young Kentuckians, fourteen soldiers
of the regular army who had volunteered to accompany the expedition,
two French watermen, an interpreter and hunter, and a negro servant of
Captain Clark. At St. Louis there were sixteen additional recruits,--an
Indian hunter and interpreter, and fifteen boatmen, who were to go as
far as the villages of the Mandan Nation. This brought the total to
forty-five.

A broadly inclusive statement must suffice to characterize the
non-commissioned men. They were brave, sturdy, able; amenable to
discipline, yet full of original resource; ideal subordinates, yet
almost every one fitted by nature for command, if occasion should
arise. They proved themselves equal to all emergencies. At least five
of these men kept journals, and no better index to their character need
be asked than that afforded by the manuscript records. If ever there
was temptation to color and adorn a narrative with the stuff that makes
travelers' tales attractive, it was here; yet in none of the journals
is there to be found a departure from plain, simple truth-telling.
Their matter-of-fact tone would render them almost commonplace, if the
reader did not take pains to remember what it all meant. Nowhere is
there anything like posing for effect; the nearest approach to it is in
the initial entry in the diary of that excellent Irishman, Private
Patrick Gass,--and parts of this have been branded as apocryphal, the
interpolation of an enthusiastic editor:--

"On Monday, 14 of May, 1804, we left our establishment at the mouth
of the River du Bois, or Wood River, a small river which falls into
the Mississippi, on the east side, a mile below the Missouri, and
having crossed the Mississippi proceeded up the Missouri on our
intended voyage of discovery, under the command of Captain Clarke.
Captain Lewis was to join us in two or three days on our
passage.... The expedition was embarked on board a batteau and two
periogues. The day was showery, and in the evening we encamped on
the north bank, six miles up the river. Here we had leisure to
reflect on our situation, and the nature of our engagements: and as
we had all entered this service as volunteers, to consider how far
we stood pledged for the success of an expedition which the
government had projected; and which had been undertaken for the
benefit and at the expence of the Union: of course of much interest
and high expec