another two days camp was made a few miles above the later site of La Junta, Colorado. Following instructions from the war department the party was divided in two and preparations were made for exploring the courses of both the Arkansas and the Red. Long commanded the more important of the two divisions down the latter stream, while the former, having been examined already by Pike, was explored by Captain Bell and his division. Long's division fails to find Red River.-Major Long's division left the Arkansas on July 24, crossed Purgatory Creek and the upper waters of the Cimarron River, and after six days came to a small tributary of the Canadian River. Nearly a week later they came to the last named stream near the present boundary of Texas and New Mexico. The members of the party believed that they had reached the Red River, and naturally so because they came upon the Canadian in the region where the Red was supposed to rise. But the stream deviated from the course which the Red was supposed to follow and the party became doubtful. They were not convinced of their error, however, until they arrived at the junction of the Arkansas and Canadian rivers. The journey down the latter stream had been made amidst almost constant suffering caused by exposure to violent storms and excessive heat, by lack of an adequate supply of food and water, by annoying attacks of wood ticks, and by occasional encounters with bands of unfriendly Kaskaia and Comanche Indians. Despite these obstacles the party arrived at Fort Smith on September 13. This was the meeting place which had been previously determined upon, and Long found Bell's division awaiting him upon his arrival. Divisions meet at Fort Smith and descend Arkansas. The commander of the Arkansas expedition had experienced difficulties and hardships scarcely less try ing than those encountered by Long. On a night in August (the thirteenth) three soldiers deserted, taking with them all the manuscripts which had been prepared by Dr. Say and Lieutenant Swift since leaving the Missouri. These contained notes on the animals examined, a journal of the expedition, considerable topographical data, besides information on the customs, manners, history, and languages of the Indian. To add to their discouragement they went astray. This occurred soon after passing the Great Bend when they mistook the Ne-Ne-Seah for the Negracka or Salt Fork of the Arkansas. Other similar errors added to their bewilderment and for some time they did not know just how to reach the appointed rendezvous. But finally they met a band of friendly Osage Indians near the Verdigris River on September I who were able to give them information, and they reached Fort Smith on the ninth of the same month. The entire expedition descended the river to the Cherokee towns on Illinois Creek in Pope County, Arkansas. From here they proceeded overland to Cape Girardeau in Missouri. Two members of the party went from the Cherokee towns to Hot Springs, Arkansas, and returned to the Arkansas River at Little Rock whence they also crossed the country to Cape Girardeau. Here all members of the expedition met on October 12, 1820, and a little later they were disbanded.21 The Magee-Kearny expedition.-While Long and his party were exploring the country west of the Missouri another expedition was sent out from Council Bluffs in the opposite direction for the purpose of opening a road between that place and the military post on 21 James, Edwin, "An account of an Expedition from Pittsburg to the Rocky Mountains, 1819-1820" in Thwaites, Early Western Travels, 17481840, Cleveland, 1905. XIV, XV, XVI, XVII. the Mississippi at the mouth of the St. Peters River. This was led by Captain Magee of the rifle regiment. Accompanying the party were Lieutenant-Colonel Morgan and Captain Kearny. It is to the latter that we are indebted for our knowledge of the undertaking. From Council Bluffs to Camp Cold Water.-The party required twenty-three days to make the trip. Leaving Camp Missouri on July 2, 1820, they followed a route leading in a general northeasterly direction, veering occasionally to the east or to the north, finally arriving at Camp Cold Water on July 25. "Our circuitous and wavering route (which is to be attributed to the guide's advice .)," noted Kearny, "the immense prairies we have crossed; the want of timber which we for several days at a time experienced; the little water that in some parts was to be found; the high and precipitous mountains and hills which we have climbed over, render that road impracticable and almost impassable for more than very small bodies." 22 Unofficial explorers.-The explorations noted above were made directly or indirectly under the auspices of the government at Washington. They were official in character. There had been many Anglo-American explorers in the Trans-Mississippi, however, who had no official connection whatever with the government of the United States. Sometimes they were scientists like Bradbury and Brackenridge and Schoolcraft and Nuttall; or again they might be adventurers or traders or both such as John Shaw and John Fonda and Jacob Fowler. All of these men completed explorations into the western country within the limits of the period under consideration. It becomes necessary, therefore, to turn from the official to the unofficial explorations, and the men whose names have just been mentioned 22 "Journal of Stephen Watts Kearny," Valentine M. Porter (editor), in Missouri Historical Society, Collections, III. 8 ff. A map of the route which Magee followed will be found in this volume. will be considered in a somewhat different order from that which is given above. Bradbury, Brackenridge, and Shaw were in the Trans-Mississippi West before the War of 1812. They followed chronologically Lewis and Clark, Dunbar, Hunter, Sibley, Freeman, and Pike. Expeditions of Bradbury and Brackenridge.— John Bradbury, who was a naturalist and traveler, arrived in the United States in the summer of 1809, bearing a commission from the Botanical Society at Liverpool to make an examination of plant life in America. The president of the society had provided Bradbury with a letter of introduction to Jefferson as a result of which he visited Monticello. Following a brief visit Bradbury started for St. Louis, arriving there the last day of the year 1809, carrying with him a letter of commendation from Jefferson to Meriwether Lewis. St. Louis became the center from which the naturalist made a number of short excursions. He was planning to move south to the Arkansas country when he met Hunt, the leader of the overland Astorian expedition. He received an invitation to accompany the expedition and immediately decided to do so. The larger part of Bradbury's journal is occupied with a description of his tour with Hunt's party up the Missouri. He went by boat to the Arikara villages several hundred miles from St. Louis and then accompanied Ramsay Crooks to the fur-trading station among the Mandans about two hundred miles farther up the river. Upon his return to the Arikara villages he found the members of his party busily engaged in preparing to continue their journey to the Pacific. Manuel Lisa, in his second trip up the Missouri, had overtaken Hunt and with the former had come Henry M. Brackenridge, a friend of Bradbury's. Lisa and Brackenridge were about to return to St. Louis and Bradbury had made his excursion into the West in the interest of science. Brackenridge was seeking merely pleasure and adventure. Colonel John Shaw, whose explorations covered an entirely different area, combined the experiences of the adventurer with those of the fur trader. Colonel John Shaw.-Colonel Shaw was one of the early pioneers of Wisconsin, a man whose integrity and honesty have been vouched for by some of his fellow countrymen. The editor of the Wisconsin Historical Society Collections, Dr. Draper, through whose hands Colonel Shaw's narrative passed, tells us that it may be considered substantially correct. His account was written from memory when he was an old man and therefore allowance must be made for dates. But the internal evidence of that part of his narrative outlined here, will indicate that his explorations were made not only before the War of 1812, but pretty near the time he claims to have made them.24 Shaw's explorations.-Colonel Shaw says that he spent the winter of 1808 in St. Louis and its vicinity. During the following spring, accompanied by Peter Spear and William Miller, he set out from the extreme western settlement of Cape Girardeau County on the headwaters of the St. Francis River for the Pacific Ocean. He thinks his route was very near the thirtyseventh parallel, or perhaps a half degree south of it. He crossed a branch of the White River which he claims to have named the Current. Proceeding westward he came to the Black, afterwards called the Spring, which stream he followed to its source. Cross 23 For an account of these expeditions see Thwaites, Early Western Travels, 1748-1846, 32 vols., Cleveland, 1904-1907, V, VI. 24 Col. John Shaw, "Personal Narrative," in the Wisconsin Historical Society, Collections, II. 197-232. |