VI.
ZEBULON MONTGOMERY PIKE,
Explorer of the Sources of the Mississippi and Arkansas Rivers.
The trans-continental expedition of Captain Lewis and Lieutenant Clark was only a part of the comprehensive plan of Jefferson, which looked to the acquiring of definite and precise information concerning not only the extreme Northwest Territory, but also of the entire trans-Mississippi regions, whereon might be based intelligent action, so as to insure to the citizens of the United States the greatest benefits of internal trade and commerce. It was surmised that the adventurous and enterprising traders of the Hudson Bay, or Northwest Company, had encroached on the valuable hunting grounds near the sources of the Missouri and Mississippi rivers; while to the southwest the secretive and jealous policy of Spain had so well guarded its limited geographical knowledge, that the United States was in such utter ignorance of its newly acquired territory that it was impossible to even outline a definite proposition for the determination of exact boundary lines between Louisiana and the province of New Spain.
The obtaining of information for the solution of these problems was intrusted, in the order named, to a young and promising officer of the regular army, Zebulon Montgomery Pike, then a first lieutenant and paymaster in the First regiment of Infantry. Pike was of military stock, as his father, Zebulon Pike, had served as a captain in the war of the Revolution, and even then a major of his son’s regiment was destined to live to see that son fall as a general officer. The son, born at Lamberton, N. J., aspired early to military life, and from a cadet in the ranks rose through the grades regularly.
I. The Sources of the Mississippi.
In 1805 the governor of Louisiana was James Wilkinson, a brigadier-general in, and commander-in-chief of, the army of the United States, who was then stationed at St. Louis. Pike appears to have been considered by Wilkinson as an officer well suited to obtain definite information about this vast territory, and consequently Lieutenant Pike, with twenty enlisted men, was furnished provisions for four months, and, under orders to visit the sources of the Mississippi, left St. Louis in a large flat-boat, at about the worst season of the year, on August 9, 1805.
The first experiences were not encouraging, for the crew, through inexperience or ill-luck, developed a faculty of picking up sawyers, or submerged trees, which on one occasion stove the boat so badly that, half-sinking, she was dragged with difficulty on a shoal where the baggage could be dried and the boat repaired.