Sergeant Charles Floyd
Sergeant Charles Floyd (1782–1804) was one of the original members of the Lewis and Clark Expedition and holds the somber distinction of being the only member of the Corps of Discovery to die during the journey. Floyd was one of three sergeants selected by Lewis and Clark to lead squads within the expedition, a testament to his leadership abilities and the trust placed in him by the commanding officers. He kept a journal during the early months of the expedition that provides valuable firsthand accounts of the journey up the Missouri River. On August 20, 1804, near present-day Sioux City, Iowa, Floyd died of what is now believed to have been a ruptured appendix — a condition that would have been fatal even with the best medical care available at the time. He was buried with full military honors on a bluff overlooking the Missouri River, and the site was later marked by a 100-foot stone obelisk, the Floyd Monument, which is the first registered National Historic Landmark in the United States. Remarkably, Floyd's death was the only fatality among the permanent party during the entire 8,000-mile, 28-month expedition.
Related Locations
Journal Entries (2)
Documents (1)
Cross-Narrator Analyses
Analyses that cite or discuss Sergeant Charles Floyd — showing 20 of the most recent matches.
Sergeant Charles Floyd: The Only Casualty of the Corps of Discovery
IntroductionSergeant Charles Floyd holds a singular place in the history of the Lewis and Clark Expedition: he was the only member of…
A Missing Hunter and the Echo of Guns: Four Voices from Deer Creek
This analysis was generated with AI assistance and reviewed by a human editor of the Lewis and Clark Research Database.The entries for…
A New Sergeant and a Hill of Little People: Four Voices on August 26, 1804
August 26, 1804 produced four overlapping accounts that, taken together, reveal how differently the expedition's narrators handled the same twenty-four hours. The…
A Stray Horse and an Abandoned Trading House: Four Views of July 3, 1804
The entries for July 3, 1804 offer an unusually clean test case for comparing the expedition's four active journal-keepers. All four men…
A Trader’s Generosity and a Sergeant’s Disturbed Grave
The entries of September 4, 1806, find the Corps of Discovery descending the Missouri near the abandoned Omaha (Maha) village, soaked from…
A White Flag at the Maha Village: Four Voices on an Empty Town
The expedition's arrival near the Omaha (Maha) village on 13 August 1804 produced four overlapping but unequal accounts. Captain William Clark, Sergeant…
An Empty Village and the Shape of a Day at White Catfish Camp
July 25, 1804 finds the Corps of Discovery encamped at the place Clark christened White Catfish Camp, a few miles below the…
Buttons, Basilicon, and a Dying Man’s Tomahawk
June 2, 1806, found the Corps of Discovery at Camp Chopunnish on the Clearwater, waiting for the Bitterroot snows to recede. The…
Captain Lewis Arrives at St. Charles in the Rain
The journals of May 19, 1804, capture a single afternoon at St. Charles from four vantage points. The expedition is poised to…
Court-Martial at St. Charles: Discipline on the Eve of Departure
The entries for 17 May 1804 from St. Charles, Missouri, illustrate a pattern in the expedition's documentary record: the radical disparity between…
Discipline and a Near Disaster at the Kansas
The expedition's departure from the mouth of the Kansas River on June 29, 1804, produced four journal entries that, read together, reveal…
Rattlesnakes, Salt Licks, and the Painted Rock: Four Voices on the Big Manitou
The entries of June 7, 1804 offer an unusually clear view of how information traveled among the Corps of Discovery's journal-keepers. Four…
The Last Settlement: Four Voices at the Edge of the Known World
The entries of May 25, 1804 capture a moment of symbolic weight: the Corps of Discovery's passage beyond the last Euro-American settlement…
Three Registers at St. Charles: Cargo, Courtship, and a Single Line
The journal entries for May 18, 1804, written while the Corps of Discovery was still encamped at St. Charles, Missouri, offer an…
Three Voices at Council Bluff: Recording the First Diplomatic Encounter
The council held near present-day Fort Calhoun, Nebraska — the site Lewis christened "Council Bluff" — marked the expedition's first formal diplomatic…
Three Voices for Sergeant Floyd — August 20, 1804
Sergeant Charles Floyd died on August 20, 1804, the only member of the Corps of Discovery to die during the entire expedition…
Two Pens at Floyd’s Bluff: Diplomacy and a Dying Sergeant
August 19, 1804 found the Corps of Discovery anchored near the bluffs that would soon bear Sergeant Charles Floyd's name. Two journals…
White Catfish Camp: Sand, Sutures, and the Beaver-Rich Bottom
The 26th of July 1804 found the Corps of Discovery still encamped at the place Clark christened "White Catfish Camp," near the…
Hugh McNeal: A Private’s Long March
Enlistment and Mess AssignmentHugh McNeal first appears in the expedition record on May 26, 1804, when Captain Lewis issued detachment orders organizing…
The Omaha (Maha) Nation: A Diminished People in the Journals of Lewis & Clark
Introduction: A Nation in the Journals' ShadowThe Omaha — written variously as Mahar, Maha, Mahas, and Mahaha in the journals — occupy…
From the Heacock Memorial Archive
1 lewis-clark.org articles that mention Sergeant Charles Floyd, preserved here for Robert Heacock’s photography. The articles were written by that site’s contributing authors.
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