The History Of The Lewis And Clark Expedition Preface By The Editor

Lewis and Clark's Expedition from the Mississippi River to the Pacific Ocean was the first governmental exploration of the "Great West." The history of this undertaking is the personal narrative and official report of the first white men who crossed the continent between and British and Spanish possessions.

Provides facts and information about the travels of Meriwether Lewis and William Clark and their Corps of Discovery and its importance in relation to Native Americans and the westward expansion in the United States.

Launched in 1803 by President Thomas Jefferson, the Lewis and Clark Expedition was one of history’s most ambitious and successful explorations. Leading a permanent party of 33 on a 28-month journey of 8,500 miles, the intrepid Meriwether Lewis and his co-commander William Clark ascended the Missouri River into present-day Montana, crossed the Rocky Mountains, descended the Columbia River to the Pacific Ocean, and returned safely with a wealth of new information about the wilderness interior of North America. Virtually every aspect of their momentous journey is covered in Explorations into the World of Lewis and Clark, a three-volume anthology of 194 articles (with 102 maps and illustrations) published between 1974 and 1999 in We Proceeded On, the quarterly journal of the Lewis and Clark Trail Heritage Foundation. Contributors include a host of professional and avocational Lewis and Clark scholars, including John Logan Allen, Stephen E. Ambrose, Irving W. Anderson, Eldon G. Chuinard, Paul Russell Cutright, Dayton Duncan, James J. Holmberg, Arlen J. Large, and James P. Ronda. Subject categories, by volume: I: Before Lewis and Clark • Expedition Preparations • Expedition Personnel. II: People, Places, Things, and Events • Scientific Aspects of the Expedition. III: Journals, Letters, and Related Early Writings Immediately Following the Expedition • Lewis and Clark Trail Sites • Commemorations, Interpretations, and Depositories • Some Prominent Lewis and Clark Scholars.

At the dawn of the 19th century, Meriwether Lewis and William Clark embarked on an unprecedented journey from St. Louis, Missouri to the Pacific Ocean and back again. Their assignment was to explore the newly acquired Louisiana Territory and record the geography, flora, fauna, and people they encountered along the way. The tale of their incredible journey, meticulously recorded in their journals, has become an American classic. This single-volume, landmark edition of the famous journals is the first abridgement to be published in at least a decade. Series editor Anthony Brandt and Lewis and Clark scholar Herman J. Viola have reviewed all 13 volumes of the text to include a more balanced account of encounters with Native Americans and have, for the first time in print, corrected Lewis and Clark s famously bad spelling. This new edition presents the journey s impressive highlights--from first encounters with grizzly bears and meetings with the Sioux and Crow Indians, to the near starvation in the Bitterroot Mountains and confrontation with the Blackfeet Indians. Brief connecting accounts from the editors seamlessly link connected passages and illuminate details of the expedition that are missing or obscure in the text. Featuring an expedition map, an introduction by Anthony Brandt that describes America at the start of Lewis and Clark s amazing journey, and an afterword by Herman Viola that illuminates the historical significance of the mission, this single-volume edition brings to life the epic grandeur of the greatest adventure in American history.

"The journey of the Corps of Discovery, under the command of Captains Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, across the American West to the Pacific Ocean and back in the years 1804-1806 seems to me to have been our first really American adventure, one that also produced our only really American epic, The Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, now at last available in a superbly edited, easily read edition in twelve volumes (of an eventual thirteen), almost two centuries after the Corps of Discovery set out. . . . This important text has not been fully appreciated for what it is because of two centuries of incomplete and inadequate editing. All three editions previous to this excellent one from the University of Nebraska . . . were flawed by significant omission. . . . Thus my gratitude to the present editor, Gary Moulton, and his assistant editor, Thomas Dunlay, for bringing what I believe to be a national epic into plain view at last. . . . For almost two hundred years their [Lewis' and Clark's] strong words waited, there but not there, printed but not read: our silent epic. But words can wait: now the captains' writings have at last spilled out, and fully, in this regal edition. When the Atlas of the Lewis and Clark Expedition appeared in 1983, critics hailed it as a publishing landmark. This eagerly awaited second volume of the new Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition begins the actual journals of those explorers whose epic expedition still enthralls Americans. Instructed by President Jefferson to keep meticulous records bearing on the geography, ethnology, and natural history of the trans-Mississippi West, Meriwether Lewis and William Clark and four of their men filled hundreds of notebook pages with observations during their expedition of 1804–6. The result was in is a national treasure: a complete look at the Great Plains, the Rockies, and the Pacific Northwest, reported by men who were intelligent and well-prepared, at a time when almost nothing was known about those regions so newly acquired in the Louisiana Purchase. Volume 2 includes Lewis’s and Clark’s journals for the period from August 1803, when Lewis left Pittsburgh to join Clark farther down the Ohio River, to August 1804, when the Corps of Discovery camped near the Vermillion River in present South Dakota. The general introduction by Gary E. Moulton discusses the history of the expedition, the journal-keeping methods of Lewis and Clark, and the editing and publishing history of the journals from the time of Lewis and Clark’s return. Superseding the last edition published early in this century, the current edition brings together new materials discovered since then. It greatly expands and updates the annotation to take account of the most recent scholarship on the many subjects touched on by the journals.

In May 1804, Meriwether Lewis, William Clark, and their Corps of Discovery set out on a journey of a lifetime to explore and interpret the American West. The Lewis and Clark Expedition Day by Day follows this exploration with a daily narrative of their journey, from its starting point in Illinois in 1804 to its successful return to St. Louis in September 1806. This accessible chronicle, presented by Lewis and Clark historian Gary E. Moulton, depicts each riveting day of the Corps of Discovery's journey. Drawn from the journals of the two captains and four enlisted men, this volume recounts personal stories, scientific pursuits, and geographic challenges, along with vivid descriptions of encounters with Native peoples and unknown lands and discoveries of new species of flora and fauna. This modern reference brings the story of the Lewis and Clark expedition to life in a new way, from the first hoisting of the sail to the final celebratory dinner.

Reproduction of the original: History of the Expedition under the Command of Captains Lewis and Clark by Meriwether Lewis, William Clark