The Corps of Discovery: After the Expedition

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The 33 members of the Corps of Discovery picked up speed as they headed home. On their journey west, which began near St. Louis in May 1804, the explorers had rowed and pulled their boats upstream on the Missouri River, laboring to cover 10 miles a day. Now, late in the summer of 1806, the wayworn expedition members were heading downstream, sometimes making 75 miles a day. They had had their fill of grand adventure and longed to see their loved ones again.

In canoes and hollowed-out logs called pirogues, Captains Meriwether Lewis and William Clark and their Corps of Discovery traversed the Missouri into present-day North Dakota, where the map had ended before their journey. Near today’s Stanton, they spotted a group of familiar earthen lodges — the villages of the Mandan and Hidatsa Indians — and here they bade farewell to the young Shoshone woman, Sacagawea, destined to become the most famous member of the expedition after Lewis and Clark. Her husband, Toussaint Charbonneau, and son, Jean Baptiste, both of whom achieved renown of their own, left the expedition with her.

Lewis and Clark and company reached St. Louis on September 23. In the 864 days since their departure, the explorers had traveled more than 8,000 miles, established friendships with several native nations, collected invaluable botanical and zoological specimens, produced surprisingly accurate maps, and compiled detailed records of the entire expedition. The mountain men, explorers, buffalo hunters, soldiers, pioneers, gamblers, gold seekers, cowboys, outlaws, missionaries, and homesteaders who went west during the next century all followed in the wake of Lewis and Clark.

The nation rejoiced when Lewis and Clark and their men — rumored to be dead or lost — safely returned to civilization. Congress awarded 1,600-acre land grants to Lewis and Clark and 320-acre grants to each enlisted man, as well as the back pay due to everyone. (Neither Sacagawea nor Clark’s slave York received any compensation, however, a failure that reflects the attitudes of the age.) President Thomas Jefferson, the force behind the expedition, further rewarded the captains by appointing Lewis governor of the Territory of Upper Louisiana and Clark superintendent of Indian affairs.

Clark promptly ordered former expedition member Nathaniel Pryor, now an army ensign, to return Mandan chief Sheheke (also called Big White) to his home in North Dakota. Sheheke had accepted Lewis and Clark’s invitation to accompany them to Washington in the fall of 1806. Lewis and Clark described Pryor, one of three sergeants on the roster, as ‘a man of character and ability.’ (Pryor, John Shields, and Jean Baptiste Lepage were the only members known to have married before the expedition. Pryor and his first wife, Margaret Patton, had six children.) As he was forming his company, Pryor naturally looked for men he already knew and trusted. He signed up expedition veterans George Shannon and George Gibson, both of whom had served in Pryor’s squad.

Only 18 years old when he joined the captains, Shannon was the youngest member of the party. His youth sometimes showed: he had a habit of forgetting objects on the trail, and he had twice become separated from the main group. But Shannon proved to be particularly cool under pressure one night when a wolf attacked a small group of scouts. The wolf bit through Pryor’s hand and had lunged at Richard Windsor when Shannon dropped the animal with a sure musket shot. Gibson had acted as an interpreter on the expedition, probably using sign language, and he was also a first-rate hunter.

Pryor, Shannon, and Gibson had traveled to the Pacific Coast and back and had traversed Lakota, Yankton Sioux, and Crow territory without a single violent episode with Indians, but their luck changed for the worse on September 9, 1807, when they encountered the Arikara, who were at war with the Mandan. In the exchange of fire that followed, Shannon took a ball that broke his leg, and Gibson and another man were also wounded. The trapping party accompanying Pryor fared much worse: three men had been killed and seven others badly wounded, one mortally.

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Tags: American History, Expeditions, Historical Discoveries

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