Lewis and Clark Expedition
Small Arms, Personnel and Miscellany
By Walt Walker
 
Chapter 6:  Fort Clatsop and Winter
                                                                                                                                                   
          Crossing over to the Southside of the Columbia, Lewis left the camp on November 29th to look for game and a site for the winter quarters.  He took Drewyer, Colter, R. Field, Shannon, and Labiche with him. All of these men were hunters, four of the seven best with Labiche being the best fowler.  Drewyer killed an elk on the 1st of December and J. Field from Clark’s party killed one on the 2nd of December. These two elk were the first the party killed since they came over Lolo Pass. Gibson and Pryor killed two more while York was sent out to fish and hunt fowl. One of the men York surely took with him was Silas Goodrich, an excellent fisherman.
          Importantly, a list of supplies and compass directions to various points around the mouth of the Columbia and estuary was inserted between mileages on the Columbia from TIMM to Cape Disappointment. This list included two guns, one of which they found in the mountains above the falls of the Missouri.
          Charbono lost his fusil in a flash flood near the Great Falls and Clark traded one of the men’s muskets to the Shoshone for a horse.  Clark gave the man his fusil to use temporarily.  Clark later noted that Charbono hunted buffalo on the Yellowstone.  It is questionable as to what gun he used.  It would not have been a government issue. Clark must have traded Goodrich’s musket since Goodrich only liked to fish and not hunt. Muskets, not being rifled, could be used by the fowlers.  Collins was known to hunt fowl with a musket, which would indicate that the prior-enlisted men also likely kept their issued muskets along with their rifles. 
          Collins, Windsor, Ordway, and Gass were all named as hunters some time on the expedition with Collins being near Drewyer in hunting prowess.  Notable, also, is that at least until this time, the captains sent out only the men who were noted as hunters.  Frazer appears only to have hunted with his musket and other prior-enlisted men shot game and fowl from their canoes. Later, however, while wintering at Fort Clatsop, several nonhunters occasionally hunted with the regular hunters.  Hunting was very hard work and these nonhunters were mostly used to help retrieve downed game and perform garrison duties.  All the sergeants hunted, with Gass doing the most because Pryor had been assigned duties to keep him from dislocating an injured shoulder and Ordway, as the first sergeant, had charge of all the enlisted men.
            All the riflemen from Kentucky hunted during their stay at Fort Clatsop although Gibson and Bratton became disabled for a long time. Bratton’s illness even kept him disabled and weak on the return trip. He recovered somewhat at the Yellowstone and was mentioned as trapping.  He was sent out hunting again well below the Teton Sioux on the Missouri in 1806.  
          It is difficult to know which of the fifteen prior-enlisted men did not have a musket, but Goodrich seems the likely candidate.  LePage was listed as hunting often during the latter days at Fort Clatsop since Bratton, Willard, and Gibson were ill.  He also hunted at Camp Choppunish.  LePage is not listed as hunting after Travelers’ Rest. Frazer also did some hunting at Fort Clatsop. However, some of his behavior during his trip with Clark from the whale site might have limited his full participation, even though he was a good hunter.
          Potts was sent out with Collins and R. Field on the 26th of December to hunt and the party returned on January 3rd.  Drewyer and LePage set out to hunt and trap on January 17 and returned on January 24th.  Drewyer and LePage again set out to hunt on January 28th and returned on February 3rd.  Drewyer killed seven elk on this trip.  The two hunters set out again on February 4th and returned on February 9th.  Collins and Weiser hunted on February 9th and 10th.  Gass, R. Field, and Thompson set out to hunt on February 11th and returned on the 17th.  On February 15th, Drewyer and Whitehouse left to hunt and returned on the 17th.  John Thompson and R. Field hunted from the 17th to the 18th of February.  R. Field and Thompson again hunt from March 12th to March 14th. 
          In their account of the time at Fort Clatsop, the captains each said that most of the party had become experts using their rifles. The above-listed men who were not regularly mentioned as hunters might have used the rifles issued to the hunters, but once a man is issued a firearm by the army, he is responsible for its use, care, and maintenance. While at Fort Clatsop, the captains might have pulled one or some of the rifles back into company inventory to be signed out as needed. An arrangement like this would make sense since most of the men had become experts with the rifle.
          Labiche lost the front site of his gun causing him to miss several shots at elk on March 15th, thus proving he had one of the rifles. Ordway is never named as a hunter in the time at Fort Clatsop.  He does leave the fort, but for other reasons. Pryor didn’t hunt, but it may be to keep from reinjuring his shoulder.  Bratton and Gibson did not hunt again while at Fort Clatsop after their illnesses occurred.  Shields hunted late in the Corps residency at Fort Clatsop, but I believe he was needed at the fort to keeps the guns in working order. Since there were now many excellent hunters in residence, he was not utilized to hunt. Shields was an excellent hunter and would have been ranked with the best had he hunted more.
          Other than one extended foray, Gass usually attended to other duties at the fort including being in charge of the parties bringing in meat from the hunters’ kills.  Cruzatte is not mentioned as hunting.  Nor were Goodrich, Hall, McNeal, and Werner. The captains actually call Werner and Howard, “not good woodsmen”.  Willard cut his knee badly with his tomahawk so he didn’t hunt at Ft. Clatsop after that time.
          Willard returned from the Saltworks on February 10th.  He was badly injured and reported Bratton to be very sick and Gibson to be so sick that he could not sit up, stand or walk alone.  Pryor and four men went to the Saltworks to bring back Bratton, Gibson, Colter, and Weiser.  They returned with Gibson and Bratton. The Saltworks was closed down and the rest of the men returned to Fort Clatsop with salt kettles, etc.  On the 26th of February, Drewyer took Cruzatte and Weiser up the Columbia to get sturgeon and anchovies. They returned on March 2nd with a good supply.
 

                                        The Lewis and Clark Expedition
                                  Small Arms, Personnel, and Miscellany
                                                            By Walt Walker                     
 
                          A nine-part series examining some details of the
                 Corps of Discovery to make the Expedition more personal
 
Chapter 4:  Into the Unknown
 
            The Expedition left Fort Mandan on April 7,1805, using six canoes they had built over the winter and the Red and the White pirogues and sent the keelboat, commanded by Corporal Warfington, with his crew and some passengers to St. Louis. Until April 16th, the party found that game was scarce along the river due to the number of Hidatsa and Assiniboine winter camps all along the way.  The game was extremely wary after being chased all winter by the tribesmen. At one point, the captains sent out ten hunters and none were able to shoot any game. When the Corps was able to get an animal, it was in poor condition after coming through the bitter winter and had not had enough time to restore its condition during spring feeding.
        After the 16th they began to encounter more game for their meat supplies and hunters were sent out more frequently. On one of those hunts on the 21st, Potts killed a buffalo calf. Buffalo calves and beaver became the preferred meats on this leg of the journey.  Potts and Drewyer were the only hunters mentioned by name, other than the captains.  Lewis wrote on April 27th, as the Corps was passing the mouth of the Yellowstone River, that he thought two hunters could supply a regiment with provisions from this area. Lewis and Drewyer made the party’s first grizzly bear kill on the 29th and Clark and Drewyer make the second kill on May 5th.  These grizzly bears were the first two of forty that the Corps would kill on their way. All but the last bear were killed in present-day Montana and Idaho. The 40th bear was killed near present-day Williston North Dakota on August 5th, 1806. Most were taken by rifle, but muskets were also used.
           From the Yellowstone to the Musselshell River, the hunters mentioned by name were Gibson, Bratton, Shields, J. Field, Labiche, Drewyer, Shannon, and the captains.  After the Musselshell, the game became scarce until after the party passed the White Cliffs and traveled on to the Marias River.  Bratton, Drewyer, Charbono, and the captains were the hunters mentioned by name on this leg.
          Here, at the mouth of the Marias River, also called Decision Point, the Field brothers, Pryor, Gass, Drewyer, Shannon, Shields, Windsor, Cruzatte, LePage, York, and the captains divided into two parties to explore up the Missouri and up the Marias trying to determine which branch was the true Missouri River. Note that all of these men were hunters and all carried rifles, except maybe LePage. After it was decided that the south branch was the Missouri the Corps drew the red pirogue out of the water and secured it between trees. Two muskets were cached near the Marias with other items. These were the muskets that had been issued to Leekens and Reed. Lewis took Drewyer, J. Field, Gibson, and Goodrich by land to find the falls, to confirm that this was the way. Hunters mentioned were Drewyer, the Field brothers, Gibson, Frazer, Shannon, Willard, and Colter.
          The White Pirogue was cached near the Lower Camp below Portage Creek and the canoes were portaged. On the portage past all of the falls of the Missouri, until the Corps reached the Upper Camp and later, the Canoe Camp nearby (where two more canoes were built). Drewyer, the Field brothers, Shannon, Willard, Shields, Gass, York, Ordway, and the captains were mentioned as hunting.   
         On July 15th, 1805, the Corps departed the Canoe Camp in eight canoes. They continued to find game plentiful with the captains and Drewyer being the named hunters.  As the party proceeded upriver into the mountains, the game became scarce. At one of their stops on July 22nd, they found a fusil, to be added to their inventory.  Clark went ahead onshore with York, Potts, and J. Field to, hopefully, find the Lemhi Shoshone.  They hunted as they went.  Then Clark changed his crew and took J. and R. Field, Frazer, and Charbono with him on land. Drewyer hunted on his own. 
            On July 30th, the Corps proceeded on from the Three Forks to find the headwaters of the Missouri, the Shoshone Indians, and a route to the Pacific Ocean.  Lewis took Drewyer, Charbono, and Gass by land.  Hunters included the captains, Drewyer, and the Field brothers.  On August 6th, one canoe overturned, and several articles were lost including a shot pouch and implements for one rifle. Two more canoes filled with water with Joseph Whitehouse thrown out and injured when one canoe passed over him. The next day they cached one of the canoes near the mouth of the Wisdom River.
            On the 10th, Lewis and his party including Drewyer, Shields, and Hugh McNeal (the cook) arrive at the future site of Camp Fortunate.  The game has not been plentiful for them.  Clark, with the remaining fourteen hunters and the rest of the party, did not arrive until August 17th.  Collins, Colter, and the Field brothers had been sent out in advance to hunt as standard procedure since leaving the Three Forks up to reaching Camp Fortunate. Leaving there, all of the hunting was done by men with the Harpers Ferry rifles from Camp Fortunate to the Canoe Camp on the Clearwater in Nez Perce country. Frazer, however, continued to hunt with his musket.  While ascending the Jefferson and Beaverhead rivers to Camp Fortunate several musket men, along with the regular rifle hunters, took game along the river as well as in the river. The rifle hunters were able to hunt the ground further away from the water.
          At Camp Fortunate and upon meeting the Shoshone Tribe, the party started trading for horses.  Clark traded a pistol, balls, powder, and a knife for a horse on the 29th of August.  The next day, he traded a fusil to a soldier for the man’s musket which Clark then traded for a horse. After they met the Tushepaws, the hunters procured enough game for their immediate needs until they traveled up and over the pass on the trail from Travelers Rest.
 
Chapter 5:  Ocean in View
 
          The party had to kill three colts and a horse to survive on the trek through the mountains to Nez Perce country. Here, the hunters took some game.  However, after leaving the Canoe Camp on the Clearwater River, where they built five canoes, large game was not to be found all the way to the Columbia River and below. They took some waterfowl and some upland birds.  However, they did not take enough to feed the party, so they had to trade for salmon and dogs to subsist.  Labiche, noted for taking waterfowl, used his fusil since the party had at least one canister of shot and some shot pouches.  
          It was not until the party reached The Dalles that they were able to successfully hunt deer.  From the Dalles, nearing the Quicksand River, several of the men traveled out hunting while the men left in camp shot several geese flying overhead.  Collins and the Field brothers killed waterfowl as did the captains but not any big game.
        Passing through the coastal mountain ranges, the thickness of the vegetation prevented hunting on foot.  The hunters took only waterfowl from there to the coast. Initially, the Corps reached the mouth of the Columbia on the north side and sent out hunters and fowlers.  Labiche was the best fowler and Collins was also very good.  Several riflemen and musket men were also good fowlers. 
          Whenever the party went to explore on foot, all the party was considered to be on the hunt.  Clark would probably not have relied on Peter Weiser or Charbono given that he had six of the seven best hunters with him on his tour of the coast north from Cape Disappointment. Lewis had previously made a similar tour and was in camp with the rest of the party. Colter stayed in camp along with the only other hunters: Shields, Cruzatte, Frazer, and Gass. There were, possibly, some other fowlers among the men who stayed.

                              The Lewis and Clark Expedition
                        Small Arms, Personnel, and Miscellany
                                                     By Walt Walker                     
 
              A nine-part series examining some details of the
      Corps of Discovery to make the Expedition more personal
 
Chapter 2:  Basic Training
 
          Lewis reported himself as doing some squirrel hunting coming down the Ohio in 1803.  Nathaniel Pryor hunted for a couple of days on the voyage up the Mississippi near Cape Girardeau. Lewis reported that while coming down the Ohio, the rifles (contract rifles modified at the Harpers Ferry Arsenal and in this writing: aka Harpers Ferry rifles) needed attention from getting wet even though they had been wrapped in oilcloth. From this report and the winter spent at Camp Dubois, it is difficult to determine exactly when the Harpers Ferry rifles were issued to the troops.
            Clark mentioned several times after January 1st, 1804, that the men were shooting at a mark and in contests with the country people around Camp Dubois. Deer was the only big game taken that winter. Turkeys, grouse, and some waterfowl were taken frequently. The men were not having to “live off the land” yet.  They had sufficient provisions, including butter, available to them. Even at that, the men who would become the party’s main hunters began to stand out.  Drouillard was already known to be an outstanding hunter. Reuben Field, John Collins, John Colter, George Gibson, John Shields, and Joseph Field began to show their prowess, while George Shannon (the youngest of the party) would develop later as an excellent hunter.  Shannon was only eighteen at this early stage and was a novice compared to the others. Richard Windsor would also later become a good hunter. Alexander Willard was not mentioned as a hunter but later became an excellent hunter. Nathanial Pryor and Charles Floyd also hunted but Clark used them more for other duties developing their skills in order to promote them to sergeants later on that winter or spring.  John Ordway was a sergeant and sometimes hunter, but he usually had other duties.  William Werner, Hugh Hall, and John Thompson appeared to have a knack for trapping rabbits and Moses Reed later developed into a good hunter.
            Clark reported giving out the knives, tomahawks, etc. to the men on the 6th of April.  Whether that meant that the rifles were issued to the hunters at the same time is hard to tell.  On the 10th of May, Clark ordered the men with rifles to have a hundred balls for their rifles and two pounds of buckshot for those men with muskets and fusils (also called “fuzees”). Clark reported that, on the 14th of May, the men had powder, cartridges (for the muskets), and each issued a hundred balls.
            Muskets carried by the men transferred from other army units could use buckshot for birds or use a single ball at close range for the deer-sized game to be had from the wooded country around Camp Dubois. Fusils could use either a round ball or buckshot. The French engaged for the mission carried fusils.
          So, the question to be asked is: Did the men from Kentucky use their own rifles and/or fusils before finally getting issued the Harpers Ferry rifles? The other question without an answer yet is: “Did some of the soldiers transferred into the corps have contract rifles issued from their former companies or did these men all bring muskets with them? And, finally, the soldiers who were discharged (Leekins for theft and, later, Reed for desertion) would have been stripped of all firearms and accouterments. Such arms would have been retained by the captains and probably were the two muskets cached at Decision Point to be picked up on the return trip in 1806.
          Looking into this background, I am going to assume that, as the Corps departed Camp Dubois on May 14th, 1804, the recruits from Kentucky: William Bratton, Colter, J. Field, R. Field, Floyd, Gibson, Pryor, Shannon, and Shields were the men issued the Harpers Ferry rifles.
          Further, the soldiers who transferred to the Corps brought their issued muskets with them since none of the men came from rifle companies. This does not answer the question of whether any of these men brought private firearms with them.
          All of the men designated for the return trip with the keelboat and under the command of Corporal Warfington were soldiers and carried muskets, including Robert Frazer, who later became part of the permanent party.  Pierre Cruzatte and Francois Labiche, enlisted as boatmen and interpreters, might have brought their personal firearms since Labiche was cited as being the best fowler while at Fort Clatsop and that meant that he used a fusil (fuzee).   Both of these men were also hunters of big game. Neither of them hunted much before Fort Mandan. They were kept busy with the keelboat. 
            Upon departure from Camp Dubois, the nine men from Kentucky carried issued rifles.  Also, four rifles were issued to Sgt. Ordway, Collins, Willard, and Windsor, with the two extra rifles being carried as Corps supplies along with the Leekens’ musket. All sixteen soldiers assigned to the permanent party carried their muskets.  Thus, there were fifteen Harpers Ferry contract rifles along with seventeen muskets in the company’s inventory of government guns. (16)
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16. Norm Flayderman: “Flayderman’s Guide to Antique Firearms. 8th edition, page 499 IX-B “Secondary Military Firearms”