Lewis and Clark

In 1804, the first U.S. overland expedition to the Pacific coast and back was conducted under the leadership of Captain Meriwether Lewis and Lieutenant William Clark. Preparations for the expedition were initiated by President Thomas Jefferson before the Louisiana Purchase in 1803. All members of the expedition had plenty of training experiences, and were skilled in various fields like botany, meteorology, zoology, celestial navigation, Indian sign language, carpentry, gun repair, and boat handling.

After spending a winter in military training and gathering supplies and equipment near St. Louis, the corps, about 40 people and a dog, started up the Missouri River in three boats on May 14, 1804. By November, they had made it to what later became North Dakota, and built a small fort and spent a comfortable winter among the friendly Mandan Sioux. Before leaving the next spring, Lewis and Clark employed a French Canadian interpreter, Toussaint Charbonneau, who brought along his Indian wife, Sacagawea, and their infant son. Sacagawea also served as an interpreter and helped win the friendship of the Shoshone Indians. The expedition pushed westward to what is Montana nowadays. In the spring of 1805 the keelboat was sent back to St. Louis with dispatches for President Jefferson and with natural history specimens. Meanwhile, canoes had been built. On April 7 the party continued up the Missouri. On April 26 it passed the mouth of the Yellowstone, and on June 13 it reached the Great Falls of the Missouri, carrying the loaded canoes 18 miles around the falls caused a month's delay. In mid-July the canoes were launched again above the falls. On the 25th the expedition reached Three Forks, where three rivers join to form the Missouri. They named the rivers the Madison, the Jefferson, and the Gallatin, after presidents James Madison and Thomas Jefferson, and Albert Gallatin, who was secretary of treasury under Jefferson. After building Fort Clatsop, where they sheltered for...