The Journals of Lewis and Clark

by DeVoto, Bernard Augustine

• ISBN13: 9780395859964
• ISBN10: 0395859964
• Edition: Revised
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1997-04-30
• Publisher: MARINER BOOKS

Summary

In 1803, when the United States purchased Louisiana from France, the great expanse of this new American territory was a blank -- not only on the map but in our knowledge. President Thomas Jefferson keenly understood that the course of the nation's destiny lay westward and that a national "Voyage of Discovery" must be mounted to determine the nature and accessibility of the frontier. He commissioned his young secretary, Meriwether Lewis, to lead an intelligence-gathering expedition from the Missouri River to the northern Pacific coast and back. From 1804 to 1806, Lewis, accompanied by co-captain William Clark, the Shoshone guide Sacajawea, and thirty-two men, made the first trek across the Louisiana Purchase, mapping the rivers as he went, tracing the principal waterways to the sea, and establishing the American claim to the territories of Idaho, Washington, and Oregon. together the captains kept a journal, a richly detailed record of the flora and fauna they sighted, the Indian tribes they encountered, and the awe-inspiring landscape they traversed, from their base camp near present-day St. Louis to the mouth of the Columbia River. In keeping this record they made an incomparable contribution to the literature of exploration and the writing of natural history. The Journals of Lewis and Clark, writes Bernard DeVoto, was "the first report on the West, on the United States over the hill and beyond the sunset, on the province of the American future. There has never been another so excellent or so influential...It satisfied desire and created desire: the desire of the westering nation."

Table of Contents

FOREWORD	vii	(6)
Stephen E. Ambrose
PREFACE	xiii	(10)
INTRODUCTION	xxiii
I FROM RIVER DUBOIS TO THE PLATTE	1	(11)
II FROM THE PLATTE TO VERMILION RIVER	12	(11)
III FROM THE VERMILION TO TETON (BAD) RIVER	23	(10)
IV FROM TETON RIVER TO THE MANDANS	33	(24)
V AMONG THE MANDANS	57	(18)
VI AMONG THE MANDANS	75	(12)
VII FROM FORT MANDAN TO THE YELLOWSTONE	87	(15)
VIII FROM THE YELLOWSTONE TO THE MUSSELSHELL	102	(13)
IX FROM THE MUSSELSHELL TO MARIA'S RIVER	115	(17)
X FROM MARIA'S RIVER TO THE GREAT FALLS OF THE MISSOURI	132	(15)
XI PORTAGING AROUND THE GREAT FALLS	147	(8)
XII FROM THE GREAT FALLS TO THE THREE FORKS	155	(15)
XIII FROM THE THREE FORKS OF THE MISSOURI TO BEAVER'S HEAD	170	(15)
XIV FROM BEAVER'S HEAD TO THE GREAT DIVIDE	185	(17)
XV CROSSING THE GREAT DIVIDE	202	(14)
XVI SEARCHING FOR NAVIGABLE WATERS	216	(16)
XVII DOWN THE LOLO TRAIL	232	(17)
XVIII THE RAPIDS OF THE SNAKE AND COLUMBIA	249	(10)
XIX DESCENDING THE COLUMBIA TO THE RAPIDS	259	(14)
XX FROM THE RAPIDS TO THE SEA	273	(19)
XXI AT FORT CLATSOP	292	(11)
XXII AT FORT CLATSOP	303	(9)
XXIII AT FORT CLATSOP	312	(19)
XXIV THE START FOR HOME	331	(12)
XXV FROM SANDY RIVER TO THE DALLES OF THE COLUMBIA	343	(13)
XXVI FROM THE DALLES OF THE COLUMBIA TO WALLA WALLA RIVER	356	(14)
XXVII FROM WALLA WALLA RIVER TO LAWYER'S CANON CREEK	370	(14)
XXVIII ENCAMPED ON THE UPPER KOOSKOOSKE	384	(16)
XXIX IN THE BITTER ROOT MOUNTAINS	400	(18)
XXX LEWIS'S SHORT-CUT TO THE MISSOURI, AND EXPLORATION OF MARIA'S RIVER	418	(30)
XXXI CLARK'S EXPLORATION OF THE YELLOWSTONE	448	(5)
XXXII FROM THE LITTLE MISSOURI TO WHITE RIVER	453	(14)
XXXIII THE HOME STRETCH	467	(14)
APPENDIX I JEFFERSON'S INSTRUCTIONS TO LEWIS	481	(8)
APPENDIX II PERSONNEL OF THE EXPEDITION	489	(4)
APPENDIX III ITEMIXED LOST OF SPECIMENS AND ARTIFACTS SENT TO JEFFERSON FROM FORT MANDAN	493	(2)
INDEX	495