They had served in the military together and were an ideal team. Lewis then chose his Co-Captain, William Clark. President Jefferson chose his secretary Meriwether Lewis as the ideal candidate to captain the Corps. O n the Monticello web site r ead about Thomas Jefferson's part in funding and planning the Corp's work. Also, he expected the Corps to catalog the flora and fauna they encountered. He wanted to find a water route to the Pacific Ocean and map the topography. He was dedicated to exploration of the vast territory west of the Mississippi River and learning about the Native Americans who resided there. The Lewis and Clark "Corps of Discovery", as it eventually came to be called, was conceived by Thomas Jefferson. Intentionally or not, the Corp’s charting of the Pacific Northwest signaled the beginning of the end for the Native peoples of the West, who had lived in the area for thousands of years.Discover details of all the Corps members from this PBS site and this Discovering Lewis & Clark site. They were hailed as heroes – but this was from a purely American perspective. Lewis and Clark headed to Washington, D.C., to tell President Jefferson all they had seen.
It was during this final leg of the expedition that the one violent skirmish – with the Blackfeet tribe at the Two Medicine Fight Site in Montana – occurred. In March 1806, the expedition began its journey back East. Lewis and Clark were hailed as heroes in America One of the animals sent to President Jefferson in 1805 was a "barking squirrel," or “black-tailed prairie dog.” These reports contained measurements and observations of its course and its surrounding flora, fauna, tributaries and inhabitants…Lewis and Clark described at least 178 plants and 122 animals - including mammals, birds, reptiles and fish … New species that the Corps of Discovery encountered included pronghorn, bighorn sheep… mountain beaver, long-tailed weasel, mountain goat, coyote and various species of rabbit, squirrel, fox and wolf… They sent back descriptions, zoological specimens, and even a few live animals. Here, they spent the winter, while Lewis and Clark compiled reports describing all that they had learned and seen, which included intricate sketches made by Lewis of everything from the maple leaf to the vulture. The Corp set up camp, building Fort Clatsop near present-day Astoria, Oregon. The Corps then started a difficult 200-mile trek over the Bitterroot Mountains (the northern segment of the Rocky Mountains) before taking the Clearwater, Snake and Columbia Rivers to what is now the coast of Oregon, where they beheld the Pacific Ocean for the first time in November 1805.
They reached the Pacific Ocean 18 months after the expedition beganĪfter crossing the continental divide through the Lemhi Pass, at the present-day Montana-Idaho border, it became evident that there was no fabled all-water route to the Pacific that President Jefferson had hoped for. soon began to make a roaring too tremendious to be mistaken for any cause short of the great falls of the Missouri. whin my ears were saluted with the agreeable sound of a fall of water and advancing a little further I saw the spray arrise above the plain like a collumn of smoke. I had proceded on this course about two miles. In June 1805, working with descriptions given them by Native Americans, they discovered the Great Falls of the Missouri, making them the first Americans to see them. With the invaluable Sacagawea, who acted as a translator and guide, the men journeyed up the Missouri River into Montana. With such men I have everything to hope, and but little to fear.” “At this moment, every individual of the party are in good health, and excellent sperits zealously attatched to the enterprise, and anxious to proceed… all in unison, act with the most perfect harmoney. “I can foresee no material or probable obstruction to our progress, and entertain therefore the most sanguine hopes of complete success,” Lewis wrote in 1805. The Corps were soon joined by Sacagawea’s baby, Jean Baptiste Charbonneau, who the doting Clark called “Pomp.”ĭespite hardships, danger and the constant threat of the unknown, positivity would reign throughout most of the expedition. The group included two invaluable members who America had not treated kindly – York, a Black man owned by Clark, and a 16-year old pregnant Lemhi-Shoshone called Sacagawea, who had been forced into marriage after being purchased by a French-Canadian trapper named Toussaint Charbonneau. By November 1804, the Corps had made its way to North Dakota, where its core of 33 adventurers was cemented.
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