num_pages: 504
description: An alternate cover edition exists here.In 1803, when the United States purchased Louisiana from France, the great expanse of this new American territory was a blank--not only on the map but in our knowledge. President Thomas Jefferson keenly understood that the course of the nation's destiny lay westward &amp; that a national "Voyage of Discovery" must be mounted to determine the nature &amp; accessibility of the frontier. He commissioned his young secretary, Meriwether Lewis, to lead an intelligence-gathering expedition from the Missouri River to the northern Pacific coast and back. From 1804 to 1806, Lewis, accompanied by co-captain William Clark, the Shoshone guide Sacajawea &amp; 32 men, made the first trek across the Louisiana Purchase, mapping the rivers as he went, tracing the principal waterways to the sea &amp; establishing the American claim to the territories of Idaho, Washington &amp; Oregon. together the captains kept a journal, a richly detailed record of the flora &amp; fauna they sighted, the Indian tribes they encountered &amp; the awe-inspiring landscape they traversed, from their base camp near present-day St. Louis to the mouth of the Columbia River. In keeping this record they made an incomparable contribution to the literature of exploration &amp; the writing of natural history. The Journals of Lewis &amp; Clark, writes Bernard DeVoto, was "the first report on the West, on the United States over the hill &amp; beyond the sunset, on the province of the American future. There has never been another so excellent or so influential...It satisfied desire &amp; created desire: the desire of the westering nation."
language: English
title: The Journals of Lewis and Clark
titlecomplete: The Journals of Lewis and Clark
characters: Meriwether Lewis, William Clark, Sacagawea
genres: Historical, Biography, Adventure, Nature, Memoir, Nonfiction, American History, Classics, Travel, History
ratings_count: 5108
places: The United States of America
publisher: Houghton Mifflin