Fellow Soldiers and Citizens:
In presuming to claim your protection and patronage for the following production, I feel less diffidence, knowing that the very institution of the society will plead in my favor, it being avowedly formed for the promotion of military knowledge.
The work is merely a volume of details, and if it should be found that in the relation I have delivered myself with perspicuity and exactitude, it is the highest meed of praise that I claim. When I touched on abstract subjects, or presumed to hypothesize, I have merely suggested doubts without conclusions, which, if deemed worthy, may hereafter be analyzed by men of genius and science. It being a work which has arisen from the events of youthful military exertions, the author, perhaps, has the most just and well-founded ground for a hope that it may receive the solicited approbation of your honorable institution.
I am, gentlemen, with the greatest respect and high consideration,
Your obedient servant,
Z. M. PIKE,
Major 6th Regt. Infantry,
M. U. S. M. P. Society.
CONTENTS OF VOL I.
| PAGES | |
| Original Preface, | [i]-[iv] |
| New Preface, | [v]-[xviii*] |
| Memoir of Zebulon Montgomery Pike, | [xix]-[cxiv] |
| PART I. | |
| The Mississippi Voyage. | |
| CHAPTER I. | |
| Itinerary: St. Louis to St. Paul, August 9th-September21st, 1805, | [1]-[81] |
| CHAPTER II. | |
| Itinerary, Continued: St. Paul to Leech Lake,September 22d, 1805-January 31st, 1806, | [82]-[151] |
| CHAPTER III. | |
| Itinerary, Concluded: Leech Lake to St. Louis,February 1st-April 30th, 1806, | [152]-[215] |
| CHAPTER IV. | |
| Weather Diary of the Mississippi, | [216]-[220] |
| CHAPTER V. | |
| Correspondence and Conferences, | [221]-[273] |
| CHAPTER VI. | |
| Commerce of the Mississippi, | [274]-[286] |
| CHAPTER VII. | |
| Geography of the Mississippi, | [287]-[336] |
| CHAPTER VIII. | |
| Ethnography of the Mississippi, | [337]-[354] |
| CHAPTER IX. | |
| Vocabulary of Mississippian Place-names, | [355], [356] |