| Summary: | Even as the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution were being written, the visionary Jefferson saw the nation stretching from sea-to-sea, connected by rivers to the Pacific. Exploration of the western rivers had been his desire for more than 20 years. However, he had been unsuccessful in several attempts. Earlier, Alexander Mackenzie, who worked for the Northwest Company in Canada, had bridged the continent in 1793. However, the young Scot's path proved to be too far north and rugged to be commercially viable. It was not the much sought after Northwest Passage. But it did spur Jefferson to move ahead with the investigation of the vast western region soon to be known as the Louisiana Purchase. In the absence of evidence to the contrary, President Jefferson thought, "That the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia might be the highest on the continent; that the mammoth, the giant ground sloth, and other prehistoric creatures would be found along the upper Missouri; that a mountain of pure salt a mile long lay somewhere on the Great Plains; that volcanoes might still be erupting in the Badlands of the upper Missouri; that all the great rivers of the West Missouri, Columbia, Colorado, and Rio Grande rose from a single 'height of land' and flowed off in their several directions to the seas of the hemisphere. (Most importantly) he believed there might be a water connection, linked by a low portage across the mountains that would lead to the Pacific." Congress approved $2,500 to finance exploration of the Upper Missouri, with the hope of finding that water route to the mouth of the Columbia River, giving the United States the upper hand in trading with the British and securing American commerce through New Orleans. Once the purchase was complete, expectations of Louisiana expanded to include the addition of huge tracts of farm land, as well as the harvest of gold, timber, coal, iron, salt and silver. Made to Congress in secret, the proposal was for one officer and 10 to 12 soldiers to track the Missouri River to its source. From there, it was believed that a short portage would take the explorers to headwaters of the Columbia River and give easy access to the western ocean. The expedition would begin at St. Louis on the Mississippi River, not far from the mouth of the Missouri River. It would move up the Missouri to the edge of white knowledge of the Louisiana Purchase, the Mandan Indian villages on the Knife River near present day Stanton, North Dakota. The party would then follow the Missouri into the unexplored interior. Jefferson chose his secretary, and fellow Virginian, Meriwether Lewis to lead the expedition. Getting Ready Jefferson wrote, "Capt. Lewis is brave, prudent, habituated to the woods, & familiar with Indian manners & Character. He is not regularly educated, but he possesses a great mass of accurate observation on all the subjects of nature which present themselves here, & will therefore readily select those only in his new route which shall be new." 2 Chapter One - Lewis and Clark in North Dakota
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