Lewis wanted Clark along, even if not as an official member of the party. He closed his letter by saying that, if personal or business or any other affairs prevented Clark from accepting, Lewis hoped that he could “accompany me as a friend part of the way up the Missouri. I should be extremely happy in your company.”11
It would take a month for Lewis’s letter to reach Clark, another ten days for his reply to arrive. Meanwhile, a mystery. Ten days after Lewis made his offer of a shared command to Clark, he received from Secretary Dearborn the advance pay for the party to be recruited. It authorized one lieutenant only. Lewis made no known protest. Jefferson should have been alert enough to notice that Dearborn was thinking lieutenant while Lewis was offering captain, and he should have corrected the situation by telling Dearborn that Lewis’s offer would prevail and Clark, if he accepted, would be a captain. But the commander-in-chief did nothing. It was uncharacteristic of Lewis and Jefferson to miss a detail of any kind, much less one fraught with such potential danger for embarrassment, misunderstanding, and bad feeling, but they missed this one.
•
Lewis spent the last week of June buying supplies and instruments, gathering more books, and going over maps. He made arrangements for a stand-in as his fellow officer, should Clark decline. He chose a man he had met in 1799 and served with, Lieutenant Moses Hooke, and assured Jefferson that Hooke was the best officer in the army, “endowed with a good constitution, possessing a sensible well informed mind, is industrious, prudent and persevering, and with-all intrepid and enterprising.” Lewis didn’t hand out praise easily, and since it was clear that he was ready to cross the continent with Hooke, he obviously meant what he said about Hooke’s superior abilities. But there was no hint of a promotion to captain and a co-command.12 Good as Hooke was, he wasn’t William Clark.
•
By July 2, Lewis was nearing completion of the preparations and about to set off for Pittsburgh. That day, he wrote his mother.
He opened with an apology for not having the time to come home for a visit before departing for the western country, a trip he expected to take about a year and a half. As boys setting off on an adventure are wont to do, he reassured his mother: “The nature of this expedition is by no means dangerous, my rout will be altogether thorugh tribes of Indians who are perfectly friendly to the United States, therefore consider the chances of life just as much in my favor on this trip as I should conceive them were I to remain at home.”
After telling his mother not to worry, he wrote of what being Mr. Jefferson’s choice meant to him: “The charge of this expedition is honorable to myself, as it is important to my Country.”
Then it was back to reassurance: “I feel myself perfectly prepared, nor do I doubt my health and strength of constitution to bear me through it; I go with the most perfect preconviction in my own mind of returning safe and hope therefore that you will not suffer yourself to indulge any anxiety for my safety.”
There followed a series of instructions on the education of Lewis’s half-brother, John Marks. Lewis insisted that John go to the College of William and Mary at Williamsburg, even if land certificates had to be sold to pay the tuition. Given how deeply Virginia planters hated to sell land, Lewis’s priorities show the high value he set on education. After the crash courses he had been put through in Philadelphia, he had reason to wish he had gone to college.
He closed with a wish to be remembered to various members of the family, especially the two youngsters, Mary and Jack. “Tell them I hope the progress they will make in their studies will be equal to my wishes.”13
•
Also on July 2, Dearborn handed Lewis the authorization to select up to twelve noncommissioned officers and privates. He could pick them from the garrisons at the posts at Massac and Kaskaskia, the former on the lower Ohio and the latter on the Mississippi, above the mouth of the Ohio. In separate orders, Dearborn told the commanding officers at the posts to furnish Lewis with every assistance in “selecting and engaging suitable men to accompany him on an expedition to the Westward.” That was a license to raid, sure to be resented by captains about to lose their best men, but Dearborn made it stick. “If any [man] in your Company should be disposed to join Capt. Lewis,” and if Captain Lewis wanted the volunteer, “you will detach them accordingly.”
In addition, Captain Russell Bissell at Kaskaskia was ordered to provide Lewis with the best boat on the post and with a sergeant and “eight good Men who understand rowing a boat.” They would carry baggage for Lewis, to his winter quarters on the Missouri, then descend before the ice closed in. Bissell refused Sergeant Patrick Gass’s request to join the expedition, presumably on the grounds that he couldn’t afford to lose his best noncommissioned officer. Lewis used the authority given him by Dearborn to enlist Gass anyway.14
For the descent of the Ohio, Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Cushing provided Lewis with eight recruits from the post at Carlisle, Pennsylvania. In a pouch accompanying the order, Cushing included a couple of dozen letters for Lewis to deliver to officers at the western posts. He asked Lewis, after he reached St. Louis, to send the eight recruits down the Mississippi to Fort Adams. Cushing closed with a nice note: “That your expedition may be pleasant to yourself and advantageous to our Country; and when its toils and dangers are over, that you may enjoy many years of happiness, prosperity and honor, is the sincere wish of, Sir, Your most Obdt. Servt.”15
•
July 4, 1803, the nation’s twenty-seventh birthday, was a great day for Meriwether Lewis. He completed his preparations and was ready to depart in the morning. He got his letter of credit in its final form from President Jefferson. And the National Intelligencer of Washington reported in that day’s issue that Napoleon had sold Louisiana to the United States.
It was stunning news of the most fundamental importance. Henry Adams put it best: “The annexation of Louisiana was an event so portentous as to defy measurement; it gave a new face to politics, and ranked in historical importance next to the Declaration of Independence and the adoption of the Constitution—events of which it was the logical outcome; but as a matter of diplomacy it was unparallelled, because it cost almost nothing.”16
Napoleon’s decision to sell not just New Orleans but all of Louisiana, and the negotiations that followed, and Jefferson’s decision to waive his strict constructionist views in order to make the purchase, is a dramatic and well-known story. It is best described by Henry Adams in his History of the United States in the Administrations of Thomas Jefferson, one of the great classics of American history writing.
Napoleon was delighted, and rightly so. He had title to Louisiana, but no power to enforce it. The Americans were sure to overrun it long before he could get an army there—if he ever could. “Sixty million francs for an occupation that will not perhaps last a day!” he exulted. He knew what he was giving up and what the United States was getting—and the benefit to France, beyond the money: “The sale assures forever the power of the United States, and I have given England a rival who, sooner or later, will humble her pride.”17
For Lewis, what mattered was not how Louisiana was acquired, a process in which he played no role, but that the territory he would be crossing from the Mississippi to the Continental Divide now belonged to the United States. As Jefferson nicely put it, the Louisiana Purchase “lessened the apprehensions of interruption from other powers.”
The Purchase did more for the expedition than relieve it of threats from the Spanish, French, or British. As Jefferson noted, it “increased infinitely the interest we felt in the expedition.”18
When Adams wrote that the Purchase “gave a new face to politics,” he meant that it signified the end of the Federalist Party, which was so shortsighted and partisan that many of its representatives criticized the act. Alexander Hamilton was wise to content himself with remarking that Jefferson had just been lucky. The Purchase, he said, resulted from “the kind interpositions of an overruling Providence.” But a Boston Federalist ne
wspaper did not like the deal at all: it called Louisiana “a great waste, a wilderness unpeopled with any beings except wolves and wandering Indians. We are to give money of which we have too little for land of which we already have too much.” Jefferson was risking national bankruptcy to buy a desert.19
Angry partisanship was the order of the day. Senator John Quincy Adams complained in his diary, “The country is so totally given up to the spirit of party, that not to follow blindfold the one or the other is an inexpiable offence.” But the New England Federalists were putting themselves on the wrong side of history to oppose the Purchase. One denounced it as “a great curse,” and another feared that the Purchase “threatens, at no very distant day, the subversion of our Union.”20
Caspar Wistar of Philadelphia, Lewis’s sometime tutor, got it right. He wrote to congratulate Jefferson “on the very happy acquisitions you have made for our Country. Altho no one here appears to know the extent or price of the cession, it is generally considered as the most important & beneficial transaction which has occurred since the declaration of Independence, & next to it, most like to influence or regulate the destinies of our Country.”21
One immediate effect of the Purchase was to change Lewis’s relationship with the Indian tribes he would encounter east of the Divide. The Indians were now on American territory. Lewis would be responsible for informing them that their Great Father was Jefferson rather than the Spanish and French rulers. Jefferson wanted Lewis to bring them into the trading net of the United States, which meant bringing peace among them and telling the British around the Mandan villages that they were on foreign soil.
By far the most important effect of the Purchase on the expedition was a negative that stemmed from the fact that no one knew what the boundaries of Louisiana were. Napoleon sold Louisiana “with the same extent that it now has in the hands of Spain, and that it had when France possessed it.” The general belief was that Louisiana consisted of the western half of the Mississippi drainage. That meant from the Gulf of Mexico northward to the northernmost tributaries of the Missouri, and from the Mississippi westward to the Continental Divide. But no American, Spaniard, Frenchman, or Briton knew how far north that was. Jefferson, greatly excited by the prospect of adding more northern territory to the Purchase, at once began urging Lewis to explore those northern tributaries, where earlier, in the formal instructions, he had emphasized exploration of the southern tributaries.
Jefferson wanted land. He wanted empire. He reached out to seize what he wanted, first of all by continually expanding the boundaries of Louisiana. Diplomatic historian Thomas Maitland Marshall describes it well: “Starting with the idea that the purchase was confined to the western waters of the Mississippi Valley, Jefferson’s conception had gradually expanded until [by 1808] it included West Florida, Texas, and the Oregon Country, a view which was to be the basis of a large part of American diplomacy for nearly half a century.”22
•
Lewis started out for Pittsburgh on July 5, 1803, the day after the news of the Purchase arrived. Although he was in a good mood, he had a great deal to be worried about. Would Clark accept, or would his health or business commitments prevent him from joining? Had the wagonload of supplies gotten from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh? Had the weapons and other items selected at Harpers Ferry been sent to Pittsburgh? Had he selected the right items, in sufficient quantity? What kind of soldiers would be meeting him in Pittsburgh for the trip down the Ohio? Was the keelboat he had ordered made in Pittsburgh completed?
He had a sense of urgency. Having used up more than a month of good traveling weather, he knew the Ohio River would be falling as summer wore on, knew that he had to get going if he were to have any hope of making any significant distance up the Missouri before the weather closed in. But he still had a great deal to do, in Harpers Ferry and Pittsburgh.
So he could not have been altogether easy in his mind as he turned his horse’s head west and started out. But he must have had a joy in his heart. He certainly had a determination: with that first step west, he intended never to look back until he had reached the Pacific.
•
Lewis got to Fredericktown (present Frederick), Maryland, the evening of July 5. There was good news: the wagon carrying supplies from Philadelphia had passed through Fredericktown ten days earlier. There was bad news: on arrival at Harpers Ferry, the driver had decided the arms and other weapons Lewis had ordered were too heavy for his team, so he had gone on to Pittsburgh without them. Lewis hired a teamster in Fredericktown, who promised he would be in Harpers Ferry by July 8. Lewis pushed on to Harpers Ferry, where “I shot my guns and examined the several articles which had been manufactered for me at this place; they appear to be well executed.” What pleased him most was the completed iron-frame boat.
But good feelings gave way to worries—the teamster “disappointed me.” Lewis hired another, locally; the man promised to load up the guns and the iron-frame and the rest and be on his way to Pittsburgh early the next morning. Lewis then set off for Pittsburgh, where he arrived at 2:00 p.m. on July 15.23 He immediately wrote a report to Jefferson, so as to catch the 5:00 p.m. post. It had been hot and dry, the roads “extreemly dusty, yet I feel myself much benifitted by the exercise the journey has given me, and can with pleasure anounce, so far and all is well.” Though the Ohio was low, it could be navigated if he could get a quick start. He had not yet had time to see the boat he had ordered.24
The boat contract called for completion on July 20, but, to Lewis’s intense disappointment, the builder wasn’t even close to done. The contractor claimed he had found it difficult to get the proper timber, but now it had arrived, and he promised to have the work completed by July 30. Lewis reported to Jefferson that he was “by no means sanguine” that he could meet that date; August 5 was more like it. “I visit him every day,” Lewis wrote, “and endeavour by every means in my power to hasten the completion of the work; I have prevailed on him to engage more hands. . . . I shall embark immediately the boat is in readiness.”
Some good news: the wagon from Harpers Ferry arrived on July 22. So had the party of seven recruits (the eighth recruit had pocketed his bounty for enlisting and promptly deserted) from Carlisle who would make the descent of the Ohio with the keelboat. But what nagged was the falling river. “The current of the Ohio is extreemly low and continues to decline,” Lewis told Jefferson. “This may impede my progress but shall not prevent my proceeding, being determined to get forward though I should not be able to make a greater distance than a mile pr. day.”25
The next week was agony for Lewis. The boatbuilder was a drinking man, so he seldom worked mornings, and sometimes not in the afternoons either. He had none of Lewis’s sense of urgency. But there was no one else in Pittsburgh capable of doing the work. So Lewis fretted and fumed but did not fire the contractor.
•
On July 29, the mail brought in the best possible news. It was a letter from Clark. He had accepted! “The enterprise &c. is Such as I have long anticipated and am much pleased with,” Clark wrote, “and as my situation in life will admit of my absence the length of time necessary to accomplish such an undertaking I will chearfully join you in an ‘official Charrector’ as mentioned in your letter,I and partake of the dangers, difficulties, and fatigues, and I anticipate the honors & rewards of the result of such an enterprise. . . . This is an undertaking fraited with many difeculties, but My friend I do assure you that no man lives with whome I would perfur to undertake Such a Trip &c. as yourself.”
He asked Lewis to tell Jefferson to send his commission on to Louisville, across the river from Clarksville. He said he would try to find a few good men for the expedition, which he reported was the chief subject of conversation in Louisville.26
In a follow-up letter of July 24, Clark related that “several young men (Gentlemens sons) have applyed to accompany us—as they are not accustomed to labour and as that is a verry assential part of the services required of the party, I am causious i
n giveing them any encouragement.” He told Lewis he would be ready to go as soon as the keelboat reached Louisville, for he too was eager to get as far up the Missouri as possible that season. “My friend,” he concluded, “I join you with hand & Heart.”27
“I feel myself much gratifyed with your decision,” Lewis told Clark by the next post, August 3, “for I could neither hope, wish, or expect from a union with any man on earth, more perfect support or further aid in the discharge of the several duties of my mission, than that, which I am confident I shall derive from being associated with yourself.”
Lewis said he was pleased that Clark had engaged some men and reminded him that this was their most critical job. The enterprise “must depend on a judicious scelection of our men; their qualifycations should be such as perfectly fit them for the service, outherwise they will reather clog than further the objects in view; on this principle I am well pleased that you have not admitted or encouraged the young gentlemen you mention, we must set our faces against all such applications and get rid of them on the best terms we can. They will not answer our purposes.”28
Clark absolutely agreed. On August 21, he informed Lewis that “I have had many aplications from stout likely fellows but have refused to retain some & put others off with a promis of giveing ‘an answer after I see or hered from you.’ ” Lewis was simultaneously being pestered by young men in Pittsburgh who wanted to join up.
Clearly the word was out in the western country, and what young unmarried frontiersman—whether gentlemen’s sons or the sons of whiskey-making corn farmers—could resist such an opportunity? It was the ultimate adventure. The reward for success would be a land grant, similar to those given the Revolutionary War veterans—a princely reward to frontiersmen.
So Lewis and Clark could be highly selective. Clark was an excellent judge of men. He had gathered seven of “the best young woodsmen & Hunters in this part of the Countrey”—these were the men awaiting Lewis’s approval before being accepted. They included Charles Floyd, Nathaniel Pryor, William Bratton, Reubin Field, Joseph Field, George Gibson, and John Shields. Lewis was equally good as a judge; in Pittsburgh, he selected John Colter and George Shannon (at eighteen, the youngest of the group), subject to Clark’s approval.