An Army in Boats
Part I: The Adventure Story
If the purpose of studying history I to learn from the past to help plan for the future, then we must find a way to understand the past history as best we can. We need to see and understand both the good and the bad to enable us to universalize that which will endure the tests of time. It is relatively easy to understand the events, but to profit from knowing what happened we need to understand why the events happened.
If we personalize that history, that is make the people involved as understandable as possible we must show them as real people instead of “heroes” placed on high pedestals by society, we will best accomplish our task of learning and better understanding the events of our past.
The following 5 part article uses a detailed record of canoe counts during the Expedition’s journey to better understand their Journals and the writers.
By tracking the number of canoes, including when and how they were obtained we can:
When Jefferson and Lewis were making the initial plans for the journey to explore the Upper Louisiana Purchase, they knew a portage would be needed to go from the headwaters of the Missouri to the headwaters of the Columbia—across the Rocky Mountains—which they calculated would be just a short distance requiring one day to complete. The boats they would use to travel up the Missouri would be too large and heavy to haul across the portage.
The solution worked out was to make canoes at Fort Mandan to replace the keelboat that was to return to St. Louis. Later, the iron framed boat would be assembled to replace the two pirogues since they could not be portaged.
The iron framed boat would be the primary craft down the Columbia to the Pacific, then back upriver the next Spring. It would be re-portaged and the Expedition would use it for the trip down the Missouri and home.
As unexpected events occurred and the plans started unraveling, the two Captains quickly adjusted the plans as needed to get the job done. Their boats are a good example of their abilities as commanders who were flexible and capable of getting the rest of the Corps to “buy in” to what needed to be done to get the job at hand successfully completed.
Part I: The Adventure Story
If the purpose of studying history I to learn from the past to help plan for the future, then we must find a way to understand the past history as best we can. We need to see and understand both the good and the bad to enable us to universalize that which will endure the tests of time. It is relatively easy to understand the events, but to profit from knowing what happened we need to understand why the events happened.
If we personalize that history, that is make the people involved as understandable as possible we must show them as real people instead of “heroes” placed on high pedestals by society, we will best accomplish our task of learning and better understanding the events of our past.
The following 5 part article uses a detailed record of canoe counts during the Expedition’s journey to better understand their Journals and the writers.
By tracking the number of canoes, including when and how they were obtained we can:
- See that the explorers did not always record many details, including some important ones
- See the need for several journalists to get a more complete story
- See journalists were not always objective, but had inherent prejudices
- These savages made great canoes but had even greater skill on how to use them which gave them freedom to move about their environment
- Dismal notch as an example
- See we need to sometimes go beyond what the journalists wrote to get the complete story
- letters they wrote
- other writers of their time
- Toussaint Charbonneau as example
When Jefferson and Lewis were making the initial plans for the journey to explore the Upper Louisiana Purchase, they knew a portage would be needed to go from the headwaters of the Missouri to the headwaters of the Columbia—across the Rocky Mountains—which they calculated would be just a short distance requiring one day to complete. The boats they would use to travel up the Missouri would be too large and heavy to haul across the portage.
The solution worked out was to make canoes at Fort Mandan to replace the keelboat that was to return to St. Louis. Later, the iron framed boat would be assembled to replace the two pirogues since they could not be portaged.
The iron framed boat would be the primary craft down the Columbia to the Pacific, then back upriver the next Spring. It would be re-portaged and the Expedition would use it for the trip down the Missouri and home.
As unexpected events occurred and the plans started unraveling, the two Captains quickly adjusted the plans as needed to get the job done. Their boats are a good example of their abilities as commanders who were flexible and capable of getting the rest of the Corps to “buy in” to what needed to be done to get the job at hand successfully completed.
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