Cody Tolliver - Lewis and Clark Expedition Hist101-S95 3/8/15 Professor Riordan

1. Cody Tolliver

2.  The Expedition of the Corps of Discovery
shaped a crude route to the waters of the
Pacific and marked an initial pathway for the
new nation to spread westward from ocean to
ocean, fulfilling what would become to many
Americans an obvious destiny.

3.  Meriwether Lewis was an American explorer, who with William Clark led
the Lewis and Clark Expedition through the uncharted American interior to
the Pacific Northwest in 1804–1806.
 Lewis later served as governor of Upper Louisiana Territory. The Lewis
and Clark Expedition spanned 8,000 mi (13,000 km) and three years.
 The journey called The Corps of Discovery, as the expedition party was
known, started down the Ohio River, up the Missouri River, across the
Continental Divide, and to the Pacific Ocean.
 Lewis served as the field scientist, chronicling botanical, zoological,
meteorological, geographic and ethnographic information.
 The next year he served with William Clark, a man who would later help
him on one of the greatest expeditions of all time.
 Lewis joined the regular army and achieved the rank of captain. In 1801,
he was asked by President Thomas Jefferson to act as his private
secretary.

4.  In May, 1804, Meriwether Lewis and William
Clark set out on an amazing expedition across
the Louisiana Territory.
 These true American heroes faced unknown
people, harsh conditions and unexplored lands
to secure a place in history as two of the
world's greatest explorers.

5.  In 1801, Lewis left the army and accepted an
invitation to serve as Thomas Jefferson’s
presidential secretary.
 Lewis had known Jefferson since he was a boy,
and grew on a Virginia plantation only a few miles
from Monticello.
 The pair went on to forge a mentor and protégé
relationship while working together in the White
House.
 When Jefferson announced his grand expedition to
the West in 1802, he immediately named Lewis as
its commander.

6.  Jefferson chose his personal secretary, Meriwether
Lewis, an intelligent and literate man who also
possessed skills as a frontiersman.
 Lewis in turn solicited the help of William Clark,
whose abilities as draftsman and frontiersman
were even stronger.
 Lewis so respected Clark that he made him a co-
commanding captain of the Expedition, even
though Clark was never recognized as such by the
government.
 Together they collected a diverse military Corps of
Discovery that would be able to undertake a two-
year journey to the great ocean

7.  In May 1804, President Thomas Jefferson
dispatched Meriwether Lewis and William Clark’s
on the Corps of Discovery.
 An expedition to explore the Louisiana Purchase
and hunt for an all-water route across the North
American continent.
 The two-and-a-half-year trek saw the men travel
some 8,000 miles from St. Louis to the Pacific
Ocean and back.
 By the time they finally emerged from the
wilderness in September 1806, they had made
contact with dozens of Indian tribes.

8.  Lewis, Clark, and the rest of their expedition began
their journey near St. Louis, Missouri, in May 1804.
 This group – often called the Corps of Discovery
by historians faced nearly every obstacle and
hardship imaginable on their trip.
 They braved dangerous waters and harsh weather
and endured hunger, illness, injury, and fatigue.
 Along the way, Lewis kept a detailed journal and
collected samples of plants and animals he
encountered.
 Lewis and his expedition received assistance in
their mission from many of the native peoples they
met during their journey westward.

9.  Lewis and Clark started upstream on the Missouri
River from their St. Louis area camp.
 On May 14, William Clark and nearly four dozen other
men met up with Meriwether Lewis on May 20.
 The Lewis and Clark expedition—“The Corps of
Discovery“ than began
 Lewis and Clark began making their way up the
Missouri River aboard a 55-foot-long keelboat and two
smaller pirogues.
 As they traveled, Clark spent most of his time on the
keelboat, charting the course and making maps.
 Lewis was often ashore, studying the rock formations,
soil, animals, and plants along the way.

10.  On August 2, a party of Oto and Missouri
Indians arrived at the expedition's camp.
 This was the first Indian encounter which went
well for Lewis and Clark.
 The two sides had an exchanging of greetings
and gifts.
 President Jefferson had specifically mentioned
the need to make a friendly impression on this
powerful tribe.

11.  One of the Teton chiefs demanded a boat as the
price of passage for Lewis and Clark.
 When the Indians became threatening, the
expedition prepared to meet force with force.
 Clark drew his sword, and Lewis turned the
keelboat's swivel gun on the Sioux.
 At the last moment both sides pulled back, and the
crisis was over.
 Nevertheless, the expedition had failed to deliver
on Jefferson's hopes for friendly relations with the
Sioux.

12.  Lewis and Clark were keen to cover as many miles as
possible before the Missouri froze.
 Four days after the first snowfall, they reached the
Mandan tribe’s villages, where they planned to spend
the winter.
 Without delay the expedition members began to build
a fort.
 Before the end of November, when ice was already
running in the river, the fort was finished.
 Temperatures dipped to below 0ºF (-18ºC), and guards,
posted around the clock, had to be relieved every half
hour.
 The expedition's food supplies soon began to decrease.
To make it through the winter, the captains would
have to find a supply of meat for the men.

13.  In early May the expedition almost lost one of its two
pirogues when a sudden gust of wind caught the sails and
heeled the vessel over on its side.
 Sacagawea saved precious journals and supplies that
otherwise would have been lost.
 By now Lewis and Clark were growing ever more anxious
to catch sight of the Rockies.
 In the last week of May, Lewis saw the mountains for the
first time.
 He was filled with joy, immediately tempered by a
realization of the challenge that lay ahead.
 Progress was slow on reaching the Rockies due to the
frequently bending river, which was now shallow and was
filled with jutting rocks.

14.  On June 13 Lewis became the first white man to
see the Great Falls of the Missouri River.
 But to his astonishment there were five separate
falls, that went on for a 12-mile stretch.
 By June 16 Lewis had rejoined Clark, and six days
later the portage began.
 It was the hardest physical task of the trip so far.
 More than a month would pass before the
expedition was around the Great Falls and onto
the next stretch of navigable water.
 Beyond rose the Rocky Mountains.

15.  The Corps of Discovery reached the Pacific Ocean
in November of 1805.
 They built Fort Clatsop and spent the winter in
present-day Oregon.
 On the way back in 1806, Lewis and Clark split up
to explore more territory and look for faster route
home.
 Lewis and his men faced great danger when a
group of Blackfeet Indians sought to steal from the
corps in late July.
 Two Blackfeet were killed in the ensuing conflict.

16.  One of the most legendary members of the Lewis and Clark
expedition was Sacagawea.
 Sacagawea was a Shoshone Indian who had been kidnapped from
her tribe as an adolescent.
 Sacagawea, her husband and her newborn son first joined up with
the explorers as they wintered at a Hidatsa-Mandan settlement in
1804.
 She later served as an interpreter and occasional guide on their
journey to the Pacific.
 During a run-in with a band of Shoshone in the summer of 1805,
she famously discovered the tribe’s chief was none other than her
long lost brother.
 She had not seen since her brother since the abduction five years
earlier.
 The tearful reunion helped facilitate peaceful relations between
the explorers and the Shoshone, allowing Lewis to procure much-
needed horses for his trek over the Rockies.

17.  On March 23 the Corps of Discovery took its leave of Fort
Clatsop and began to travel up the Columbia River.
 During this leg of the journey, the men battled a strong
current and frequently had to portage around the river's
falls.
 The Chinookan Indians were a constant source of
harassment.
 Getting around all the falls proved too great a challenge.
 After leaving Fort Clatsop the expedition abandoned its
canoes.
 Lewis and Clark then acquired horses from the hospitable
Walla Walla tribe.

18.  Lewis and Clark began making their way up the mountains
to back home.
 Soon they were traveling in ten feet of snow, packed so hard
that it didn’t even have enough support for the horses.
 The men couldn't find their way in such deep snow, and
were forced to return to the Nez Perce for help.
 Following Indian guides, they headed back up into the
mountains.
 On June 30 they reached Traveler's Rest, where Lewis and
Clark decided to part ways in order to explore more of the
Louisiana Territory.
 Lewis and nine men would explore the Marias River to the
north, while Clark and the others would head for the
Yellowstone River in the south.

19.  On July 3 Lewis and his group broke camp, crossing the
Continental Divide and descending from the mountains near the
Great Falls.
 The captain ordered his men to portage the supplies around the
Falls, while he and three of the men went off to explore the Marias
River.
 Lewis and his colleagues knew the Marias was Blackfeet Indian
territory—and therefore dangerous.
 On July 26 eight Blackfeet spotted them. The Blackfeet seemed
friendly, and the two groups decided to camp together.
 In the morning one of the Indians snatched a pair of rifles, and in
the struggle that followed two Indians who died.
 Lewis and his men rode off, covering 120 miles in 24 hours, not
knowing whether Blackfeet were giving chase.

20.  The Lewis and Clark expedition suffered its first fatality in August
1804, when Sergeant Charles Floyd died near modern day Sioux
City, Iowa.
 Lewis diagnosed him as having “bilious colic,” but historians now
believe he suffered from a burst appendix.
 Over the next two years, the expedition endured everything from
dysentery and snakebites to dislocated shoulders and even
venereal disease.
 Amazingly, no one else perished before the explorers returned to
St. Louis in September 1806.
 One of the worst injuries came during the trip home, when an
enlisted man accidentally shot Lewis in the buttocks after
mistaking him for an elk.
 Though not seriously wounded, the explorer was forced to spend
a few miserable weeks lying on his belly in a canoe while the
expedition floated down the Missouri River.

21.  Traveling to Washington, Lewis and the other
members of the expedition received a warm
welcome from nearly place they went.
 Many towns held special events to herald the
explorers’ return as they passed through.
 Once reaching the nation’s capital, Lewis received
payment for his courageous efforts.
 Along with his salary and 1,600 acres of land, he
was named governor of the Louisiana Territory.
 Lewis also tried to publish the journals that he and
Clark wrote during their great adventure.

22.  Over the next two centuries the new Americans
and many immigrants would wash across the
central and western portions of what would
eventually become the contiguous 48 United
States.
 This wave of development would significantly
transform virgin forests and grasslands into a
landscape of cities, farms, and harvested
forests.

23.  Congress allocated $2,500 for Lewis and Clark's
expedition.
 Jefferson made Lewis another offer – to lead an
expedition into the lands west of the Mississippi.
 Already eager to know more about these lands,
Jefferson’s interest in the area increased with
purchase of the Louisiana Territory from France in
1803.
 Jefferson asked Lewis to gather information about
the plants, animals, and peoples of the region.
 Lewis jumped at the chance and selected old
friend William Clark to join him as co-commander
of the expedition.

24.  Lewis died on October 12, 1809, at an inn near
Nashville, Tennessee.
 He had been on his way to Washington, D.C.,
at the time.
 Most historians believe he committed suicide
while a few have contended that he was
murdered.
 Despite his tragic end, Lewis helped change the
face of the United States by exploring
uncharted territory.

25.  In total, the expedition traveled roughly 8,000
miles by boat, on foot, and on horseback.
 His work inspired many others to follow in his
footsteps and created great interest in the
region.
 Lewis also advanced scientific knowledge.
 Through his careful work numerous
discoveries of previously unknown plants and
animals were made.

26.  http://www.history.com/topics/lewis-and-clark
 https://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/le
wis-clark
 http://www.edgate.com/lewisandclark/expeditio
n.html
 http://lewisclark.net/
 http://www.nationalgeographic.com/lewisandcla
rk
 https://www.monticello.org/site/jefferson/lewis-
and-clark-expedition

27.  1. How did your topic fit into the daily life of America in the era that
you are covering? My topic fit into the daily life of every American,
because if it wasn’t for Lewis and Clark who knows how big the United
States would really be. We also wouldn’t have the population out west
like we do presently.
 2. What was it about your topic that was unique to America and to our
study of American history prior to 1877? Before 1877 no one other than
Lewis and Clark had went on an expedition for three years out west like
they did. It’s unique because most people would never have the courage
and guts to do what these men did for America.
 3. How would you have felt about your topic if you had been living
during the era you are covering? I would just as strong about my topic or
even stronger. The facts that they traveled from St. Louis to the Pacific
Ocean and back is something that will always be remembered as
legendary and heroic.
 4. How has your topic changed over the years (describe its’ role in
society today). How the Lewis and Clark Expedition has changed over
the years are the stories and details on what happened in those three
years gone. Some people say Lewis killed himself while others say he
was murdered.
 5. What new information did you learn about your topic that you didn’t
already know? New information that I learned was different stops
throughout the west and the mountains. Also I learned about new
interactions with different Indian tribes and creatures that Lewis and
Clark faced through their journey.