Between May 1804 and September 1806, Meriwether Lewis, William Clark, the Shoshone-Hidatsa woman Sacagawea, Clark’s enslaved companion York, and 29 volunteers crossed the continent from St. Louis to the Pacific Ocean and back again. The 2001 publication of the authoritative 13-volume edition of The Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition offered an opportunity to take a fresh look at one of the most remarkable adventures in American history.
Clay Jenkinson, a preeminent Lewis and Clark and Jefferson scholar, examines the dynamics of the journals: how they were written, under what conditions, and what it took to trigger a journal mention. His analysis of what the expedition’s six journal keepers included in their entries—and what they did not—offers a deeper understanding of the greatest land exploration in North America.
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