Reference Entry
LEWIS AND CLARK EXPEDITION DEPARTS
On May 14th, 1804, a small flotilla of boats pulls away from Camp Dubois, near Saint Louis, and starts upriver into largely unmapped country. The party, known as the Corps of Discovery, is built around soldiers and noncommissioned officers of the United States Army under Captain Meriwether Lewis and Lieutenant William Clark. Their mission is to explore the recent Louisiana Purchase, seek a practical route toward the Pacific, and make contact with Native nations along the way.
Dated Historical Context
A RECORDED MOMENT IN HISTORY
Lewis and Clark Expedition departs
On May 14th, 1804, a small flotilla of boats pulls away from Camp Dubois, near Saint Louis, and starts upriver into largely unmapped country. The party, known as the Corps of Discovery, is built around soldiers and noncommissioned officers of the United States Army under Captain Meriwether Lewis and Lieutenant William Clark. Their mission is to explore the recent Louisiana Purchase, seek a practical route toward the Pacific, and make contact with Native nations along the way. Though remembered today as a scientific and diplomatic expedition, it is also a military reconnaissance of enormous scale. The maps, notes, and observations the soldiers collect will shape later Army movements, frontier posts, and campaigns. In these May days of 1804, the expedition’s departure represents an early example of the United States using uniformed forces not only to fight, but to chart and understand the terrain of a growing republic.
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