Interesting Facts about Lewis & Clark Expedition Bonus pages! In 1804, Lewis and Clark began a historical journey across the United States in search of the Western Passage. Their expedition would become stuff of legends, and history would record their bold journey into native lands, mapping out the nation and setting the path for future of America. What history usually doesn't mention, though, is that is was also one heck of a good time! They Loaded up on Whiskey The trip out west was made with military men, and they packed the things they needed to keep the men happy: 120-300 gallons of whiskey. Even that wasn't enough. They ran out by the time they made it to the west coast. They were very careful to not waste it. Every man received a whiskey ration that each man had to adhere to. When one private got into the tank and took more than his share, whey whipped him with 50 lashes against his bare skin.
The Natives tried to rub the black off the African Slave William Clark brought an African slave with him named York. For many of the tribes that they met, York was the first black-skinned person they'd ever seen - and they didn't quite know what to make of him. Some would gather and rub against York's skin, trying to wash the black off of him. When they realized they couldn't, they nearly worshiped him. York was a massive, extremely muscular man. They immediately accepted that he was something more than human. Women loved him. York would be found most mornings sleeping in girl's tent. Men would encourage their wives to have sex with him. Reportedly, some native men stood guard outside of the tent while York and their wives made love. One of the men shot Lewis in the buttocks While camping besides the Missouri River, Meriwether Lewis woke one morning and saw a beautiful, healthy elk. Excited, he woke up one of the men, Private Cruzatte, and asked him to join him on a hunt. Private Cruzatte was completely blind in one eye and nearsighted in the other but, for whatever reason, Lewis chose his company. Lewis moved ahead to find a good vantage point. Cruzatte lingered behind until he spotted what he thought was the elk moving directly in his sights. When the figure shouted out, "Damn you! You have shot me!" Cruzatte began to suspect it may have not been an elk after all. Cruzatte denied responsibility for the rest of his life. Lewis, meanwhile, had the next few weeks lying face-down in the bottom of a canoe and probably stopped inviting Cruzatte out on hunting trips.
The Spanish sent soldiers to arrest the expedition! Jefferson often described Lewis and Clark's expedition as a scientific mission to study the lands acquired in the 1803 Louisiana Purchase, but the explorers' central goal was to find a water route to the Pacific. This would increase trade and opportunities and help solidify an American claim on the far Northwest. That was distressing news for the Spanish, who feared the expedition might lead to the seizure of their gold-rich territories in the Southwest. On the suggestion of the U.S. Army General James Wilkinson - a Spanish spy - the governor of New Mexico dispatched four different groups of Spanish soldiers and Comanche Indians to intercept the explorers and bring them back in chains. Luckily for Lewis and Clark, the hostile search parties failed to locate them in the vastness of the frontier. Lewis and Clark had 200 pounds of gunpowder and an experimental air rifle. The Corps of Discovery carried on of the largest arsenals ever taken West of the Mississippi. It included an assortment of pikes, tomahawks, and knives as well as several rifles and musketts, 200 pounds of gunpowder and over 400 pounds of lead bullets. Lewis also had a stateof-the-art air rifle he used to impress Indian tribes of the frontier. After pumping compressed air into the gun's stock, he could fire some 20 shots - each of them almost completely silent. Despite being armed to the teeth, most of the exporers never had to use thier weapons in combat. The lone exception came during the return journey, when Lewis and three of his soldiers engaged in a gun battle with Blackfeet Indians and left two natives dead.
Sacagawea reunited with her long lost brother during the journey. One of the most legendary members of the Lewis and Clark expedition was Sacagawea, a teenaged 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 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, whom she had not seen since her abduction five hears earlier. The tearful reunion helped facilitate peaceful relations between the explorers and the Shoshone, allowing Lewis to procure much needed horses for his treck over the Rockies.
Only one member of the expedition died during the trip! 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, but amazingly, no one else perished before the explorers returned to St. Louis in September 1806. One of the worst injuries was when Lewis was shot in the buttock! They took so much mercury you could track their journey by their bathroom breaks! By the end of the journey, syphilis was rampant. A few cases were particularly bad, and it's believed that almost every man in the party caught at least one venereal disease during the trip. Lewis and Clark had to treat their men, and they did it using the best medicine of the time. That meant using bloodletting and giving them pills with enough toxic mercury to poison a man. Mercury wasn't just used for syphilis - they also packed laxatives called "thunderclappers' loaded with the chemical! The men's bodies were filled with toxic mercury that stayed inside of them for the whole trip. These men had so much mercury inside them, that today, you can track their journey by following the mercury they left behind when they defecated. Some tribes offered their women to create an alliance with the expedition. Other tribes thought if their Indian women slept with the white travelers, they would get some of their power. Some of the explorers journals state that the Teton Sioux offered women as hospitality. The Shoshones, who became resentful if their women were rejected. Indians also used sex for trade, to the point where Lewis warned his men against running out of provisions! Information from: listverse.com & history.com & voanews.com