To Shining Sea - Chapter 37 & Epilogue
The Discovery of the Western Ocean, November 17th 1805
The Unveiling of Canadian History, Volume 4.
To Shining Sea – Ireland, Haiti, and Louisiana, and the Idea of a Continental Republic, 1797 – 1804.
Part 3 – The Louisiana Frontier
Chapter 37 - The Discovery of the Western Ocean, November 17th 1805
The ‘Corps of Discovery Sculpture’ of Sacagawea, Lewis, Clark and York. (Eugene Daub)
On August 12th 1805, a large shipment arrived at President Jefferson’s residence in Washington City, that had been sent by Captain Meriwether Lewis and Captain William Clark from Fort Mandan, in the Louisiana territory, consisting of four boxes and one large trunk, that contained 67 specimens of earths, salts and minerals, and 60 specimens of plants, to be presented to the Philosophical Society of Philadelphia; along with skeletons and furs of numerous animals; artifacts and clothes from the Mandan natives (some he kept and some he sent to Charles Peale’s museum); and three cages of live animals. On April 7th Lewis and Clark had sent this shipment on their keelboat that was returning to St. Louis – to be forwarded to New Orleans and on to Washington City.
Earlier, on July 13th, President Jefferson had received that April 7th letter from Lewis describing the expedition as far as the Mandan villages, and a note detailing the contents of the shipment he would be receiving. He also received Clark’s private journal of the expedition since leaving St. Louis; Clark’s map of the Missouri from St. Louis to Fort Mandan; along with dispatches for the Secretary of War containing ‘every information relative to the geography of the country which we possess, together with a view of the Indian nations, containing information relative to them, on those points with which, I conceived it important that the government should be informed’.
That same day, April 7th at Fort Mandan, when the expedition was to begin its daunting western exploration, Lewis wrote in his journal that:
“our vessels consisted of six small canoes, and two large pirogues. This little fleet, although not quite so respectable as those of Columbus or Capt. Cook, were still viewed by us with as much pleasure as those deservedly famed adventurers ever beheld theirs; and I dare say with quite as much anxiety for their safety and preservation. 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 vessels contained every article by which we were to expect to subsist or defend ourselves. However, as this the state of mind in which we are, generally gives the coloring to events, when the imagination is suffered to wander into futurity, the picture which now presented itself to me was a most pleasing one. Entertaining as I do, the most confident hope of succeeding in a voyage which had formed a darling project of mine for the last ten years, I could but esteem this moment of my departure as among the most happy of my life.”
Note: The first attempt of 1793.
As to what Lewis meant by ‘the last ten years of my life’, he was referring to the aborted attempt of 1793.
Captain Robert Gray was the first American to circumvent the globe in 1787–1790, during which he explored the north-west coast of North America, while on his trip to China. On a return voyage to the north-west coast in 1790–1793, he explored the mouth of a great river, naming it the Columbia river – making a chart of the bay and taking measurements of the latitude and longitude. Because of this discovery, Thomas Jefferson proposed to the American Philosophical Society of Philadelphia that a subscription be taken to engage an explorer to undertake an overland expedition to the Pacific – George Washington and Alexander Hamilton subscribed.
Meriwether Lewis had unsuccessfully solicited Jefferson ‘to obtain for him the execution of that object’. The expedition was aborted in June 1793, when it was discovered that the man chosen, Andre Michaux, turned out to be an agent of the French republic – whose real mission was to raise an army of American militia to attack the Spanish possessions beyond the Mississippi. Perhaps, someday Lewis might get a second chance!
The Lewis and Clark expedition was now to proceed from Fort Mandan to the headwaters of the Missouri river, then over the Rocky mountains to the Columbia river and the Pacific ocean. During that winter at Fort Mandan, they had met and hired on as an interpreter another French-Canadien trader, Toussaint Charbonneau, who was living at the Hidatsa village with his wife Sacagawea – a Shoshone who had been captured by a Hidatsa raiding party.
By August 12th, Lewis and Clark had reached ‘the most distant fountain of the waters of the mighty Missouri’, crossed the Lemhi pass over the Beaverhead mountains, took the first steps on the western side of the continental divide, and finally met with the Shoshone natives.
When Lewis and Clark met with the Shoshone, they would speak English to Private Labiche, who would translate it into French to Charbonneau, who would translate it into Hidatsa to Sacagawea, who would then translate it into Shoshone to Chief Cameahwait – who, most fortunately, turned out to be her brother!!!
On August 18th at Camp Fortunate, Lewis wrote in his journal that:
“this day I completed my thirty-first year and conceived that I had in all human probability now existed about half the period which I am to remain in this sublunary world. I reflected that I had as yet done but little, very little, indeed, to further the happiness of the human race, or to advance the information of the succeeding generation. I viewed with regret the many hours I have spent in indolence, and now sorely feel the want of that information which those hours would have given me had they been judiciously expended. But since they are past and cannot be recalled, I dash from me the gloomy thought, and resolved in future, to redouble my exertions and at least endeavor to promote those two primary objects of human existence, by giving them the aid of that portion of talents which nature and fortune have bestowed on me; or in future, to live for mankind, as I have heretofore lived for myself.”
On November 17th 1805, the Lewis and Clark expedition would successfully reach the Pacific Ocean, carving into a tree at the mouth of the Columbia river –
“by land from the U. States in 1804 & 1805”.
Epilogue: The Washington Monument, July 4th 1848
The aluminum tip is placed on the top of the Washington Monument, that was the tallest building in the world upon its completion in 1884.
General Hamilton had once written to Gouverneur Morris (February 29th 1802) that:
“… mine is an odd destiny. Perhaps no man in the United States has sacrificed or done more for the present Constitution than myself – and contrary to all my anticipations of its fate, as you know from the very beginning, I am still labouring to prop the frail and worthless fabric. Yet I have the murmurs of its friends, no less than the curses of its foes, for my rewards. What can I do better than withdraw from the scene? Every day proves to me more and more that this American world was not made for me.”
The death of General Hamilton threw the ‘federalist’ party further into such political disarray that it assured the re-election of Thomas Jefferson, and perhaps also, of all the following ‘republican’ presidents, until that most fortunate election of John Quincy Adams – ‘the real father of the American System’.
[The following is from ‘John Quincy Adams and the Foundations of American Foreign Policy’ by Samuel Flagg Bemis, Chapter 6 – The Young Senator and the Louisiana Purchase, page 127.]
“How important it is in politics, when proposing such a thing as a constitutional amendment, or even a constitutional innovation, or a bill, or a resolution, on anything important, to work up in advance some support for it, above all to give it an attractive name! Henry Clay, for example, was not the real father of the American System; neither of the American System in foreign relations – that was John Quincy Adams – nor of the American System in domestic politics – protective tariff, internal improvements, scientific disposal of public lands, all supplementing each other to bind the nation together in stable power, union, and prosperity – that was John Quincy Adams too.
Young Senator Adams, original sponsor of the American System, did not get any farther with his scheme for a Federal plan of internal improvements, proposed in the Senate in February 1807, than he had with his proposals for constitutional amendments.64 The Senate voted down his resolution without a record vote and without trace of debate. Senator Henry Clay, present, made no move to support it. Yet it is Henry Clay, the eloquent champion in later decades, whose name is indissolubly associated with the American System.”
footnote 64:
“Resolved, That the Secretary of the Treasury be directed to prepare, and report to the Senate at their next session, a plan for the application of such means as are constitutionally within the power of Congress, to the purposes of opening roads, for removing obstructions in rivers and making canals; together with a statement of the undertakings of that nature now existing within the United States, which as objects of public improvements, may require and deserve the aid of Government”. [Monday, February 23, 1807]
Forty years later, during what was to be his final term as a congressman, an 80 year-old John Quincy Adams would have met and passed in the corridors of Congress, a 39 year-old Abraham Lincoln, who was serving his first (and only) term as congressman, perhaps, as if to pass the baton – passing on the responsibility to preserve the union.
On February 21st 1848, Congressman Lincoln, was present when Congressman Adams voted a loud ‘NO’ to a resolution giving thanks to several generals for their service in the Mexican war. A few minutes later he collapsed and was taken into the Rotunda and placed on a sofa in front of the east door in the hope that fresh air would revive him. Seeing no improvement, he was taken into the speaker’s office where he died two days later. His funeral was held in the House Chamber. Lincoln was named to a committee which organized the funeral arrangements and he was one of the honorary pallbearers for the great American statesman and President.
During 1848, Elizabeth Hamilton (widow of General Hamilton) had taken up residence with her daughter in Washington D.C., where she struck up a friendship with Dolly Madison, the wife of former president James Madison, and who proposed that they promote the construction of the long-delayed Washington Monument. Along with Louisa Adams (wife of John Quincy Adams) they led a women’s committee to raise the needed funds to start building. As an ardent admirer of General Washington, Lincoln became active as one of the managers for the Birth Night Ball that had been planned to raise funds for the monument.
With the widows’ support, the fund raising was successful enough to lay the corner-stone on July 4th 1848 – 40-year old Abraham Lincoln and 90-year old Elizabeth Hamilton both attended.
And perhaps, it could also be thought that the American System of Washington, Hamilton, Adams, Clay and Lincoln would be the real Washington Monument.
[next week - a podcast with Matt Ehret]
For those who may wish to support my continuing work on ‘The Unveiling of Canadian History’, you may purchase my books, that are available as PDFs and Paperback (on Amazon) at the Canadian Patriot Review :
Volume 1 – The Approaching Conflict, 1753 – 1774.
Volume 2 – Forlorn Hope – Quebec and Nova Scotia, and the War for Independence, 1775 – 1785.
And hopefully,
Volume 3 – The Storming of Hell – the War for the Territory Northwest of the Ohio, 1786 – 1796, and
Volume 4 – Ireland, Haiti, and Louisiana – the Idea of a Continental Republic, 1797 – 1804,
may also appear in print, in the near future, while I continue to work on :
Volume 5 – On the Trail of the Treasonous, 1804 - 1814.
Such a gem! Thanks, Gerry for your work, and especially for that wonderful talk with Matt Ehret on CP recently! His intro revealed to me (being late to the party) what a blessing it was that you and him met back then in the early 2000‘s!