A Beaver, a Bear, and a Bleeding Newfoundland: Three Sergeants on the Missouri
1805-05-19The journal entries for May 19, 1805, offer a textbook case of how the enlisted…
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Day-by-Day
Analyses (48)
View allA Belt of Blue Beads for a Sea Otter Robe
1805-11-20The journals of Patrick Gass and William Clark for November 20, 1805, describe the same…
A Belt of Blue Beads for a Sea-Otter Robe
1805-11-21The entries for November 21, 1805, find the Corps wind-bound on the south shore of…
A Bighorn Skin and a Broken Cord: Four Views of the Cascades Portage
1806-04-10The entries of April 10, 1806, find the Corps of Discovery laboring up the rapids…
A Boat That Rocked Like Medicine: Four Accounts of a Tense Teton Farewell
1804-09-30The entries for September 30, 1804 capture a single sequence of events — a lone…
A Boy’s Toes and a Hunter’s Pleurisy: Three Voices at Fort Mandan
1805-01-31The journal entries for January 31, 1805 offer an unusually clear demonstration of how rank,…
A British Musket on the Columbia: Three Views of a Wind-Bound Day
1805-10-28The expedition's progress on October 28, 1805, was halted within a few miles of starting.…
A Broken Mast and a Country Skipping with Deer
1804-06-30One River, Five MeasurementsThe day's central geographic event — passing the mouth of the Petite…
A Broken Voyage, a White Bear Skin, and a Missing Sergeant: Four Voices at Camp Chopunnish
1806-06-01The journal entries dated June 1, 1806 offer an unusual structural puzzle for readers of…
A Bull Snake, a Lost Knife, and a River Eating Itself
1804-08-05One Day, Five Pens, Five PrioritiesAugust 5, 1804 produces an unusually clear demonstration of how…
A Cache, a Departure, and Two Patients on the Marias
1805-06-11The June 11 entries divide cleanly along a geographic seam. Lewis is gone — he…
A Call to Arms at Fort Mandan: Three Accounts of the Sioux Raid Response
1804-11-30On 30 November 1804, the newly established garrison at Fort Mandan faced its first diplomatic-military…
A Camp Divides: Lewis’s Cache and Clark’s Reconnaissance
1805-08-20August 20, 1805 is the first full day in which the captains' journals describe geographically…
A Canoe Lost, a Chief Recovering: Four Voices from Camp Chopunnish
1806-05-30The journal entries for May 30, 1806, written from Camp Chopunnish on the Clearwater River,…
A Canoe on the Rocks: Three Accounts of an October Wreck on the Snake
1805-10-14The wreck of a stern canoe in a Snake River rapid below the Palouse confluence…
A Canoe Sunk on the Rapid: Three Voices on the Wreck of October 8th
1805-10-08The wreck of Sergeant Patrick Gass's canoe in a rapid below the Clearwater encampment of…
A Carrot of Tobacco and a Drawn Sword: Four Accounts of the Teton Standoff
1804-09-28September 28, 1804, below the Teton villages near present Pierre. The keelboat's anchor was lost…
A Coal Bank, a Creek of Many Names, and a Missing Flanking Party
1804-06-25The journals for June 25, 1804 cover a short stretch of the Missouri above Arrow…
A Cold Hunt Down River: Three Accounts of Clark’s Buffalo Search
1804-12-14The hunting expedition Captain William Clark led from Fort Mandan on December 14, 1804 produced…
A Colt Falls Prey to Our Appetites: Three Voices on Bitterroot Hunger
1805-09-17The September 17, 1805 entries from Patrick Gass, John Ordway, and William Clark converge on…
A Conic Mound of Stones: Four Voices on the Bitterroot Summit
1806-06-27The journals of June 27, 1806 offer an unusually clean specimen of how the Lewis…
A Court-Martial on the Missouri: Four Voices on the Trial of John Newman
1804-10-13The expedition's October 13, 1804 entries present one of the clearest examples in the journals…
A Damaged Pirogue, an Indisposed Captain, and a Quiet Order Below the Calumet Bluffs
1804-08-28The entries of August 28, 1804, written as the Corps of Discovery camped below the…
A Day of Rest at the Nemaha: Four Pens, Four Priorities
1804-07-12July 12, 1804 was a deliberate pause. The Corps had stopped near the mouth of…
A Day of Waiting at Weippe: Four Pens on Hunger, Fish, and Lost Horses
1806-06-19Stalled at Weippe Prairie waiting for Nez Perce guides who could lead them across the…
A Day Spent Drying: Five Narrators on a Stalled Aftermath
1805-05-15May 15, 1805 was a recovery day. The previous afternoon's accident with the white pirogue…
A Day to Fix the Longitude: Four Pens on the Bald Pated Prairie
1804-07-17The seventeenth of July 1804 found the Corps of Discovery encamped on what Clark and…
A Day’s Delay at Fort Mandan: Three Accounts of an Arikara Rumor
1805-04-06By April 6, 1805, the Corps of Discovery was poised to leave Fort Mandan after…
A Day’s Rest at Travelers’ Rest, and Three Riders from the West
1805-09-10September 10, 1805 was meant to be a logistical pause. The captains halted at Travelers'…
A Deer, Two Swimmers, and the Limits of Frontier Medicine
1806-05-23The journals of John Ordway, Meriwether Lewis, and William Clark for May 23, 1806 offer…
A Deserted Village and the Shrinking of the Quicksand
1806-03-31On 31 March 1806, the Corps of Discovery moved up the Columbia from their winter…
A Failed Hunt and a Woman Seeking Refuge
1805-01-03The journal entries for January 3, 1805, offer a revealing case of how two members…
A Feast of Anchovies and the Cock of the Plains: Three Voices at Fort Clatsop
1806-03-02March 2, 1806, at Fort Clatsop. Three published journals survive for the day in this…
A Finished Canoe, an Empty Larder: Four Voices at Camp Chopunnish
1806-05-26The entries of May 26, 1806, capture the Corps of Discovery in suspended motion at…
A Fork in the River, A Split in the Party
1805-08-05August 5, 1805 finds the Corps physically split among three groups, and the cross-narrator record…
A Fountain, a Flash Flood, and Four Views of One Storm
1805-06-29The journals for June 29, 1805 cluster around a single weather event — a violent…
A Frenchman, a Hurricane’s Wreckage, and a Catfish Yielding a Quart of Oil
1804-07-29July 29, 1804 found the Corps moving slowly up the Missouri above the Platte, having…
A Giant Fir, Three Pens: Measuring the Forest at Fort Clatsop
1806-03-10March 10, 1806 was, by all three accounts, a windy day at Fort Clatsop that…
A Glimpse of the Plains and a Horse’s Miraculous Fall
1805-09-19September 19, 1805 found the Corps of Discovery still entangled in the Bitterroot Mountains, weakened…
A Grape Vine to the Sky: Three Versions of an August Day on the Missouri
1806-08-18The journal entries for 18 August 1806 offer one of the more striking examples of…
A Heavy Stern and a Rainy Morning: The Barge in Trouble Below St. Charles
1804-05-15May 15, 1804 was the expedition's first full day of upstream travel after the previous…
A Horrid Noise of Swans: Two Voices on the Lower Columbia
1805-11-05The journals of November 5, 1805 capture the Corps of Discovery deep in the tidewater…
A Horse for Medicine: Naming Clark’s River and the Currency of Healing
1806-05-06The expedition's reunion with the Nez Perce in early May 1806 produced a remarkable convergence…
A Horse, a Sweat Lodge, and a Squirrel: Four Voices at Camp Chopunnish
1806-05-27The entries for May 27, 1806, offer an unusually clean specimen of how the Lewis…
A Hunt Down the Frozen Missouri: Three Voices on a Mandan Winter Crisis
1805-02-04The journals of February 4, 1805, document a single event — the departure of a…
A Keg, Nine Yanktons, and the Ghost of the Teton Standoff
1806-09-01The September 1, 1806 entries from William Clark, John Ordway, and Patrick Gass describe a…
A Kettle Refused, a Sword Accepted: Four Voices at Yelleppit’s Camp
1806-04-28The 28th of April 1806 found the returning Corps of Discovery encamped near the mouth…
A Kickapoo Promise Kept at the Mouth of a Small Creek
1804-05-22The 22 May 1804 entries cluster around three shared facts: a fifteen-mile day, a camp…
Heacock Archive (34)
View all
April 2, 1806
Clackamas visitors tell the captains about the Willamette River, and Clark sets out to find…
April 20, 1803
Meriwether Lewis writes to President Thomas Jefferson explaining a delay at Harpers Ferry Armory due…
April 27, 1806
Moving up the Columbia River, the expedition passes the Umatilla River and then climbs to…
April 28, 1806
A Shoshone prisoner is found at Yelleppit’s village across from the mouth of the Walla…
April 3, 1806
Clark concludes his exploration of the Willamette River. On his way back, he learns that…
April 7, 1806
The expedition spends the day hunting and jerking meat at present Shepperds Dell at the…
April 9, 1806
The expedition’s flotilla moves sixteen miles up the Columbia River Gorge marveling at its many…
December 30, 1805
At Fort Clatsop, the journalists appear happy to see the sun, and Clark enjoys a…
December 7, 1803
Lewis travels by land and Clark by river to arrive at Cahokia, Illinois. Lewis meets…
February 8, 1806
All three sergeants are dispatched to bring into Fort Clatsop the various elk killed on…
January 3, 1806
Clatsop villagers come to Fort Clatsop to sell whale blubber and dogs. Lewis finds the…
January 8, 1806
From Clark’s Point of View above Ecola, Clark’s group enjoys the “grandest and most pleasing…
March 26, 1806
After a wet night, they paddle approximately 18 miles up the Columbia River and camp…
March 27, 1806
Near present Deer Island, Oregon, some generous Skilloots give away food with hopes that the…
May 16, 1804
The boats set out early, pass the coal beds of Charbonier Bluff, and reach St.…
November 13, 1803
The expedition leaves Fort Massac moving about three miles down the Ohio, and Lewis is…
November 17, 1803
The day is stormy at the mouth of the Ohio. Strong winds swamp the smaller…
November 19, 1803
On the expedition’s final day encamped at the mouth of the Ohio, Clark completes his…
November 23, 1803
Louis Lorimier of Cape Girardeau
November 24, 1803
Moving ten miles up the Mississippi, a missing hunter—Sgt. Pryor—is found, and Lewis observes the…
November 25, 1803
As the expedition’s flotilla of boats approach the Grand Tower of the Mississippi, Lewis learns…
November 25, 1805
Having decided to winter on the Columbia River’s southern shore, they leave Station Camp. With…
November 27, 1805
Unable to continue due to high winds and waves, they are forced to take shelter…
November 3, 1805
Moving down the Columbia River above present Portland, Oregon, Clark is unable to cross a…
November 7, 1805
The expedition paddles around Columbia River islands and stops at two Wahkiakum villages. They reach…
October 21, 1805
Moving down the Columbia above present John Day Dam, the paddlers navigate several rapids while…
October 29, 1805
Moving 35 miles down the Columbia, the expedition encounters many Sahaptin and Upper Chinook villages.…
September 13, 1803
At sunrise, the boats move down the Ohio River. They lift the barge over a…
September 15, 1803
Lewis and his crew head down the Ohio passing present Little Kanawha and Little Hocking…
September 16, 1803
After delaying for fog, Lewis pushes his crew until nearly dark. They pass an area…
September 18, 1803
The expedition heads out down the Ohio before sunrise. They safely pass a rapid near…
September 28, 1803
© 2021 by Robert Heacock. Used by permission.
September 4, 1803
As they leave Pennsylvania along the Ohio River, the pirogue springs a serious leak, so…
September 6, 1803
Lewis employs horses, sails, and oxen to pass over several gravel bars. He tries sailing,…
