The pay was certainly moderate: $125 for Mr. Stanley, the artist; $100 to the civil engineers, Lander and Tinkham; and $25 to each aide, per month.
The subsidiary party, ascending the Missouri to Fort Union, where it was to join the main party, consisted of Lieutenant A.J. Donelson, engineer corps; Lieutenant John Mullan, 1st artillery; six sappers; William M. Graham, astronomer; Dr. John Evans, geologist; Alexander Culbertson, special Indian agent.
The other subsidiary party, which met the main party in the Rocky Mountains, consisted of Lieutenant Rufus Saxton, 4th artillery; Lieutenant Robert Macfeely, 4th infantry; Lieutenant Richard Arnold, 3d artillery; Mr. D.L. Arnold; Mr. D.S. Hoyt; detachment of eighteen soldiers; twenty-nine packers, herders, etc.,—in all, fifty-two.
The western party consisted of Lieutenant George B. McClellan; Lieutenant Johnson K. Duncan, 3d artillery, astronomer, etc.; Lieutenant Henry C. Hodges, 4th infantry, quartermaster and commissary; Lieutenant Sylvester Mowry, 3d artillery, meteorologist; George Gibbs, geologist and ethnologist; J.F. Minter, civil engineer; Dr. J.C. Cooper, surgeon and naturalist; Mr. Lewis, interpreter; detachment of twenty-eight soldiers; thirty civil employees,—in all, sixty-six in number.
The entire force under Governor Stevens’s command for the exploration comprised eleven officers and seventy-six enlisted men of the army, thirty-three members of the scientific corps, and one hundred and twenty civilian employees, teamsters, packers, guides, herders, voyageurs, etc.,—altogether, some two hundred and forty.
Governor Stevens’s general plan was, while surveying a continuous compass and odometer line with the principal train, to keep detached parties far out on the sides of the route, examining the topography of the country, and gathering all possible information concerning it, and thus to embrace the widest possible field in the exploration. The following pages will give simply the governor’s personal experiences on the expedition, and largely in his own language, referring the reader to his reports, especially the final report in vol. xii., for the details of this most interesting exploration.
“As rapidly as the breaking-in of the mules and heavy rains for half the time allowed, the expedition moved seventy miles up the Mississippi in detachments, crossed to the west bank, and on June 10 were again assembled on the Sauk River, two miles above its mouth, in Camp Davis, so named in honor of the Secretary of War. In this first movement of the expedition on the 31st, Lander was sent ahead to explore, and Tinkham to run the survey line. Doty on June 3, and Simpson on 4th, took the route with small trains, with such animals as were sufficiently broken in to be worked, and on the 6th Camp Pierce was broken up, and the remainder of the force followed in three parties, Grover with the scientific men and instruments by steamboat, Du Barry with Stanley, Dr. Suckley and sixteen dragoons, and Everett with the train, both these by land up the east bank of the river. Thus, despite the mules and the weather, the least possible time was lost in starting afield, and the young subordinates were being taught to command and operate detachments, which the governor regarded as of great importance, ‘in order to infuse hope into the whole party, and avail myself of the present high spirit of the camp.’”
Having seen the several parties started off, and the camp broken up, the governor continues:—
I remained at St. Anthony until noon of June 7 to secure the services of several voyageurs, and particularly of the guide Pierre Boutineau and the hunter Menoc, in which I was successful, and starting about noon, and taking a rapid conveyance, I pushed forward the same day forty miles, overtaking at Rum River Lieutenant Du Barry, and, some miles beyond, both Doty and Simpson, and reaching Sauk Rapids, a distance of thirty miles farther, by eleven A.M., found Mr. Tinkham actively engaged in the survey of that portion of the river. The crossing at St. Anthony is by a rope ferry, its motive power being the action of the current, having a short rope at the bow and a longer or slack rope astern. On the west side of the Mississippi, about three miles above Rum River, there was a large encampment of Winnebago Indians, consisting of about one hundred lodges. These are constructed of oak bark, fastened by strips of buckskin over arched poles, resembling in shape the cover of a wagon; they are about eight feet high, and from ten to thirty feet long, according to the number of families to be accommodated. The chief’s lodge in the centre is much larger, and distinguished by the flags upon it, two British and two American colors. The shores are lined with canoes, and the village extends an eighth of a mile along the river. The country, for the first seven miles after leaving camp and striking the St. Anthony road, is a wet prairie. After leaving St. Anthony the country appears to rise towards the north; the road lies on the eastern bank of the Mississippi, along the plateau, which is generally timbered with the smaller varieties of oak, in some places forming beautiful groves. On the road, and at Sauk Rapids, several additional men were engaged, among them some Canadian voyageurs. These men, being sometimes half-breeds, speak a jargon of patois French, Chippewa, and other Indian dialects. They are a hardy, willing, enduring class, and used to encounter all sorts of difficulties in their journey between different posts of the fur companies. They must be treated with kindness and a certain degree of familiarity, and, their confidence and affections being secured, they are the most obedient and hard-working fellows in the world. This morning I learned that Lieutenant Grover and his steamboat party had landed late last evening about five miles below Sauk River, and had there encamped. In the afternoon, accompanied by Boutineau, I crossed the Mississippi to find him, and went three miles in a drenching rain without reaching his position.
I dispatched Henry Boulieau in search of Lander, and he returned with the information that Lander was about eighteen miles ahead at Cold Spring, and that he had made there a good crossing for wagons.