Marquette University e-Publications@Marquette Library Faculty Research and Publications Library (Raynor Memorial Libraries) 1-1-2004 Reuben Gold Thwaites and the Historical Resurrection of Lewis and Clark Matt lesB sing Marquette University, [email protected] Published version. Wisconsin Magazine of History, Vol. 88, No. 2 (2004-2005): 42-49. Publisher Link. © 2004 Wisconsin Historical Society. Used by permission of the Wisconsin Historical Society. Any document may be printed or downloaded to a computer or portable device at no cost for nonprofit ducae tional use by teachers, students and researchers. Nothing may be reproduced in any format for commercial purposes without prior permission. Libraryof Congress 'A mapof Lezwisand Clarks track,across the waesternz portion of NorthAmerica from the Mississippi to thePacific Ocean: by order of theexecutive of the UnitedStates in 1804, S &"6 is theofficial title of thisgovernment map. It was copiedb SamuelLwisfrom William Clark soriginal drawing. Reuben Gold IThwaites and the Historical Resurrectionof Lewis & Clark By Matt Blessing "It is a peculiarly noble work to rescuefrom oblivion those who deserveimmortality. " - Pliny the Younger Tribute to Reuben G. Thwaites, in The Wisconsin State Journal qR euben Gold Thwaites, the second exploration, but what little knowledge they had director of the Wisconsin Historical of it was limited to its two captains, to the near ociety, first came into contact with the exclusion of other members of the corps. The original records of the Lewis and Clark Expedi- first official edition of Lewis and Clark'sjour- tion in early 1893, ninety years after the event. nals, an abridged version edited and published While examining twenty thousand pages of his- by Nicholas Biddle in 1814, had focused on the torical manuscripts and three thousand books most romantic and literary sections of the cap- bequeathed to the Society by his predecessor, tains' accounts. In 1893 a retired Army surgeon Lyman Copeland Draper, Thwaites noticed a and respected ornithologist, Elliott Coues, (pro- slim, worn notebook within a stack of larger nounced "cows") published an annotated edi- journals written by Draper. It turned out to be 6M Draper Mss tion of Biddle's earlier work. Coues's four the original journal kept by Sergeant Charles AlthoughFloyd sometimes volumes highlighted Meriwether Lewis's scien- Floyd, a member of the "Corps of Discovery." struggledwith his daily tific contributions, while demonstrating the car- Thwaites probably had to brush up on the entries,he beganhisjournal tographic skills of William Clark. withaflair, listinghis history of the expedition in order to verify that Coues had also rediscovered the original comrades,the date, and even Floyd was on the journey. In 1893 most edu- journals in the vaults of the American Philo- thelocation of hispurchase. cated Americans viewed the transcontinental sophical Society in Philadelphia. Unexamined expedition as a romantic episode in western for decades, Coues's "find" no doubt made WINTER 2004-2005 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY him feel that he had done enough sleuthing for original doc- the winter of 1803-1804. In April of 1804, the captains pro- umentary sources. However, some scholars questioned why moted Floyd along with Nathaniel Pryor and John Ord- Coues had not mounted a search for the lost journals of the way-to the rank of sergeant. other participants known to have kept journals, and James Davie Butler suggested in The Nation in October of 1893 that C harles Floyd'sfifty-six-page journal lets us hear the "in perusing Coues's samples, [the] appetite grows. The voice of a young, semi-literate frontiersman under limited edition which Dr. Coues has now issued will soon be orders from his commanding officers to maintain exhausted." Despite these criticisms, scholars such a record. The text documents the struggles of reviewed Coues's edition favorably and the Corps to ascend the lower Missouri many Americans were first introduced River, swollen with spring runoff from to Lewis and Clark by his book. the distant Rocky Mountains. Nonetheless, the expedition Floyd's entries typically re- remained largely neglected corded weather conditions, in American classrooms distances, hunting and and among general fishing (including a haul readers. of 709 fish caught on a So when Reuben single day), and the Gold Thwaites hap- richness of the pened upon Floyd's Missouri River bot- slim volume among tomlands and sur- the papers of Ly- rounding prairies. man C. Draper, When a certain even he, although Private Moses Reed an establishedschol- deserted the expe- ar and editor, was dition, Sergeant not familiar with Floyd recorded de- otherindividuals among tails that the com- the group. In fact, manding officers Thwaites's identification ignored: "pon examin- of SergeantFloyd's journal ing his nap-Sack we found among the Draper Papers that he had taken his Cloas was to set him on his own jour- and all His powder and Balles, ney of discovery, which would en- and had hid them out that night rich the collections of several research and had made that an excuse to repositories,and ultimatelyenhance the gen- Desarte from us with out aneyJest Case." eral understanding of the Image ID 23907 Floyd also helped document Corps of Discovery in both Thwaiteshad a passionfor retracinghistoric waterways, the party's encounters with Thwaites'stime and our own. andfirmly believedthat suchexperiences were importantfoundations several tribes along the lower Charles Floyd, author of for historicalresearch. Yet in 1903, despitevacationing in Yellowstone Missouri, who, he observed, the journal that Thwaites andJacksonHole, Thwaitesdid not investigateany part of the had recently been weakened saved from the dustbin of Lewis and Clark route.The reason is still unknown. by a smallpoxepidemic. history, was born in 1782, Floyd maintained his and was one of nine young men from Kentucky on the expe- journal through August 18, when, some 950 miles north of St. dition. In 1801, at the youthful age of nineteen or twenty, he Louis, he prepared his final entry. The next day William was appointed the constable of ClarksvilleTownship, Ohio, an Clark recorded in his own diary on August 19, 1804, that appointment that reflects both his character and ability. Gary "Floyd was taken violently bad with the Beliose Cholick and E. Moulton, editor of the most recent volumes of the journals, is dangerously ill." Captain Clark and his slave, York, suggests that Floyd may have been a distant relative of attended to the hardworking sergeant that evening, unknow- William Clark. Meriwether Lewis regarded him as a "young ingly hastening his death by administering a purgative and man of much merit," selecting him for errands into Cahokia using lancets to bleed him. Floyd died shortly after noon the and St. Louis while the undisciplined Corps trained at Camp next day, probably the victim of a ruptured appendix. Buried Dubois along the Wood River in present-day Illinois during in a riverside bluff near present-day Sioux City, Floyd was the WINTI'ER 2004-2005 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY only member of the Corps who died during the expedition. Harper, former manuscript curator at the Historical Society, Just how Lyman Draper acquired the journal of Charles believed that the Floyd journal may have been mixed with the Floyd is open to speculation. A letter to ThomasJefferson pre- Croghan materials. Finally, there is a chance that Draper pared by Lewis in present-day North Dakota in the spring of acquired the journal from an unknown person on one of his 1805 suggests that Floyd's journal was sent east with a party nine collecting trips to Border States like Kentucky and Ten- from the expedition which descended the Missouri after win- nessee between 1843 and 1852. Like many of his contempo- tering with the Mandan Indians. Yet although Draper corre- raries, Draper routinely annotated documents or added notes sponded with Mary Lee Walton, Floyd's sister, their letters concerning the provenance of individual items, but Sergeant from the 1870s contain no mention of the journal. It is possi- Floyd's journal lacks any such evidence and it is unlikely that ble that William Clark retained the journal, or reacquired it the provenance of the notebook will ever be determined. in the years just prior to the publication of Biddle's volumes in Considering the richness and depth of the Draper Papers, 1814. In any case, Lyman Draper was a great admirer of Reuben Gold Thwaites must have been frustrated by the lack George Rogers Clark, western military hero of the American of a paper trail. Revolution and older brother of William Clark. In the 1840s, Following his chosen motto, "we aim to be useful," Draper had acquired a large collection of Clark Family Thwaites quickly made Floyd's twelve-thousand-word journal Papers fromJohn Croghan, the brothers' nephew.Josephine available to historians. 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