Lewis’s Estimate
Before asking Congress to authorize a Pacific expedition, President Jefferson needed an estimate of expenses. Sometime in the first half of December 1802, he asked Meriwether Lewis to make it. In The President’s Secretary, Arlen Large describes the circumstances:
In December the President asked Lewis to make a roughly itemized estimate of the Pacific expedition’s cost. Adding up Indian presents, camp equipment, weapons and whatnot the secretary arrived at a nice round guess of $2,500. Jefferson was ready to ask for this down-payment appropriation in his 15 December 1802 annual message to Congress, but Treasury Secretary Albert Gallatin urged him to submit the request separately.
Lewis’s Estimate of Expenses
Cropped with brightness and contrast adjusted for clarity. Courtesy U.S. Library of Congress, “Meriwether Lewis, April 20, 1803, Expedition Estimate,” www.loc.gov/resource/mtj1.028_0183_0184/?sp=1.
Donald Jackson includes the undated document, endorsed by Jefferson, in his Letters of the Lewis and Clark Expedition:
Recapitulation of an estimate of the sum necessary to carry into effort the Missie. expedicion—
Mathematical Instruments $217 Arms & Accoutrements extraordinary ” 81 Camp Ecquipage “255 Medecine & packing ” 55 Means of transportation “430 Indian presents “696 Provisions extraordinary “224 Materials for making up the various articles into portable packs ” 55 For the pay of hunters guides & Interpreters “300 In silver coin to defray the expences of the party from Nashville to the last white settlement on the Missisourie “100 Contingincies ” 87 $2,500 —Meriwether Lewis[1]Donald Jackson, ed. Letters of the Lewis and Clark Expedition with Related Documents: 1783-1854, 2nd ed. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1978), 1:8–9.
Fort Nashbourough (first reconstruction)
Postcard with linen texture. Published by Southern Latex Co., Nashville, Tennessee. Courtesy Boston Public Library, Tichnor Brothers Collection, #74048.
In his estimate, Lewis expected the boat or boats to cost $430 and the expense to travel from Nashville to the “last white settlement”—likely St. Charles—to cost $100. The barge was instead built in Pittsburgh.
Actual Costs
The report on the expedition’s actual cost—likely made by the War Department in early 1806—gives a total of $38,722.25. Historian Donald Jackson suggests a more accurate accounting would add the cost of returning Mandan Chief Sheheke back home (some $10,000) and the extra pay for personnel ($11,000). Also, he suggests that the funds for the “pay, subsistence, and clothing” of the men already in the service, should be subtracted. Two reasons the estimate was so much lower than the reality was that the low number would appeal to Congress and only 10 or 12 men were thought to be a sufficient for the expedition’s success. Jefferson’s open letter of credit indicates that both he and Lewis expected the costs to be much higher than $2500.[2]Ibid., 2:424–431, especially notes 1 and 25.
Jefferson formally asked for the $2500 appropriation in a secret message to Congress delivered by Lewis on 18 January 1803. Much of the expedition’s actual expenditures went towards outfitting the expedition, Lewis’s medicinal purchases, and soldier pay.
