Contents ▼▲
Front Matter Making Ready The Start Coming of the White Chiefs Peter Goes Aboard Peter Meets the Chiefs To the Land of the Sioux Bad Hearts Captains Show their Spunk Snug in Winter Quarters Excitement at Fort Mandan Peter Wins His Spurs Kingdom of the "White Bears" Which Way to the Columbia? Seeking Bird-Woman's People Horses at Last Across Starvation Mountain Hooray for the Pacific! The Winter at Fort Clatsop The Friendly Walla Walla The Pierced Noses Again Back Across the Mountains Lewis Meets the Enemy The Home Stretch Appendix: Expedition Appendix: Rank and File

Opening the West with Lewis and Clark - Edwin Sabin




The Expedition


The Purpose To get information upon the unexplored country extending from the interior of present Missouri to the mouth of the Columbia River in present Washington.
The Start At St. Louis, Monday, May 14, 1804.
The Finish At St. Louis Tuesday, September 23, 1806.
Time Consumed Two years, four months, and nine days.
Distance Travelled To the mouth of the Columbia: 4134 miles. Back to St. Louis: 3555 miles. Counting side trips: 8000 miles, total.
Methods Employed Boats, horses and afoot.
The Route Up the Missouri River to its sources in present Montana; across the Bitter Root Mountains into present Idaho; by way of the Clearwater River, the Snake River and the Columbia River to the Pacific Ocean.
The Party Out of St. Louis Forty-five.
The Party Who Went Through Thirty-three: the two captains, twenty-three American soldiers, five French-Canadian and French-Indian boatmen and interpreters, one negro servant, one Indian woman guide, and one baby.
Deaths One.
Seriously Injured One.
Desertions One accomplished, one attempted; both early. None from the final party.

The Country Explored


The New Territory of Louisiana.

  • Stretched from the Mississippi River to the summit of the Rocky Mountains.
  • Owned first by France.
  • By France ceded to Spain, 1762.
  • By Spain secretly ceded back to France, 1800.
  • In April, 1803, purchased from France by the United States for 15,000,000.

The Columbia Country

  • The Northwest lying between California and Canada, and the Rocky Mountains and the Pacific Ocean.
  • In 1792 visited by Captain Robert Gray of the American ship Columbia from Boston, who entered and named the Columbia.
  • The same year visited by Captain George Vancouver, an English navigator. Claimed by both the United States and England.
  • Awarded to the United States by treaty of 1846.