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Triumphant Return

By: Phil Scriver, LC200 Historian

After examining Bon Homme Island and making sketches of the old fortifications there, the Expedition set off down river. Travel this day was cut short by strong afternoon winds, but during the 22 mile trip Clark noted remains of a trading house that had not been there when the Expedition had made their way upriver two years earlier.

The next day, September 3, the Expedition met the first of two dozen trading parties they would meet before they reached St. Louis. The race for the fur trade had begun in earnest. The Captains would spend time talking with each party they met. Sometimes this would only be a short greeting while other times they would spend half a day as the Expedition caught up on all the news from home. Many groups of traders recognized the Captains and showed surprise at meeting them. Most people had accepted the rumor that the Expedition had perished in the wilderness.

From the first trading party, which was lead by James Aird, the Expedition learned about the Hamilton/Burr duel and that General Wilkenson had been appointed governor of Louisiana. Clark advised another party of traders who were working for the Choteaus, lead by Henry Delorn, “to treat the Tetons with as much contempt as possible.” Clark continued by retelling the Expedition’s adventures with that tribe in 1804 and again in 1806. From another group of traders the Expedition learned Governor Wilkenson had sent Zeb Pike out to explore the Arkansas River. The traders also informed the Captains that Wilkenson had departed St. Louis with all 300 army troops, in favor of New Orleans.

On September 12th the Expedition met a trading party that included one of the French engages that had been with the Expedition on the trip upriver from St. Louis to the Mandan villages in 1804. He had been part of the group that had brought the keelboat back downriver the following spring. Only a few miles downriver they met yet another group that included Graveline and Dorion. Lewis had hired these two men to escort a Hidatsa Chief to Washington to meet President Jefferson. From these two the Captains learned the Chief had died while in Washington and they were on their way back to the Chief’s people with an explanation of the Chief’s death and presents.

Clark again passed on some of the knowledge the Expedition had gained in their travels when they met a group of traders the afternoon of the 14th. These traders were young and “very much afraid of meeting with the Kansas Indians.” Clark was wary of that same thing since he knew in the fall these Indians liked to stop traders going upriver and take whatever they wanted as “payment” to allow passage up the river. Clark advised this group to show no fear and explained how to prevent the Indians from exacting a toll.

Clark’s journal entries do not contain detailed descriptions of the river and land they were passing through or of the plants and animals they saw. Because the descriptions were given during the upriver trip, Clark’s notes are limited to the differences they encounter and their daily activities. He comments several times that the sandbars in the river have changed locations as old ones were carried away by the river and new ones were formed. He also noted changes in the river channel as large chunks of the bank caved in.

The trip downriver was much different than the one upriver. They went upriver during the spring floods so the river level was high and the current strong. The return trip was made in the fall with low water and a slow current. He does note several places where the nature of the river changes as it goes from a stream meandering through the prairies to a major river draining a significant section of the continent. Clark was mystified by the fact that although 20 rivers and countless streams added their water to the Missouri the volume of water remains the same. The best he could reason was the very warm temperatures created immense amounts of evaporation.

On September 17the while passing the mouth of the Little Osage River the Expedition crept through two miles of river that was full of snags and a narrow, fast channel that continually bounced water of the rock walls that constrained it, creating wicked whirlpools. If a boat ever got into one of these whirlpools there was no way to get back out. This was considered by Clark to be the worst spot on the entire river.

Clark remarked several times when they passed their camps from the upriver trip. He noted with a certain melancholy that the Expedition stopped at Floyd’s Bluff and visited their fallen comrade’s grave. They found it had been opened and only partially covered so they repaired it before departing. He commented on other places including Council Bluffs where they had their first council with Indians and the Platte River which was flowing hardly more than a trickle of water. On September 15th the Expedition stopped just below the mouth of the Kansas River. While the Captains climbed a hill to look around, several of the men picked wild apples. Today this area is in downtown Kansas City.

Finally on September 20th the Expedition reached the village of La Charette. The next day they were in St. Charles. They made the short trip to Fort Bellefontaine on the 22nd and reached the end of their journey at noon on September 23 when they saluted the town of St. Louis. At each stop “the entire population turned out” to greet the Expedition, pleased the rumors of their death were false.

Clark had written on September 9th “our party appears extremely anxious to get on to their country and friends.” The last 1,000 miles had been covered with a pace quickening the closer they got to home. They averaged 50 miles each day, covering as much distance as they had in five days when going upriver. The last week of the trip the men subsisted on wild fruit and biscuits, giving up hunting in favor of going the extra distance each day to shorten the time between themselves and home.

The day after they reached St. Louis, Clark wrote a letter to friends in Kentucky. This letter became the first published report of the Expedition. Clark made the last entry in his journal on September 26, 1806 writing “A fine morning we commenced wrighting.”

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