Enlistment and Mess Assignment
Hugh McNeal first appears in the expedition record on May 26, 1804, when Captain Lewis issued detachment orders organizing the permanent party into messes. McNeal was assigned to Sergeant Charles Floyd’s squad, listed as the second private after Floyd himself:
1 Sergt. Charles Floyd. (1)
Privates:
2 Hugh McNeal
3 Patric Gass
4 Reubin Fields…
From this organizational moment forward, McNeal served as a private throughout the journey, never promoted but repeatedly entrusted with specific assignments by both captains.
At the Great Falls and the Search for the Shoshone
McNeal had not seen the Great Falls of the Missouri during the initial reconnaissance, so on July 4, 1805, Lewis recorded that he and Sergeant Gass and several others were permitted to view them:
Yesterday we permitted Sergt. Gass McNeal and several others who had not yet seen the falls to visit them.
A month later, McNeal accompanied Lewis on the small advance party seeking the Shoshone Indians. On August 9, 1805, Lewis set out with Drouillard, Shields, and McNeal to find the headwaters and contact the Shoshones. On August 11, Lewis recorded one of the most famous moments of the expedition, with McNeal at his side:
I kept McNeal with me; after having marched in this order for about five miles I discovered an Indian on horse back about two miles distant coming down the plain toward us.
That first contact was unsuccessful — the lone Shoshone fled — but the party persisted. On August 13, Clark named a stream for the private:
passed the mouth of a bold running Stream 7 yards wide on the Lard Side… Call this stream McNeal Creek.
Clark referenced McNeal’s Creek again on July 10, 1806, when describing the geography of the Beaverhead Valley.
On August 15, 1805, with Lewis’s small advance party nearly starving, McNeal was responsible for the diminishing flour supply:
I found on enquiry of McNeal that we had only about two pounds of flour remaining. this I directed him to divide into two equal parts and to cook the one half this morning in a kind of pudding with the hurries.
McNeal continued in the advance party as it crossed into Shoshone country and on August 16 helped maintain Lewis’s diplomatic posture before the meeting with Cameahwait’s band.
Down the Columbia and the Pacific Winter
By November 1805 the party had reached the Pacific tidewaters. On November 8, Clark recorded the misery of the swelling estuary:
The Swells were So high and the Canoes roled in Such a manner as to cause Several to be verry Sick. Reuben fields, Wiser McNeal & the Squar wer of the number.
At Fort Clatsop, McNeal was repeatedly part of work parties. On December 15, 1805, he was among five men — with Ordway, Colter, Collins, and Whitehouse — who became separated from the elk-packing detachment and “Staid out all night without fire and in the rain.” Clark recorded the next day’s misery (December 16, 1805) as the men finally rejoined:
the 5 men who Stayed out all night joined me this morning Cold & wet, Ordway Colter Collens, Jo Whitehouse J McNeal.
McNeal also accompanied Clark on the January 1806 trip to view the beached whale at the Tillamook coast, with Clark noting on January 8 and 9 the difficult coastal travel and Indian villages encountered.
Illness at Fort Clatsop
The journals record McNeal’s contraction of venereal disease, almost certainly during contact with the Chinook and Clatsop bands. On January 31, 1806, both captains noted:
discovered that McNeal had the pox, gave him medicine.
The condition persisted. On February 20, Lewis wrote that
McNeal from his inattention to his disorder has become worse,
and on February 22 Clark listed him among the sick:
our sick consisting of Gibson, Bratten, Willard McNeal and Baptiest LaPage is Something better.
By February 27, the captains reported that
Goodrich and McNeal who have the pox are recovering fast,
and on March 8, 1806, Lewis directed both men
to desist from the uce of mercury,
the standard (and toxic) treatment of the era. Captain Clark’s parallel entry phrased it that he “detected them to desist from takeing the murcury.” The recovery, as later events show, was incomplete: on July 2, 1806, Lewis noted that
Goodrich and McNeal are both very unwell with the pox which they contracted last winter.
The Return Journey: Trader and Errand-Runner
On the return up the Columbia, McNeal performed routine duties. On April 24, 1806, his horse was the only one missing at morning roll:
they were all found in a little time except McNeal’s. we hired an indian to surch for this horse.
Clark added that he gave the Indian “a Tomahawk” for the search.
While camped among the Nez Perce awaiting the snowmelt, McNeal was given liberty on May 22, 1806, to visit the nearby villages with Windsor. His most notable assignment came on June 2, 1806, when Lewis sent him with York on a trading expedition. With the expedition’s merchandise nearly exhausted, the captains improvised:
Our traders McNeal and york are furnished with the buttons which Capt. C. and myself cut off our coats, some eye water and Basilicon which we made for that purpose and some Phials and small tin boxes which I had brought out with Phosphorus. in the evening they returned with about 3 bushels of roots and some bread having made a successful voyage, not much less pleasing to us than the return of a good cargo to an East India Merchant.
On June 7, 1806, McNeal again crossed the river with Sergeant Gass, Charbonneau, Whitehouse, and Goodrich to barter for cordage and bags from the Nez Perce, returning that afternoon having “precured a String each only.”
The Great Falls Detachment
When the captains divided the party at Travelers’ Rest in July 1806, McNeal was assigned to one of the more responsible details. On July 1, 1806, Lewis recorded:
from this place I determined to go with a small party by the most direct rout to the falls of the Missouri, there to leave Thompson McNeal and goodrich to prepare carriages and geer for the purpose of transporting the canoes and baggage over the portage.
On July 15, 1806, Lewis dispatched him on a critical reconnaissance:
Sent McNeal down this morning to the lower part of the portage to see whether the large perogue and cash were safe.
McNeal was among the men reunited with Clark’s party on August 12, 1806, near the mouth of the Yellowstone, completing the long circuit.
Note on the Record
Hugh McNeal’s name appears in roughly three dozen entries, but almost always as a participant in events rather than as a subject in his own right. He has no journal of his own; he is glimpsed only through Lewis and Clark. The captains record his presence at the first Shoshone encounter, his honorific creek, his bouts of illness, and his trading errands, but they tell us nothing of his background, family, or character beyond the journal record. His life outside the expedition is not addressed in these sources.
