Since the time of Columbus, explorers dreamed of a water passage across the North American continent. President Thomas Jefferson shared this dream. He conceived the Corps of Discovery to travel up the Missouri River to the Rocky Mountains and westward along possible river routes to the Pacific Ocean. Meriwether Lewis and William Clark led this expedition of 1804?6. Along the way they filled hundreds of notebook pages with observations of the geography, Indian tribes, and natural history of the trans-Mississippi West. This volume includes Lewis's and Clark's journals beginning in August 1803, when Lewis left Pittsburgh to join Clark farther down the Ohio River. The two men and several recruits camped near the mouth of the Missouri River for five months of training, acquiring supplies and equipment, and gathering information from travelers about the trip upriver. They started up the Missouri in May 1804. This volume ends in August, when the Corps of Discovery camped near the Vermillion River in present-day South Dakota.

Through a retelling of Lewis's life, from his resourceful youth to the brilliance of his leadership and accomplishments as a man, Patricia Tyson Stroud shows that Jefferson's unsubstantiated claim of his protégé's suicide is the long-held bitter root at the heart of the Meriwether Lewis story.

"The journey of the Corps of Discovery, under the command of Captains Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, across the American West to the Pacific Ocean and back in the years 1804-1806 seems to me to have been our first really American adventure, one that also produced our only really American epic, The Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, now at last available in a superbly edited, easily read edition in twelve volumes (of an eventual thirteen), almost two centuries after the Corps of Discovery set out. . . . This important text has not been fully appreciated for what it is because of two centuries of incomplete and inadequate editing. All three editions previous to this excellent one from the University of Nebraska . . . were flawed by significant omission. . . . Thus my gratitude to the present editor, Gary Moulton, and his assistant editor, Thomas Dunlay, for bringing what I believe to be a national epic into plain view at last. . . . For almost two hundred years their [Lewis' and Clark's] strong words waited, there but not there, printed but not read: our silent epic. But words can wait: now the captains' writings have at last spilled out, and fully, in this regal edition. When the Atlas of the Lewis and Clark Expedition appeared in 1983, critics hailed it as a publishing landmark. This eagerly awaited second volume of the new Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition begins the actual journals of those explorers whose epic expedition still enthralls Americans. Instructed by President Jefferson to keep meticulous records bearing on the geography, ethnology, and natural history of the trans-Mississippi West, Meriwether Lewis and William Clark and four of their men filled hundreds of notebook pages with observations during their expedition of 1804–6. The result was in is a national treasure: a complete look at the Great Plains, the Rockies, and the Pacific Northwest, reported by men who were intelligent and well-prepared, at a time when almost nothing was known about those regions so newly acquired in the Louisiana Purchase. Volume 2 includes Lewis’s and Clark’s journals for the period from August 1803, when Lewis left Pittsburgh to join Clark farther down the Ohio River, to August 1804, when the Corps of Discovery camped near the Vermillion River in present South Dakota. The general introduction by Gary E. Moulton discusses the history of the expedition, the journal-keeping methods of Lewis and Clark, and the editing and publishing history of the journals from the time of Lewis and Clark’s return. Superseding the last edition published early in this century, the current edition brings together new materials discovered since then. It greatly expands and updates the annotation to take account of the most recent scholarship on the many subjects touched on by the journals.

Lewis and Clark's Corps of Discovery expedition conjures up images of high adventure. Up the Missouri River with Lewis and Clark tells of the beginning stages of the United States' first overland expedition to the Pacific Ocean. The men had to contend with shifting sandbars, treacherous currents, submerged trees, mosquitoes, rattlesnakes, wicked weather, disease, and unpredictable new people. Meet the men of the expedition-deserters, drunks, sergeants, and hunters. See how the first four months of their journey transforms a loose group of individuals into Clark's Band of Brothers. "Bill Markley has a wonderful talent for writing nonfiction with just a twist of humor. Though he takes his facts from the journals of Lewis, Clark, and other expedition members, his own commentary emerges."-Pat Decker Nipper, Author of Love on the Lewis and Clark Trail "You will enjoy reading Bill Markley's description of Lewis & Clark's expedition. He knows the stories, and shares with us a clear view of the expedition's journey. His book helps his readers better understand the Corps of Discovery's many and diverse encounters on the Missouri River."-Bill Stevens, President, Encounters On the Prairie, Central South Dakota Chapter of the Lewis and Clark Trail Heritage Foundation

An investigation into the discoveries of Lewis and Clark and other early explorers of America and the terrible acts committed to suppress them • Provides archaeological proof of giants, the fountain of youth, and descriptions from Lewis’s journals of a tribe of “nearly white, blue-eyed” Indians • Uncovers evidence of explorers from Europe and Asia prior to Columbus and of ancient civilizations in North America and the Caribbean • Investigates the Smithsonian conspiracy to cover up Lewis and Clark’s discoveries and what lead to Lewis’s murder Meriwether Lewis discovered far more than the history books tell--ancient civilizations, strange monuments, “nearly white, blue-eyed” Indians, and evidence that the American continent was visited long before the first European settlers arrived. And he was murdered to keep it all secret. Examining the shadows and cracks between America’s official version of history, Xaviant Haze and Paul Schrag propose that the America of old taught in schools is not the America that was discovered by Lewis and Clark and other early explorers. Investigating the discoveries of Spanish conquistadors and Olmec stories of contact with European-like natives, the authors uncover evidence of explorers from Europe and Asia prior to Columbus, sophisticated ancient civilizations in North America and the Caribbean, the fountain of youth, and a long-extinct race of giants. Verifying stories from Lewis’s journals with modern archaeological finds, geological studies, 18th- and 19th-century newspapers, and accounts of the world in the days of Columbus, the authors reveal how Lewis and Clark’s finds infuriated powerful interests in Washington--including the Smithsonian Institution--culminating in the murder of Meriwether Lewis.

As fruits go, the pawpaw is about as unique, historically important, and yet mysteriously undervalued as it gets. Despite an impressive resume, most people have probably never heard of the pawpaw, let alone bit into one. If you haven't yet eaten a pawpaw, Moore's lively and inquisitive book will have you seeking out the nearest pawpaw patch--Dust jacket.

An accomplished carpenter and boat builder, Patrick Gass proved to be an invaluable and well-liked member of the Lewis and Clark expedition. Promoted to sergeant after the death of Charles Floyd, Gass was almost certainly responsible for supervising the building of Forts Mandan and Clatsop. His records of those forts and of the earth lodges of the Mandans and Hidatsas are particularly detailed and useful. Gass was the last survivor of the Corps of Discovery, living until 1870?long enough to see trains cross a continent that he had helped open. His engaging and detailed journal became the first published account of the Lewis and Clark expedition. ø Gass's journal joins the celebrated Nebraska edition of the complete journals of the Lewis and Clark expedition, which feature a wide range of new scholarship dealing with all aspects of the expedition from geography to Indian cultures and languages to plants and animals.

The dependable and matter-of-fact John Ordway was one of the mainstays of the Corps of Discovery, promoted early on to sergeant and serving as an able leader during the captains' absence. Fascinated by the peoples and places he encountered, Ordway became the most faithful journalist on the expedition?recording information not found elsewhere and making an entry for every day during the expedition. Ordway later married and became a prosperous owner of two plantations in Missouri. His honest and informative account, which remained undiscovered for a century, offers an unforgettable glimpse of an enlisted man's experiences and observations as he and the Corps of Discovery embarked on the journey of a lifetime. In contrast to Ordway's extensive chronicle stands the far-too-brief but intriguingly detailed eyewitness account of Sergeant Charles Floyd, the only member to die on the expedition. The journals of John Ordway and Charles Floyd are part of the celebrated Nebraska edition of the complete journals of the Lewis and Clark expedition, which feature a wide range of new scholarship on all aspects of the expedition from geography to Indian cultures and languages to plants and animals.

In twelve remarkable volumes, Gary E. Moulton has edited the journals of the Lewis and Clark expedition of 1804?6, thus making clear and accessible to all readers the plethora of maps and words with which Meriwether Lewis and William Clark documented one of the greatest ventures of discovery in American history. With the Comprehensive Index, the thirteenth volume, Moulton completes his work?and offers everyone who consults the Journals a complete and detailed means of locating specific passages, references, and particular people or places within the larger work. Throughout the edition, his guiding principles have been clarity and ease of use. Consequently, the notes are indexed more thoroughly here than in most works and include modern place-names, modern denominations for Indian nations, and current popular and scientific names for various cited species. This volume also contains a list of corrections for earlier volumes.