Chapter 30
St. Louis
St. Louis, Missouri
The Corps arrived back in St. Louis on 23 September 1806, two years, four months and ten days after setting out from Camp Dubois. They had travelled about 8,000 miles, and most people in the United States had given them up for dead.
4 September 1806
Going downstream on the Missouri, with the current behind them and everyone desperate to get home, the Corps flies. They cover in days what took them weeks on the way up.
On 4 September they stop at Floyd’s Bluff. Clark writes that they climbed the hill, “found the grave had been opened by the nativs and left half covered, we had this grave completely filled up.” Two years after burying him, they leave their sergeant resting properly at last.
September 1806
Now they begin to meet boats coming up the river: traders heading for the Mandan, the Arikara and the Lakota. The traders are astonished to see them. They share whiskey and news, and the Corps hears about everything that has happened in the world since the spring of 1804.
One trader tells them something that stops them short. Clark writes that “we had been long since given out [up] by the people of the U S generaly and almost forgotton, the President of the U. States had yet hopes of us.” Most people in the United States think they are dead.
20 September 1806
On 20 September, near the little French village of La Charette, the men see something they have not seen for more than two years. Clark writes: “we saw some cows on the bank which was a joyfull sight to the party and caused a shout to be raised for joy.”
Cows mean farms. Farms mean home. At La Charette, Clark writes, the villagers “acknowledged themselves much astonished in seeing us return, they informed us that we were supposed to have been lost long since.”
23 September 1806
On the morning of 23 September they reach the Mississippi and paddle down it to St. Louis, the town they left in May 1804. Clark writes: “we Suffered the party to fire off their pieces as a Salute to the Town. we were met by all the village and received a harty welcom from it’s inhabitants.”
They have been gone two years, four months and ten days. They have travelled about 8,000 miles, crossed the Rocky Mountains twice, and lost only one man.
That same day Lewis writes to President Jefferson: “It is with pleasure that I anounce to you the safe arrival of myself and party at this place … with our papers and baggage.” A rider carries the letter east. When it reaches Washington, the President will learn that his explorers are alive.