William R. Lighton

“ Jefferson had had ample opportunities for testing the fibre of the young man's character under strain; besides, Lewis's confidential position had no doubt made him acquainted with the inner details of the plan, its broader significance, and the political obstacles to be overcome in carrying it into effect. Aside from his temperamental disposition for such an enterprise, his public service had strengthened his grasp of national interests; enthusiasm for adventure had been supplemented by maturity of judgment in affairs of state. Altogether, a better man for the place could not have been found. ”

“ They are slow to believe in wordy protestations: they must have signs more tangible. They will not trust all men of white complexion merely because they have found one trustworthy; each man must prove himself and stand for himself. William Clark gave them a rare exhibition of upright, downright manliness, and they learned to respect and love him. He was soon celebrated from St. Louis to the Pacific, and was called by the name "Red-Head." To this day, old men of the Rocky Mountain tribes speak of him with fondness, saying that our government has never shown another like him. ”

“ The best authenticated accounts informed us that we were to pass through a country possessed by numerous, powerful, and warlike nations of savages, of gigantic stature, fierce, treacherous, and cruel; and particularly hostile to white men. And fame had united with tradition in opposing mountains to our course, which human enterprize and exertion would attempt in vain to pass. ”

“ Soon after passing the Falls, there were to be seen occasional signs of previous intercourse between the Indians and the white traders who had visited the coast,—the squaws would display a bit of colored cloth in their costumes; a few of the men carried ancient guns, and occasionally one was decorated with a ruinous old hat or the remains of a sailor's pea-jacket. These poor people had touched the hem of the garment of civilization, and had felt some of its meaner virtue pass into them. They showed daily less and less of barbaric manliness ”

“ Indian villages were everywhere upon the banks; but their people were of a very low order,—very jackals of humanity; dirty, flea-bitten packs, whose physical and moral constitutions plainly showed the debilitating effects of unnumbered generations of fish-eating, purposeless life. Physical and moral decency usually go hand in hand, even in a state of nature. The Columbia tribes had no conception of either; they were in the same condition then as now, mean-spirited, and strangers to all those little delicacies of behavior that had distinguished the mountain tribes. ”

“ In the years 1804, 1805, and 1806, two men commanded an expedition which explored the wilderness that stretched from the mouth of the Missouri River to where the Columbia enters the Pacific, and dedicated to civilization a new empire. Their names were Meriwether Lewis and William Clark.
As a rule, one who tries to discover and to set down in order the simple signs that spell the story of a large man's life is confused by a chaos of data. ”

“ Until the Rocky Mountains were reached, there was almost no hardship arising from scarcity of food. Early in May, Captain Lewis wrote that game of all sorts abounded, being so gentle as to take no alarm of the hunters. "The male buffalo particularly will hardly give way to us, and as we approach will merely look at us for a moment, as something new, and then quietly resume their feeding.... Game is in such plenty that it has become a mere amusement to supply the party with provisions." ”

“ On April 29th, Captain Lewis, with a party of hunters, proved the truth of all that had been told him upon these points, and more; and upon many occasions thereafter, while the party was making its way from the Yellowstone country to the mountains, there were encounters from which the men escaped by mere good fortune. The most critical adventures with the Indians were but child's play in comparison. Despite their boasting, the Indians would seldom venture to provoke a fight with a grizzly, except in the most favorable circumstances, and when strength of numbers inspired them with bravado. ”

“ As the boats passed through their country, these people appeared in large numbers upon the banks, shouting invitations to land; but the officers felt safer in refusing further intercourse. The Tetons were obliged to content themselves with trotting along upon the shore, keeping abreast of the boats as well as they were able, crying out taunts and imprecations; and one, more zealous in his passion, went to the top of a hill and struck the earth three times with the butt of his gun,—the registration of a mighty oath against the whites, long since abundantly fulfilled. ”

“ Yet, like most of their countrymen in America, they are but little qualified for the rude life of the frontier,—not that they are without talent, for they possess much natural genius and vivacity; not that they are destitute of enterprise, for their hunting excursions are long, laborious, and hazardous; but their exertions are all desultory; their industry is without system and without perseverance. ”

“ Throughout these days of preparation, the women were engaged in making and repairing moccasins and clothing for the men, and the fishermen gave to them a good share of the daily catch. Nor was the kindness all upon the one side. The white hunters, with their guns, had greater success than the Indians, who were armed only with bows and arrows and lances. Share and share alike was the rule in the village. Once when the hunters brought in a deer, Captain Clark directed that it be given to the women and children, who were in an extremity of hunger, and himself went supperless to bed. ”

“ It was hard to persuade the coast Indians to sell the canoes that were necessary for the first part of the trip. The canoe afforded these people their chief means for getting a livelihood, and was valued accordingly. A boat and a woman were, by common consent, placed upon an equality of value,—certainly not an overestimate of the worth of the canoe, if one laid aside chivalry and regarded the squaws dispassionately. ”

“ We have been unduly conscious of our own cunning, while undervaluing the craft that is native to all wild peoples; we have too often lost sight of the one really imperative element in any compact that is to be effective and enduring,—mutuality of honorable purpose. Most men, whether civilized or savage, can appreciate honest motives and behavior; and so can they detect dishonest wiles and artifices. Lewis and Clark knew well enough what was before them. The Indians' past experience with the light-minded French and the evil-minded Spanish adventurers of the border had left a deep impression ”

“ As you will be without money, clothes, or provisions, you must endeavor to use the credit of the United States to obtain them; for which purpose open letters of credit shall be furnished you, authorizing you to draw on the executive of the United States, or any of its officers, in any part of the world in which drafts can be disposed of, and to apply with our recommendations to the consuls, agents, merchants, or citizens of any nation with which we have intercourse, assuring them in our name that any aids they may furnish you shall be honorably repaid, and on demand. ”

“ About the middle of March, however, we had become seriously alarmed for the want of food; the elk, our chief dependence, had at length deserted their usual haunts in our neighborhood and retreated to the mountains. We were too poor to purchase other food from the Indians, so that we were sometimes reduced, notwithstanding all the exertions of our hunters, to a single day's provisions in advance. The men, too, whom the constant rains and confinement had rendered unhealthy, might, we hoped, be benefited by leaving the coast and resuming the exercise of travel. ”

“ Our consolation is that this southwest branch can scarcely head with any other river than the Columbia; and if any nation of Indians can live in the mountains we are able to endure as much as they can, and have even better means of procuring subsistence. ”

“ On the next day he went ahead, alone, and discovered that this was but the first of a long series of cascades, extending for many miles up the cañon. It was a day of excitement. While returning to rejoin his party, he suffered his gun to remain for a time unloaded; in this plight he was surprised by a grizzly bear. Cut off from any other retreat, he was forced to take to the water, in which he stood to the depth of his armpits, facing the brute upon the bank and preparing to defend himself in a hand-to-hand struggle ”

“ After advancing for several hundred miles into this wild and mountainous country, we may soon expect that the game will abandon us. With no information of the route, we may be unable to find a passage across the mountains when we reach the head of the river—at least, such a pass as will lead us to the Columbia. Even are we so fortunate as to find a branch of that river, the timber which we have hitherto seen in these mountains does not promise us any fit to make canoes, so that our chief dependence is on meeting some tribe from whom we may procure horses. ”

“ It is now Captain Clark's turn to bear testimony to the spirit of the men:—
"June 15th.... Proceeded with great difficulty, in consequence of the increased rapidity of the current. The channel is constantly obstructed by rocks and dangerous rapids. During the whole progress, the men are in the water holding the canoes, and walking on sharp rocks and round stones, which cut their feet or cause them to fall. Rattlesnakes are so numerous that the men are constantly on their guard against being bitten by them; yet they bear the fatigues with the most undiminished cheerfulness." ”

“ The Tetons have always been counted among the most irresponsible villains of their race, treacherous by first impulse, murderous by strongest inclination, thievish according to opportunity, combining the effrontery of Italian beggars with the boldness begotten by their own sanguinary history. ”

“ The best part of the winter's work lay in the attitude which was taken in dealing with the Indians. In every particular of behavior, the strictest integrity was observed. An Indian is as ready as any one to recognize genuineness. Before springtime, the Mandans and Minnetarees knew that they had found friends.
In March the men began boat-building, preparatory to resuming their journey. The batteau was too cumbrous for use toward the head waters of the Missouri, and it was to be sent back to St. Louis. To take its place, canoes were fashioned from green cottonwood planks. ”

“ Spain still held the Floridas, practically controlling the commerce of the Gulf and the navigation of the Mississippi; so that, while the people of the United States asserted the right of dépôt at New Orleans and the further right of passage of the river throughout its length, their enjoyment of these rights was precarious. Further, though the crown had transferred the territory west of the Mississippi, its subjects had not quit their efforts for supremacy in trade; their influence long outlived the extinction of territorial rights. ”

“ Upon the banks of the stream were many tokens of the inconstancy of purpose of the border life,—abandoned sites of Indian villages and deserted fortifications that had been erected by traders to serve for temporary convenience and protection. Nowhere was there a sign of the American interpretation of the word "enterprise."
On June 26th they reached the mouth of the Kansas River, now marked by Kansas City. There they camped for two days; there they fell in with the Kansas Indians, with whom they held a pacific conference; and there the hunters met for the first time with buffalo. ”

“ To carry out the work of the organized expedition would consist largely in surmounting physical difficulties; but to organize it and get it fairly started demanded considerable delicacy of diplomatic contrivance. The life of the nation, as it sought to expand and take form, was beset and harassed, north, south, and west, by international complications growing out of direct contact with unfriendly neighbors. In that day the United States did not sustain cordial relations with any of the strong nations of the world. ”

“ You see me and the rest of our chiefs and warriors. We are very poor; we have neither powder, nor ball, nor knives; and our women and children at the village have no clothes. I wish that as my brothers have given me a flag and a medal, they would give something to those poor people, or let them stop and trade with the first boat which comes up the river. I will bring chiefs of the Pawnees and Mahas together, and make peace between them ”

“ Matters fared badly with Captain Lewis's party, following on Clark's trail. On the day of Clark's departure, they could not leave their night's camp until nearly noon, "because, being obliged in the evening to loosen our horses to enable them to find subsistence, it is always difficult to collect them in the morning.... We were so fortunate as to kill a few pheasants and a prairie wolf, which, with the remainder of the horse, supplied us with one meal, the last of our provisions; our food for the morrow being wholly dependent on the chance of our guns." ”

“ Here [on the plains above the river] they all repaired their moccasins, and put on double soles to protect them from the prickly-pear, and from the sharp points of earth which have been formed by the trampling of the buffalo during the late rains. This of itself is enough to render the portage disagreeable to one who has no burden; but as the men are loaded as heavily as their strength will permit, the crossing is really painful. Some are limping with the soreness of their feet; others are scarcely able to stand for more than a few minutes, from the heat and fatigue. ”

“ The canoes were often overset in the swift water, by being caught in whirlpools or colliding with rocks, causing great inconvenience and resulting in some serious losses of baggage. And the men were performing this arduous labor upon a diet of dog-meat, and almost nothing besides.
No matter what difficulties presented themselves from day to day, the officers never lost sight of the chief purpose of their toils. The journals of those days are replete with keen notes upon the country, its resources, and its people. ”

“ We were now about to penetrate a country at least two thousand miles in width, on which the foot of civilized man had never trodden; the good or evil it had in store for us was for experiment yet to determine, and these little vessells contained every article by which we were to expect to subsist or defend ourselves. ”

“ It is hard to choose between them in any essential detail of manhood. Nor were the officers much exalted in temper above the men of their command. When we are celebrating the heroes of our national life, every name upon the roster of the Lewis and Clark Expedition deserves to be remembered. ”

“ The officers were engaged, as at Fort Mandan the previous winter, bringing up their journals and copying them out, and in collecting data for a report upon the natural history, ethnology, and trade of the coast. All were living by chance. Sometimes they had plenty; at other times they were reduced to extremities. Once they thought themselves very fortunate in being able to trade for a quantity of whale blubber which the Indians had taken from a dead carcass washed ashore near by. Captain Clark wrote that he "thanked providence for driving the whale to us ”

“ When all is said of the Indians,—of their savage craft, their obliquity of moral vision, their unsparing cruelty, and their utter remissness in most matters of behavior, the fact remains that they know how to appreciate candor and honor, and will respond to it as well as they are able. ”

“ Many of the strongest examples of our national character have been men who owed the best that was in them to the apparently unkindly circumstances of their youth. What was denied to Clark in easy opportunity had ample compensation in the firmness and self-reliance which came from mastering difficulties. ”