What if when Lewis and is little party met the Blackfeet on the Two Medicine River, those Blackfeet had been successful and made off with the guns and horses before Lewis and his men could have resisted?
            That afternoon when Lewis spotted some horses and several Indians, he said he expected “that we were to have some difficulty with them” and that if they thought they could succeed the Indians would attempt to rob the party.  At daylight the next morning four of the Indians tried to take Lewis’ party’s guns.  This attempt failed, but what if they had been able to get the party’s guns and make good their escape?  Would this have been the end of Lewis and his party? 
           From reading Lewis’ account of the scuffle that morning the Indians would probably have taken the party’s rifles and pouches, powder and lead, and fled.  If they had been able to get back to their camp with these prizes their status as warriors certainly would have gone up several notches. 
            By most accounts the eight Blackfeet that Lewis had encountered were young.  They had apparently been on a horse raid since many of the horses in their band were saddled.  Lewis said that he saw so many saddled that he thought the group much bigger than the eight he was able to see.  These young men were probably still in the learning stages of becoming warriors.  Consequently, they would probably not have risked the extra time to kill Lewis and his party or to collect more of their baggage and take it.  They would have surely taken all the horses; not only would this have added to the herd they already had, thus making them even more successful, but it would have reduced the chance of Lewis being able to give chase.  So where would this have left Lewis and his three companions
          The eight Indians that Lewis encountered were most likely 15 to 16 years old; old enough to physically look adult, but still youthful in their actions.  Older, more proven warriors may well have simply killed the party then leisurely searched their baggage taking what they pleased.  But the youthful, lesser-experienced warriors only wanted to take the guns and horses they get to the safety of home to tell their brave deeds.  The men they left on the prairie would live or die, it didn’t matter.
           Lewis and his men would have spent a few minutes assessing their situation; on foot without guns in the middle of a country that hostile people called home.  An examination of their baggage would reveal they still had their knives, navigation instruments and Lewis would have his pistol with one shot in it.  They would quickly realize giving chase was impossible.
             Instead, they concentrated on their own survival and reunion with the main expedition.  The only question would be how fast they could reach the Marias.  Traveling 20 miles per day on foot they could make it in 5 or 6 days.  According to Sgt. Gass the party that had reportaged the Great Falls and were bringing the boats downriver from there had instructions to wait for Lewis at the Marias until September 1 before proceeding on downriver to join Clark.  Gass further said Lewis planned to return to the Marias by August 5.  Since the incident at the Two Medicine was on the morning of July 27, they had ten days to get to the Marias.
             If Lewis and his companions had no further encounters with Indians and were successful in re-uniting with Ordway the only loss was a few days travel time.  But what if they were not able to get to the Marias before Ordway left?
            Their first order of business was to get out of Blackfeet country and to the Marias.  At the risk of being caught out in the open prairie they would probably head cross country directly to the Teton River.  Upon reaching that river they would have followed it downstream to the Marias.  Since they had knives and hatchets they may have opted to build a raft, but Lewis’ experience the year before on the Marias probably would have decided him against that activity.  Instead, he would have pushed on to rendezvous with Ordway.
           Once Lewis and his companions reached the Marias they would have been in good shape.  The Expedition had cached extra food and equipment there the year before.  Sgt. Ordway would have dug up the caches, but if he had left before Lewis rejoined them, he surely would have left some of the supplies just in case Lewis did make it back to that place.  Consequently, Lewis would have some food and surely some ammunition as well as two muskets that were in the cache. 
            There was sufficient deer, elk and buffalo in that area that Lewis could have fashioned some sort of watercraft for his party of four as Sgt. Pryor did down on the Yellowstone after the Crow Indians stole all his horses and left his party on foot.
         My conclusion on this matter is that if the Blackfeet had been successful, they would have only taken Lewis’ guns, ammunition and horses leaving the party alive but on foot.  The party was fully capable of making the overland trip from the Two Medicine to the Marias on foot well within the time Ordway was to wait for their return.  If they had no further adventures with Indians Lewis and his party would have had a joyful reunion with Ordway at the Marias and continued on down the river to join with Clark pretty much on schedule.
 

          We were aroused late at night by the Sergt. Of the Guard and warned of the danger we were in from a large tree that had taken fire and which leant immediately over our lodge (tipi).  We had the lodge removed and a few minutes after a large portion of the top of the tree fell on the place the lodge had stood.  Had we been a few minutes later we should have been crushed to attoms (very curious choice of words).
          The wind blew so hard that notwithstanding the ledge was placed 50 paces – 250 feet – distant from our fire, it sustained considerable injury from the burning coals which were thrown on it.  The party was also much harassed by this fire which spread to a collection of fallen timber and could not be extinguished.
                            Lewis – May 17, 1805
 
          The Corps of Discovery was lucky they saw the fire when they did.  That area is known for times of high winds and wind-driven fires that get out of control.

         In all my perusing of Jackson’s Letters I could not find any reference to Lewis having rifles made or purchasing any rifles in Lancaster, other than the Jefferson letter to Paul Allen written in 1813, ten years after the time Lewis was in Lancaster preparing for the expedition.  Specifically, I read #57 which is a Summary of Purchases in Philadelphia.  I also read #55 which is a list of each purchase and the payment for them and to the firm or person.  No mention of any rifles or muskets are made in either document. 
             Lewis wrote to Jefferson from Harper’s Ferry when he arrived there July 8, 1803.  He reported having made the arrangements for shipping his purchases from there to Pittsburgh.  He also said that he shot his rifles and examined the other equipment made there.  They were all well executed.
              I did, however, find Stephen Ambrose wrote in Undaunted Courage in 1995, that Lewis purchased additional rifles in Lancaster while he was there working with Ellicott.   He did not cite any reference.
           Over the last twenty years here has been considerable research and discussion trying to determine exactly what guns were used on the Lewis and Clark Expedition.  Included are discussions on what the military men brought with them, pistols and who had any, rifles vs muskets, what model rifles and muskets were used, air gun and who made it, etc., etc.  But I have not heard of nor have I read any considerations of any weapons being purchased or manufactured in Lancaster for the expedition beyond Barbour’s article written in 1964.
              As a result of the research I have done, and finding no supporting documentation other than a passage in a letter written ten years after the fact, I must conclude Lewis did not purchase any rifles at Lancaster.  Since there is no evidence to prove he did not, but all the evidence points that way, I leave it open in the event that at some future day more evidence is found.  But until such time I am satisfied he procured all his rifles at Harper’s Ferry.
            I suspect that when Jefferson wrote his letter to Paul Allen he was confused, or just misspoke himself due to the passage of time and about what he took as an insignificant detail.  Jackson wrote in a footnote to that letter pointing to another error Jefferson made.  He said that Lewis and Clark arrived in Washington DC in the middle of February when Congress was in session.  Jackson corrected that to show Lewis got there in December and Clark arrived several weeks later.
           I think further, that Cutright did not complete his research in 1966, possibly because the documents we now have available in Jackson’s Letters were not known to him.  As a result, he took Jefferson at face value.

​         What happened to the rifles Capt. Lewis obtained in Lancaster, Pennsylvania?  How many did he get?  Do we know how much he paid for them or who made them?
             I had cause to read once again “Contributions of Philadelphia to Lewis and Clark History”, a publication of the Lewis and Clark Trail Heritage Foundation written by Paul Cutright and printed in 1982.  I was reading Part I of this publication which had first appeared in “The Bulletin”, a publication of the Missouri Historical Society, in 1966.
          Cutright wrote, “Several years later Jefferson wrote a memoir of Lewis.  In this he included a statement often overlooked, that Lewis, while in Lancaster, attended to ‘the fabrication of the arms with which he chose that his men should be provided.’  Just who produced the arms here is unknown, but they must have been, according to an authority on guns [William R. Barbour, writing an article in Gun Digest titled The Guns of Lewis and Clark] ‘the typical long barrel Kentucky rifles, whose manufacture centered in the region around Lancaster.’”
           Cutright cited Coues 1893 edition of The History of the Expedition Under the Command of Lewis and Clark as his source for the Lancaster rifles quote.
           Not having a copy of the Coues edition at hand, I went to Jackson’s Letters of Lewis and Clark and found the quote had originated from a letter Jefferson wrote Paul Allen giving him some requested biographical background of Lewis for inclusion in the first printing of the Journals we know as the Biddle Journals.  This letter is dated August 18, 1813.  It has become the famous Jefferson’s memoir of Meriwether Lewis that also included the term “of courage undaunted.”
            A review of Lewis’ timeline during early 1803 as he prepared for his upcoming expedition shows he left Washington DC bound for Philadelphia via Harper’s Ferry and Lancaster, Pennsylvania.  His first stop would be in Harper’s Ferry to order equipment that was to be made there.  He carried with him a letter from Secretary of War Dearborn to the Superintendent of the arsenal asking him to make the items Lewis wanted.
              Lewis stayed at Harper’s Ferry a month, finally arriving at Lancaster April 19.  In part because he was so long in Harper’s Ferry, the day after he arrived in Lancaster, he wrote to Jefferson explaining his delays.  His iron boat needed more time and work to get built than what had been   first planned by Jefferson.  He said that his rifles, tomahawks and knives were being prepared.  He was sure they would be ready in time. 
          After spending about 3 weeks in Lancaster learning from Ellicott, Lewis went on to Philadelphia for further learning from Rush, Barton, Wistar and Patterson.  He also purchased most of the other supplies and equipment he would take on the expedition.  That accumulation of supplies and equipment weighed about 3,500 lbs. and is well documented by a “shopping list” Lewis made of what he wanted and invoices showing where they were obtained from.  Of particular interest is that his list shows 15 rifles.  The shopping list and invoices from the Philadelphia area sources are found in Jackson’s Letters.  Tragically, fire at Harper’s Ferry has destroyed records there for that period of time.  Consequently, we cannot confirm what Lewis got there, only what he wanted. 
      Continued next week

          William Clark played a big part in the total effort by General Anthony Wayne to restore order to the frontier.  During the early 1790’s while assigned to Wayne’s command, Clark was frequently sent on reconnaissance missions to find out what the opposing forces were doing; this included the English, Spanish and Indians. 
          The Spanish didn’t know what to think about Wayne because he didn’t do things like previous generals had.  They were also wary of Clark.  They said he was “an enterprising youth of extraordinary activity.” 
            From his staff level position Clark saw what Wayne was doing and why; he learned valuable lessons that served him well later during the Expedition to the Pacific; lessons of training, discipline, caring for the health of the men, establishing field camps and fortifications, etc., etc.
         The last special mission Clark embarked upon for General Wayne was in 1795.  Clark was a messenger from General Wayne to the Spanish fortifications near Memphis, Tennessee.  His daily journal entries were considered “a masterpiece of deception by omission” as they gave every appearance of innocently recording miles traveled, river currents, islands, success of hunters, etc. (much like the material in his journal entries during the Expedition), but after his return to Wayne his final report was a detailed piece of spy work that included gun placements, ship numbers and types, exactly what the fort looked like on the inside and just about anything else a military commander would want to know about an enemy’s position.  The report was accompanied by drawings and maps.  This was all done from memory of what he saw as the Spanish commander gave Clark a tour of the fort.
          Clark returned from this mission in November of 1795 and took up the routine garrison life.  He met his newly assigned junior officer Meriwether Lewis.  William Clark resigned his army commission in July of 1796 and returned to life with his family.
 

          The pass Sacajawea suggested Capt. Clark use would become important in the developing Montana territory.  While it officially became the Bozeman Pass, its unofficial name along with the Trail that crossed it was more indicative of the activities associated with it; the Bloody Bozeman.
          It was in the Three Forks area and the Big Hole and Beaverhead Valleys that Sacajawea gained her image as a “guide.”  Capt. Clark recorded three times when her knowledge of the area helped pilot them.  He went on to say she had “been of great service as a pilot through this country.”  He was referring to the area she had lived in before being taken captive by the Hidatsa Indians. 
             However useful she was in her home territory, she had little knowledge of the rest of the territory the Expedition passed through.  As the Expedition continued down the Yellowstone her knowledge of the area would again dwindle and her use as a “guide” would disappear with it.

          October 21, 1805; Clark’s entry in his field notes for the day’s events included, “Collins made some excellent beer of the pasheco quarmash bread which was very good.”
Later, when he transcribed the field notes to the final journal entry he wrote, “Collins presented us with some very good beer made of the Pa-shi-co-quar-mash bread, which bread is the remains of what was laid in as stores of provisions at the first flatheads or Cho-pun-nish nation at the head of the Kossoske River which being frequently wet molded and soured."
          Clark definitely toned down his response to the beer from “excellent” “very good”.  He also added his justification on why the bread could be used that way instead of being eaten as food as originally planned.  The Expedition was short of food and scrambled to even find some survival foods not normally considered in civilization as food; dogs for example.
          Maybe he was thinking if he showed they would have otherwise been thrown away the beer would be more acceptable to those who would read the journals at some time in the future.  Remember, Clark was spending government money to purchase their food, and as we see later with the handling of Lewis’ invoices, some bureaucrat can without any prior notice or approval, change the outcome of things previously agreed upon.
          Probably the general public would see this and knowing they had been out of booze for almost 4 months, think nothing of it.  At the most they might chuckle at the change from excellent to very good.

            Clark’s party spent four days traveling along the river, covering 103 miles from where they first reached the Yellowstone searching for cottonwood trees large enough to make into dugout canoes.  They finally found two that would work.  Clark decided to stop at this point and rest the horses, but he had two men continue on down the river to possibly find better trees.  The men went 12 miles and returned without finding better ones, so the party stayed camped where they were to make canoes.  This was marked on Clark’s maps as canoe camp.
            Canoe Camp should be named Yellowstone Canoe Camp.  It was the last of four locations where the Corps of Discovery made dugout canoes during their travels.
              The first place the Expedition made canoes was near their 1804 – 5 winter camp, Fort Mandan.  Here they carved six dugout canoes from large cottonwood logs.  They worked here most of the month of March at Mandan Canoe Camp.  These canoes were used to replace the large keelboat that was sent back downriver to St. Louis.
             Later, during the summer of 1805 the Corps of Discovery made two more dugout canoes from cottonwood logs near Great Falls.  These dugouts were built to replace the failed collapsible iron-framed boat.  This was the Great Falls Canoe Camp.  When the Expedition left the Great Falls, they were using 8 canoes and no other type water craft.
            In October of that year, after the Expedition had cached their canoes at Camp Fortunate and made their way across the Rockies on horses, they built five canoes on the Clearwater River near Orofino, Idaho.  These canoes were made from “large pine” but instead of chopping them out to make their dugouts, they burned them out. 
           The plan was to use these canoes  to carry the Corps of Discovery out to the Pacific Ocean then back to where they obtained horses to re-cross the Rockies. This would be the Clearwater Canoe Camp.
            While they were at Camp Choppunish in 1806 Lewis set some men to work making a canoe for the purpose of fishing and to pass the river (Clearwater).  A few days after it was finished some men used the new canoe to cross the river to do some trading.  As they were landing the strong current caught the canoe filling it with water and sinking it.  This large canoe, it would carry 12 men, was too heavy and even the best efforts could not raise it.  Since they were near the Clearwater Canoe Camp, I include this canoe as being made in that camp.