PREFACE. XI 



riweather Lewis, of Virginia; Captain William Clark v/as named 

 as his assistant. Both these gentlemen were commissioned in the 

 army, and the expense thus placed on a public basis. Captain 

 Lewis left the city of Washington, on this enterprise, on the 5tli 

 of July, 1803, and was joined by Captain Clark west of the Alle- 

 ghanies. Having organized the expedition at St. Louis, they 

 began the ascent of the Missouri Eiver on the 14th of May, 1804. 

 They wintered the first year at Fort Mandan, about 1,800 miles 

 up the Missouri, in the country of the Mandans. Crossing the 

 Eocky Mountains the next year, and descending the Columbia to 

 the open shore of the Pacific, the}'' retraced their general course to 

 the waters of the Missouri, in 1806, and returned to St. Louis on the 

 23d of September of that year, (Lewis and Clark, vol. ii. p. 433.) 

 To explore the Missouri to its source, and leave the remote 

 summits of the Mississippi untouched, would seem to have ill- 

 accorded with Mr. Jefferson's 'conceptions. It does not appear, 

 however, from published data, that he selected the person to 

 perform the latter service, leaving it to the military commandant 

 of the district. [Life of Pike, Sparks's Amei: Biog. vol. xv. 

 pp. 220, 281.) General Wilkinson, who had been directed to 

 occupy Louisiana, appears to have made the selection. He desig- 

 nated Lieutenant Zebulon Montgomery Pike. This officer left 

 Bellefontaine, Missouri, on the 9th of August, 1805, with a total 

 force of twenty men, at least four months too late in the season 

 to reach even the central part of his destination, without an aid 

 in the command, without a scientifi.c observer of any description, 

 and without even an interpreter to communicate with the Indians. 

 That he should have accomplished what he did, is altogether 

 owing to his activity, vigilance, and enterprise, his knowledge of 

 hunting and forest life, and his well-established habits of mental and 

 military discipline. Winter overtook him, on the 16th of October, 

 in his ascent, when he was about one hundred and twenty miles 

 (as now ascertained) above the Falls of St. Anthony.* Severe 

 cold, snow, and ice, rendered it impossible to push his boats fur- 

 ther. Devoting twelve days in erecting a blockhouse, and leav^- 

 ing his heavy stores and disabled men in charge of a non com- 

 missioned officer, he proceeded onwards, on snow shoes, with 



* Estimated by him at 233 miles. 



