So forty-five there were in all, to start. Except York, those who were going through had been sworn in as privates in the United States Army, to serve during the expedition, or until discharged on the way, if so happened. Charles Floyd, one of the young Kentuckians; Nathaniel Pryor, his cousin, and John Ordway, enrolled at Kaskaskia from among the New Hampshire company, were appointed sergeants.
For outfit they had their flint-lock rifles, especially manufactured; flint-lock pistols, hunting knives, powder contained in lead canisters or pails to be melted into bullets when emptied, tents, tools, provisions of pork, flour, etc., warm extra clothing for winter, old Cruzatte’s fiddle, George Gibson’s fiddle, medicines, including the new kine-pox with which to vaccinate the Indians, the captains’ scientific instruments, a wonderful air-gun that shot forty times without reloading, and a cannon or blunderbuss.
Seven large bales and one emergency box had been packed with their stores; and there were fourteen other bales and one sample box of gifts for the Indians: gay laced coats, flags, knives, iron tomahawks, beads, looking-glasses, handkerchiefs (red and blue), paints (yellow, blue and crimson), not forgetting three kinds of medals—first-class and second-class, of silver, and third-class, of pewter—for chiefs to hang about their necks as token of friendship from their new great white father at Washington. The knives and tomahawks had been made at Harper’s Ferry.
Three boats were ready: the keel-boat built at Pittsburg, and two pirogues bought at St. Louis. The keel-boat or batteau was to be the flag-ship. It was a kind of flat-boat or barge, fifty-five feet long; of heavy planks, with bow overhanging and a little pointed, and square overhanging stern fitted with a keel and with a tiller rudder. It had places for eleven oars on a side, and carried a sail. Along either gunwale was a plank path or walking-board, from which the men might push with poles.
Much ingenuity and care had Captain Lewis spent on this flag-ship. Under a deck at the bows the crew might sleep; and under the deck at the stern was the cabin for the officers; in the middle were lockers, for stowing stuff—and the lids when raised formed a line of breastworks against bullets and arrows! The blunderbuss was mounted in the bows, the flag floated from a staff. The boat drew only three feet of water.
The two pirogues were smaller, open flat-boats or barges; one painted red, the other white; one fitted with six oars, the other with seven. They also had sails.
At Harper’s Ferry Captain Lewis had ordered the steel framework of a canoe. This was “knocked down,” in sections, and stowed in the keel-boat, later to be put together and covered with bark or skins, for use in the shallow waters far up-river.
And there were two horses, which should accompany the boats by land, for scouting and hunting purposes.
April passed; May arrived. The Missouri was reported free of ice, and was rising rapidly. The trees had budded and greened, the grasses were getting high, game would be plentiful, the Indians would be leaving their villages for their spring hunts, and ’twas time that the expedition should start. In their camp at Wood River the men drew on the supply of quill pens, ink horns and paper and wrote farewell letters home. In St. Louis Captain Clark and Captain Lewis were given farewell dinners. By Doctor Saugrain, the learned physician and scientist under whom he was studying, Captain Lewis was presented with a handful of matches—curious little sticks which, when briskly rubbed against something, burst into flame. The Indians would marvel at these.
Shortly before four o’clock in the afternoon of May 14, this 1804, the start was made. The St. Louis people gathered along the river bank on that side, to watch the boats move up. The blunderbuss was discharged, in salute; the cannon of the fort answered. Captain Clark, bidding goodbye from the deck of the keel-boat, was in full dress uniform of red-trimmed blue coat and trousers, and gold epaulets, his sword at his belt, his three-cornered chapeau on his red head. The sails swelled in the breeze, the men at the oars sang in French and shouted in English. Drewyer the hunter rode one horse and led the other. All, save Captain Clark, were dressed for business—Corporal Warfington’s squad from St. Louis in United States uniform, the nine Kentuckians in buckskins, the fourteen soldiers and civilians, enlisted at the posts, in flannel shirts and trousers of buckskin or coarse army cloth, the French boatmen in brightly fringed woollens, with scarlet ’kerchiefs about their heads. Rain was falling, but who cared!