Lewis with a cipher based on a square table or tableau used to create a substitution cipher.
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.
(unknown–late 1830s), Private
by Robert E. Gatten
Labiche performed all the regular duties of an army private, but also performed well as a French and English interpreter. He would continue serving as an escort with Lewis for Chief Sheheke’s delegation to Washington City.
This page was funded in part by a grant from the National Park Service's Challenge Cost Share Program.
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).