Early April, 1805, Lewis and Clark dispatch the big keelboat and roughly a dozen men back
downriver, along with maps, reports, Indian artifacts, and boxes of
scientific specimens for President Jefferson (Indian corn, animal skins and
skeletons, mineral samples, and five live animals including the prairie
dog). Including two men that had been court-marshaled, one was because of attempted desertion and the other for falling asleep at his night time guard post.
The same day, the “permanent party” heads west, traveling in the two
pirogues and six smaller dugout canoes. The expedition totals 33 now,
including Charbonneau, Sacagawea, and her baby boy. “We were now about
to penetrate a country at least two thousand miles in width, on which
the foot of civilized man had never trodden,” Lewis wrote, adding that
“I could but esteem this moment of my departure as among the most happy
of my life."
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