To the average American of 1800 the West was a void, a black land of desolation from whence no man foolhardy enough to march into it might return. But two Americans did lead a party into the bleakness, setting down the facts of the wilderness, binding the continent from ocean to ocean with the truth. These leaders were Meriweather Lewis and William Clark. Together they unveiled America’s destiny.
William Clark was born in 1770 in Albemarle County, Virginia. Following in the footsteps of his oldest brother George Rogers Clark, conqueror of the revolutionary northwest, William Clark became a lieutenant in the army of the United States. Meriweather Lewis was born in 1774 at Locus Hill, the family plantation, which was not far from the home of Thomas Jefferson. As a youngster Lewis used to love to ramble about in the wilderness. Both Lewis and Clark served under General Anthony Wayne, who trained his troops to a fine point for wilderness fighting.
In 1800, Thomas Jefferson, then president of the United States appointed Captain Lewis to be his personal secretary.
Jefferson: You’ve been most melancholy these past few days my boy.
Lewis: I didn’t realize that.
Jefferson: You didn’t realize that I hadn’t forgotten that little plan of ours. Tell me Lewis, do you think it is really possible that there are prehistoric mammoths out there? Lewis: Out where Mr. President?
Jefferson: Out west of course, beyond the Mississippi in the Emperor Napoleon’s territory. I’ve heard that a huge mountain of pure salt lies out in that wilderness. You may be the first white man to ever see that wonder.
Lewis: Mr. President you mean the expedition?
Jefferson: Yes Lewis, finally the expedition to the west. You’ll have to take long walks by yourself in the forest. I mean for you to have your fill of them.
Lewis: You can’t know what this means to me.
Jefferson: Not half of what it can mean to your country Lewis. Your job will be to command a Corps of Discovery to find the best land route to the Pacific. You will map the land’s topography and note its plant, animal and mineral resources. You will bring this government into touch with the Indians of the west and help divert the fur trade.
Lewis: But Mr. President the land belongs to France.
Jefferson: Not for long I hope.
Lewis: Most of the trade is being done by the British from Canada.
Jefferson: We’ll take it from the British and divert it down the Missouri River to St. Louis. That is why your party will travel up the Missouri and find its source.
Lewis: Oh.
Jefferson: By the way Lewis, do you know any hardy souls who might go with you, particularly a man to share your command?
Lewis: Well there is a Moses Hook, a lieutenant in the infantry; he is a good man. Billy Clark, the old red head. There is a natural leader for you and none better when it comes to maps and sketching.
Jefferson: Not George Clark’s brother (laughing)? Well with one of those with you, you needn’t worry about a hairy mammoth. It’d turn tail and run for its life.
Jefferson prevailed upon congress to appropriate the sum of $2,500 for the purpose of extending the external commerce of the Unites States. And in 1803 Lewis and Clark began to mold a group of 37 men into a Corps of Discovery. While Lewis set about purchasing supplies, Clark trained the small force at Camp River Dubois near the mouth of the Missouri River.
Clark: Now Shannon there is your musket clean. Now you clean mine.
Shannon: Captain Clark sir, I don’t think I’ll ever get it right.
Patty: Captain sir, might I be taking in young Shannon and working with the boy private like? A darn good soldier.
Clark: Very well Patty.
Patty: Come on my boy, old Patty will see you finish your lesson.
York: Captain Bill, Captain Billy. Captain Lewis is here. He said, ‘send his men to help him unload supplies.’ He said, ‘hurry, hurry.’
Clark: Alright York, alright. Pryor, Ordway, Drouillard.
Lewis: ‘Captain Billy, captain sir, that fool Captain Lewis done brought all matter of fool things with him from Saint Louis.’
Clark: Mern, how are ya? Sure good to see you back. Did you see them transfer the territory in St. Louis?
Lewis: Oh that I did. First from Spain to France and then from France to the United States. All in a matter of two days. Very formal but the land is ours.
Clark: Yehooooooooo, Jefferson did it. The Corp Discovery won’t need passports now. It’ s Yankee land and all for 15 million dollars.
Lewis: The Louisiana Purchase.
Clark: What did the Captain bring back this time to overload the boats and break our backs on the trails?
Lewis: Oh mostly Indian presents this time. Tomahawks, red flannel, combs, butcher knives, four dozen of them, eight and a half pounds of red beads and 73 bunches of assorted beads, 15 dozen scissors, one eight hundred assorted fishhooks.
Clark: Just a few odds and ends. I know I know one of the most important missions of this journey is to make a good impression on the Indians. Fill up a happy trade with them.
Lewis: And to keep our men happy I managed to bring our total supply of whiskey up to 30 gallons.
Clark: That should get us well started. By the way Captain Lewis I got a letter from the war office.
Lewis: Good. They finally got around to recommissioning you as a captain.
Clark: Not as a captain, as a lieutenant in the artillery. Look here Mern, you said we be co-commanders on this campaign.
Lewis: Well that is the way I have always spoken of it. That is the way the men think of you. You’ve just as much authority as I have Billy and that is the way it stays.
Clark: “Captain” with quotation marks around it, eh?
Lewis: I picked you Billy because I knew you could lead. I am depending on you, captain, you’ve got the confidence of the men. Together as co-commanders we’ll get to that western ocean and back again. Agreed?
Clark: Agreed.
Lewis: By the way, how’s the work coming with the boats?
Clark: Oh, very well. The bateau is almost finished and the two pirogues are ready and waiting.
May 14, 1804, the Lewis and Clark expedition started up the wide Missouri. It moved upstream through the last outposts of white man’s civilization. By October the party had reached a point 50 miles north of modern day Bismarck, North Dakota. Lewis and Clark selected this sight for winter quarters. Here they built Fort Mandan and waited, waited for the spring. There they found Charbonneau, a French man and his wife Sacajawea, a Shoshone Indian girl.
Charbonneau: (French spoken) . . . say it squaw, (French) . . .
Clark: That is enough squaw man.
Charbonneau: Oh but of course captain. Still Charbonneau does not understand. She is but a squaw. Among the Indians she is less than nothing, at the most property and Sacajawea owes me much. She is a captured Shoshone girl who knows what might have happened to her if it had not been for me, a loving husband. But I am a weak man and can’t stand to see suffering.
Clark: Her body is covered with the marks of your beatings.
Charbonneau: Well I have shortcomings, but as you have said I might be valuable to you as an interpreter. Still I don’t know. I don’t like to be tied down. Perhaps a little incentive.
Lewis: Let’s say $25.00 a month.
Charbonneau: Oh Captain Lewis, that is a very fine offer. You hear Sacajawea, $25.00 a month, how valuable is your husband, no?
Lewis: Your wife will accompany you Charbonneau. She’ll be able to interpret for us when we reach the land of the Shoshones.
Charbonneau: Oh very, very true, very true indeed. She can work and carry and she can stand very much.
Clark: Now, now little Pomp, what is the trouble huh? Don’t you worry Saca, Saca, ah I’m going to call you Janey. Don’t you worry Saca, don’t you worry we’re going to fix up Pomp in no time.
Lewis: Yes we better take good care of him while we can. Next winter instead of bringing people into the world, we may be ushering them out.
Spring 1805, the Corps Of Discovery started again up the Missouri. The next stop the Pacific Ocean. Every foot of the way was set down by William Clark. Every object of interest, everything that went to make up this vast new land was noted carefully by Meriweather Lewis. And every stroke of the ore seemed to enrage the Missouri. They would not be denied. They made the boats move always upstream, always ahead. When they needed smaller craft the hollowed canoes out of the forests. Every new mark on the map was etched in hardship, anxiety, courage. They put names on the lands and waters past Maria’s River, on to the Great Falls, and then to the dilemma of the three forks. They called them the Gallatin, Madison and Jefferson rivers and went up Jefferson fork coming inside of the great mountains that divide a continent, the Rockies. Here they met the first Indians since leaving the Mandans in Spring. They were hopeful of aide.
Clark: I told you Janey there would come in handy when we found the Shoshones.
Lewis: I am amazed Sacajawea can still talk to her people. She certainly wasn’t any help when it came to finding their villages. How’s your rheumatism Billy?
Clark: Ah, it’ll be fine if Janey can talk Cameahwait into giving us some horses and some help getting over those mountains. What is she talking about Charbonneau?
Charbonneau: Well Charbonneau does not understand Shoshone talk but I told her to tell Chief Cameahwait about the great whites far there to the east, the blessings of the white man’s trade, the usual . . . .
Lewis: I am beginning to feel like a drummer selling his wares. Every time we sit down with the Indians it is the same sales talk over again.
Clark: Drouillard here is outside giving the braves gifts. It should have a big effect with this tribe. They’ve never seen a white man before or a firearm of any sort. The Shoshones are a hungry bunch. They are no match for the Blackfeet, they don’t even get their share of buffalo. If they could trade with the states they’d have a chance to prosper and . . . . . .
Sacajawea: Huh (hugging the chief).
Clark: Charbonneau, What is the matter?
Charbonneau: No, (French spoken), it is not possible. Lewis: What are you talking about?
Gentlemen I am the (French spoken) royalty. Sacajawea, you would not believe this. Long ago she was kidnapped, as you know, but she did not know or remember her position. She is the sister to the Chief Cameahwait.
Lewis: Well then Janey can get us what we want.
Charbonneau: Oui. No, no, although Cameahwait will probably do what she asks, she has no real standing.
Clark: But she’s his sister.
Charbonneau: Sacajawea is still only a squaw.
With the help of Sacjawea’s tribe the party obtained horses and guidance up, up, and over the Rocky Mountains. They found the beginnings of the river that could carry them downstream, down to the Pacific. The men were heartened. The rest of the journey would be downhill. As difficult as the journey up the Missouri had been, it was nothing to the harrowing trip down these roaring cataracts. Through the country of the Nez Perce, down Snake River into the Columbia, down Homley Rapids past Mount Adams and the Cascades and out, out to the ocean. Yes, there came the day when William Clark wrote in his journal, ocean and view. Winter, 1805 the Corps of Discovery from the Pacific shores near the mouth of the Columbia River, Fort Clatsop was built and the men waited.
Lewis: I say marry her Billy.
Clark: What?
Lewis: Judy Hancock, marry her, much better than naming rivers after her. An honor she may never hear of.
Clark: I’ll marry her and name rivers after her.
Lewis: You are an incurable optimist Billy.
Clark: Ah, there will be a ship rolling in any day now to pick us up. The president knows it’s about time . . . .
Lewis: Do you really expect a ship?
Clark: No.
Lewis: It has been deadly dull for months. Not enough happening. No tobacco, no meat. Fort Clatsop. Clatsop, have you ever heard a name with fewer possibilities than Clatsop?
Clark: Don’t worry; you won’t be here much longer. I started planning a trip back home on foot.
Lewis: But we haven’t any horses.
Clark: That is what I said, on foot.
Shannon: Private Shannon reporting sir, relieved of the watch.
Clark: What do you have to report Shannon?
Shannon: Nothing sir, and a great deal of it I might add.
Clark: You can take a report back to the men for us. Tell them so far the trip has been easy. If they can stay live during the walk back home again then they’ve past the real test.
March 23, 1806, the Corps of Discovery walked away from the Pacific Ocean. Its goal, the Atlantic. Back, back they toiled along the Columbia and over the Rockies. Clark took one party down the Yellowstone River to further explore and map possible routes of travel. Lewis took another party on toward the Missouri. At the juncture of the Yellowstone and the Missouri the parties met and continued to Fort Mandan, only 1600 miles to St. Louis. Back at Locust Hill, Meriweather Lewis’ mother received a caller, an old neighbor and good friend.
President: Lucy, I have a conscience that has been bothering me, about your son and about yourself.
Lucy: Have you heard anything definite?
President: Nothing. Only that the Indian rumor is that the party was last seen crossing the Rocky Mountains heading for the ocean to the west. And that news, who knows how old it is.
Lucy: Oh believe me Mr. President I hold know false hopes.
President: You know Lucy those two young men aren’t the first I’ve sent to pry the lid off the wilderness. But in this case I feel I have sent men very dear to me, and to what fate? Torture, starvation, death. Did I do wrong Lucy to send your young man?
Lucy: No Tom. You gave Meriweather and William a chance for greatness, a chance to make their country great.
President: Thank you my dear. And may God prove all our fears to be foolish. For if Lewis and Clark are on their way home, they’ll travel faster than rumor itself.
Clark: Listen to them Mern, they sound happier than we do.
Lewis: St. Louis Billy, they got a right to be happy. It’s all over. No more rotted elk skin clothing, no more choke cherry root medicine, no more Corps of Discovery.
Clark: We did it Mern and now I am going to get married. Judy Hancock, here I come.
Lewis: I am going to Washington to present our reports to President Jefferson. I just can’t believe it.
Clark: Look here Mern. It’s all over but the shouting. What we did only needs doing once, thank heavens.
It is together that we remember Lewis and Clark. For together they unveiled America’s destiny and strengthened the claim of the United States to the Pacific Northwest. Neither could have done it alone.