On November 15, 1805, the US Corps of Discovery under Meriwether Lewis & William Clark reached the Pacific Ocean at what is now Cape Disappointment State Park in Washington.
The U.S. Army & the Lewis & Clark Expedition
Fort Mandan to the Pacific
While at Fort Mandan, the Lewis & Clark Corps of Discovery continued its association with the Indians. The soldiers took part in Indian hunting parties & social events & built goodwill by providing rudimentary medical care & the services of their blacksmith, John Shields, to the tribes. They took time to speak with British & French-Canadian traders who were well established with the Indians, & gained valuable intelligence. On 27 October, they hired Rene Jessaume as an interpreter with the Mandan. A week later they recruited French-Canadian fur trader Baptiste Lepage into the permanent party to replace Private Newman, who had been “discarded” from the expedition for “repeated expressions of a highly criminal & mutinous nature.” Then they hired another French-Canadian fur trader, Toussaint Charbonneau, as an interpreter. The 44-year-old Charbonneau had been living & trading among the Hadatsa for the past five years & had been active on the Upper Missouri since at least 1793. Later, in March 1805, Lewis & Clark hired Charbonneau to accompany the expedition west & agreed that he could bring along his young Shoshone wife, Sacagawea, who had given birth a month earlier to a boy they named Jean Baptiste.
On 6 April 1805, Lewis & Clark sent the keelboat back to St. Louis. In the keelboat were Corporal Warfington; six privates (including Newman & Reed, who had been discharged from the expedition for desertion); Gravelines, the pilot & interpreter; two French-Canadian traders; & an Arikara chief returning to his village. The next day the remainder of the Lewis & Clark Corps of Discovery departed the Mandan villages in two pirogues & six dugout canoes heading north. Along the way west, the Expedition continued to note abundant plant & wildlife. The scenery was stunning, & spirits were high. On 14 April Clark saw his first grizzly bear. Eleven days later the Corps reached the mouth of the Yellowstone River & camped there. On 10 May the men saw their first moose. A week later Clark noted in his journal that the men were beginning to be use deerskins to make moccasins & leggings, as the original uniform trousers were wearing out.
Lewis & Clark faced their first major navigational test on 2 June 1805. Arriving at the junction of two large rivers, the captains
needed to decide correctly which fork was the Missouri. Between 4 & 8 June, Lewis & a party reconnoitered the northwest branch, which Lewis later named the Marias River, while Clark & another group explored the southwestern branch. After comparing their notes, reevaluating their intelligence, & studying the maps they had brought from St. Louis, Lewis & Clark determined that the southwestern branch was the Missouri River, even though all their men thought otherwise. Nevertheless, in a great tribute to their leaders, the men followed Lewis & Clark, although they believed the captains were wrong. Then, on 13 June, Lewis saw a majestic sight: the Great Falls of the Missouri River. The captains had been right. Here, the Lewis & Clark Corps of Discovery made camp & prepared for the great portage.
Lewis & Clark were proud of their men. The Lewis & Clark Corps of Discovery was “zealously attached to the enterprise, & anxious to proceed.” Indeed, as Lewis wrote, there was not “a whisper of discontent or murmur” among the men, who acted in unison & “with the most perfect harmoney [sic].” That the Lewis & Clark Corps of Discovery was a tough, resourceful, & tightly knit group was due to the great leadership of the two captains, who complemented each other so well & had molded their troops into a confident & cohesive force. They would need that confidence & cohesiveness during the arduous eighteen-mile portage around the Great Falls. Over the next three weeks, the Lewis & Clark Corps of Discovery struggled up steep slopes, over prickly pear cactus thorns & jagged ridges, around gullies & ravines, in the scorching summer heat to complete their passage of the falls. The expedition rested for two days & continued the journey on 14 July.
On 12 August, the Lewis & Clark Corps of Discovery reached the source of the Missouri River. The next day an advance party of Lewis, Drouillard, & two privates encountered the Shoshones. Using friendly hand signals & gifts, the soldiers managed to win the trust of the Indians. Four days later Clark & the rest of the Lewis & Clark Corps of Discovery joined Lewis & established Camp Fortunate. At the council that evening, Sacagawea was there to interpret. But before the meeting began, she recognized the Shoshone chief Cameahwait as her brother. She immediately embraced him. Lewis wrote that the reunion was “really affecting.” More gifts, promises of future trading, & the good fortune that the chief of the Shoshones was the brother of Sacagawea enabled the party to secure horses & guides for the journey along the Continental Divide & over the rugged Bitterroots to the country of the Nez Perce Indians. The hard, forced march across the Rockies along the Lolo Trail, where the freezing cold & lack of food pushed the Lewis & Clark Corps of Discovery to the limits of its endurance, ended in late September, when the advanced party under Clark met the Nez Perce.
On 23 September, Lewis & Clark held a council with Twisted Hair & some lesser chiefs of the Nez Perce. Anxious to get to the Pacific (and of the fact that they were no longer in U.S. territory), the captains dispensed with the usual displays of American military might & instead passed out medals & gifts, explained their mission to Twisted Hair, & requested his assistance in building canoes for the expedition. Indeed, the soldiers were so weak from crossing the Rockies that they could hardly move & spent nearly a week recovering. The Nez Perce could have easily destroyed the expedition, but thanks largely to their generosity & kindness, the canoes were finished by 6 October, & the Lewis & Clark Corps of Discovery was ready for its final leg to the Pacific.
On 7 October, the Expedition began its journey down the Clearwater, Snake, & Columbia Rivers to the ocean. In dealing with the tribes they encountered along the way, Lewis & Clark followed their usual practice of expressing joy at meeting the Indians, urging them to make peace with their neighbors, handing out gifts, & promising more trade goods from future American traders. To impress the tribes, the Lewis & Clark Corps of Discovery occasionally paraded in formation or showed off a magnifying glass, the air gun, or another device. Friendly talk & displays of the expedition’s military prowess usually impressed the Indians & guaranteed safe passage, although the soldiers were less successful in halting the intertribal warfare.
The men of the Lewis & Clark Corps of Discovery named their winter quarters after the local tribe, as they had the previous winter. Fort Clatsop was about fifty feet square, with two structures that faced each other. One structure was divided into three rooms that housed the three enlisted messes. The other structure was divided into four rooms, one of which served as quarters for the captains & another the Charbonneau family. The third was the orderly room, the fourth a smokehouse. Palisade walls joined these two structures. At one end was the main gate; at the other a smaller, “water gate” (fresh spring water was about thirty yards away). In the middle of the fort was a parade ground. On 30 December the Expedition completed Fort Clatsop as its winter quarters, establishing tight security to safeguard its equipment & to avoid any trouble. Clark wrote that “the Sight of our Sentinal” brought a sense of peace & security to the Lewis & Clark Corps of Discovery.
