Despite warnings from Rose, Ashley planned to stay and trade. Then, on the night of June 1, Rose and several other men went into the village without Ashley’s permission. A scuffle ensued, and just before dawn Rose rushed to Ashley’s boat with the news that a trapper had been killed. Before the men on the shore could ready themselves, the Arikara, armed with accurate British muskets, attacked. ‘So severe was the fire,’ wrote a trapper, ‘that in a few minutes all the horses were either killed or wounded, and many of the men.’ In the chaotic 15 minutes that followed, several boatmen froze with panic; others who grabbed oars were shot down. ‘Finding all lost, those on the beach attempted to swim to the boats; some who could not, fell into the hands of the Indians; many who attempted to swim, were, by the violence of the current, driven below the boats and drowned. We lost in all fourteen killed and twelve wounded.’ Among the dead lay John Collins, who had traversed the continent 20 years earlier without firing a single shot at Indians. He was close to 50 and may have had a son also named John Collins.

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The best historical information on Privates Silas Goodrich, Hugh McNeal, William Werner, Richard Windsor, and Hugh Hall comes from the expedition itself. Goodrich was the expert fisherman. In a typical entry, Clark wrote that Goodrich ‘caught two verry fat Cat fish.’ McNeal performed his duties well, whether it was carrying a flag, cooking up flour and berries, or skinning a deer. Werner was a good enough cook to keep the job permanently. Windsor almost fell off a 90-foot precipice (only Lewis’s calm advice saved him). Hall was nearly five feet, nine inches tall, with fair hair, sandy complexion, and gray eyes — and he could not swim.

After the expedition, all five men slipped into obscurity. It is unknown whether any of them married or had children. In addition, no exact death date is known for any of the five. In fact, the only birth date known is Hall’s — 1772. Goodrich, McNeal, and Windsor (who had earlier trapped with Manuel Lisa) all re-enlisted in the army. Werner served as an Indian agent for William Clark. In his 1825-28 list, Clark said that Goodrich and McNeal were dead, so both probably died by the age of 50. Clark further noted that Werner was in Virginia and Windsor in Illinois, although no original record has yet been found of them in those locations. Clark listed Hall’s name without giving any information.

Ironically, much more is known about a man Clark did not even include in his list: his slave York, the first African American to cross the continent. It is telling that Clark included everyone but York, including Sacagawea and her baby. Throughout the expedition, York carried a gun and performed duties similar to the privates. When the party reached the Pacific coast, Lewis and Clark held a vote to determine where they would winter. York voted with the others, including Sacagawea, making him the first black man to participate in an election west of the Mississippi.

Sadly, but predictably, any status York enjoyed on the trek promptly ended when he returned to civilization. He was once again a slave, and while Clark was ahead of his time in his humane treatment of Native Americans, he was very much an eighteenth-century man in respect to slaveholding. This is painfully apparent in letters Clark wrote to his brother, saying that he does ‘not expect much from him [York] as long as he has wife in Kenty.’ Again, Clark notes that York is ‘insolent and Sulky, I gave him a Severe trouncing the other Day,’ tragically ironic for a man who once reprimanded Charbonneau for striking Sacagawea.

According to Washington Irving, who visited Clark in 1832, York was eventually granted his freedom and launched a freight business that soon failed. ‘He determined to go back to his old master — set off for St. Louis, but was taken with the cholera in Tennessee & died.’ Some believe, however, that York went west and gained respect among the Crow Indians. But there is no hard evidence for such a claim, and York may have been confused with mountain men Edward Rose or Jim Beckwourth (both of mixed blood).

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