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 Homeward Bound
If
the return trip for the Lewis and Clark Expedition was less foreign to them, it was no less adventurous.
They
were as far from home as they would be in their lives. Meriwether
Lewis, William Clark, and the rest of the men comprising the Corps
of Discovery spent the long and dreary winter of 1805-06 at Fort
Clatsop, a small, makeshift fort they had built near the mouth of
the Columbia River soon after arriving on the Pacific coast. By
late March 1806, supplies and provisions had become so sparse that
the two captains decided it was time to head home. Accordingly, on
Sunday, March 23, amidst high winds and cool temperatures, the
adventurers loaded the canoes and "at one o'clock in the
afternoon we took a final leave of fort Clatsop."
By
early July, the party had reached the neighborhood of present-day
Missoula, Mont. There, in order to gather as much information as
possible, it was decided to split the expedition members into two
groups. One, under Lewis's direction, would explore the Marias
River, the large stream joining the Missouri from the north that
was discovered on the outward-bound journey. The other men, with
Clark in command, would proceed to the headwaters of the
Yellowstone River, float down that stream, and await the arrival
of Lewis's group at the confluence of the Yellowstone and
Missouri.
Lewis's
half of the expedition ran into a little more adventure than
Clark's contingent. On July 26, Lewis spied a band of eight
Indians who were themselves observing his party from a distance.
Uncertain which tribe the Indians represented, he decided to
"advance towards them in a friendly manner." The natives
turned out to be Piegans, a branch of the Blackfoot tribe. After
much shaking of hands and many salutations, the two groups pitched
camp together, but Lewis, being wary, ordered his men to be on the
lookout in case the Indians tried to steal the horses.
At
sunrise on the following day, several Piegans approached the
expedition members' campfire and snatched four rifles, one of
which belonged to Lewis himself. In the ensuing scuffle, one
Indian was stabbed to death by Reuben Fields, while another brave,
who later also died, was shot in the stomach by Lewis. The other
Piegans fled immediately, and Lewis, not knowing how many more
tribesmen might be in the area, ordered his party to do likewise.
Almost 200 years after this event, scholars still debate whether
the incident was responsible for the Blackfoot tribe's almost
fanatical hostility toward white men for many years following its
occurrence.
Lewis
and his men rode southward on horseback at a grueling pace,
covering nearly 120 miles during the next 24 hours. Only when the
party reached the Missouri River did they feel out of danger.
Continuing down the Missouri, Lewis's group sped toward its
rendezvous with Clark at the mouth of the Yellowstone. As the
party neared its destination on August 11, Lewis and a companion,
Pierre Cruzatte, went ashore to hunt. Cruzatte accidentally shot
Lewis, but the wound, despite causing the captain considerable
pain, healed quickly.
In
the meantime, William Clark and his small band of explorers were
heading downstream on the Yellowstone. When the party arrived in
the neighborhood of present-day Billings, Mont., on July 25, Clark
called a halt to climb what is today called Pompey's Pillar.
"Arrived at a remarkable rock in an extensive bottom on the
starboard side of the River & 250 paces from it," Clark
wrote in his journal. Continuing, he revealed that "This rock
I ascended and from its top had a most extensive view in every
direction." He named the massive boulder, "Pompy's
Tower," and carved his name and the date in its face.
At
about one o'clock in the afternoon of August 12, the two separate
parties led by Captains Lewis and Clark reunited at the mouth of
the Yellowstone River. Three days later, one of the expedition's
most valuable men, John Colter, requested that he be allowed to
join the company of two hunters who wished to hire him to guide
them over the very country he had just frequented. "We,
therefore, supplied him, as did his comrades also, with powder and
lead, and a variety of articles which might be useful to him, and
he left us the next day," reads an entry in the journal.
Colter rode off into the pages of history, becoming a noted
mountain man who is credited with discovering the beauties and
wonders of present-day Yellowstone National Park.
Although they had no way of knowing that the mighty Missouri River would
someday provide a major thoroughfare for hundreds of steamboats
carrying their precious cargos as far upriver as present-day
Montana, Lewis and Clark recorded an observation in their journal
that later-day navigators would find out was only too true. They
wrote: "Since we passed in 1804, a very obvious change has
taken place in the current and appearance of the Missouri. In
places where at that time there were sandbars, the current of the
river now passes, and the former channel of the river is in turn a
bank of sand. Sandbars then naked, are covered with willows
several feet high: the entrance of some of the creeks and rivers
changed in consequence of the quantity of mud thrown into them;
and in some of the bottoms are layers of mud eight inches in
depth."
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RECOMMENDED
RESOURCES
Books
Undaunted
Courage
by Stephen E.Ambrose
Lewis and Clark Among the Indians, by
James P. Ronda
The
Lewis and Clark Journals: An American Epic of Discovery
edited by Gary Moulton
In
Search of York : The Slave Who Went to the Pacific With Lewis and Clark
by Robert Betts and James Holmberg
Lewis
& Clark: Voyage of Discovery
by Stephen E. Ambrose
Traveling
the Lewis and Clark Trail...
by Julie Fanselow
Lewis
& Clark: The Journey of the Corps of Discovery
by Dayton Duncan
Journal
We Proceeded On, the journal of the national Lewis and Clark Trail
Heritage Foundation, Inc.: www.lewisandclark.org
Websites
Archive of Lewis and Clark web pages: www.lcarchive.org
Lewis and Clark Trail Heritage
Foundation, Inc.: www.lewisandclark.org
Discovering Lewis and Clark: www.lewis-clark.org
Lewis and Clark Bicentennial: www.lewisandclark200.org
Visit Cowboy.com
for more
Lewis & Clark
Trail and Historical
Websites
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