Contents Letters: Martin Plamondon; bear-claw necklace; boudin blanc 2 President’s Message: L&C Bicentennial: midpoint reflections 4 Bicentennial Council: Jefferson’s vision for the West 5 The Army of Lewis and Clark 8 The military molded the Corps of Discovery into an effective unit for exploring the West By Sherman J. Fleek The Illusion of Cape Disappointment 15 Approaching the Pacific, Clark voiced his excitement with the famous line “Ocian in view!” But what did he really see? By David L. Nicandri Henry Dearborn, p. 10 “A Man Dimly Lit by History” 22 Was John Pernier, Meriwether Lewis’s “faithful servant,” in fact his murderer? The allegation is doubtful By Mark Chalkley Reviews 28 Wilderness Journey; The Fate of the Corps; kid’s books L&C Roundup 36 Julich heads LCTHF; 2004 kudos; Bismarck meeting From the Library: Genealogy documents will soon be available 40 Trail Notes: Tales of the Lolo Motorway 43 Cape Disappointment, p. 15 On the cover In this rendering by artist Michael Haynes, a platoon of infantry soldiers stands at attention at Fort Massac, on the Ohio River, in the fall of 1803. Post commander Captain Daniel Bissell and his friend Captain Meriwether Lewis are deep in discussion. Standing behind the two officers is interpreter and hunter George Drouillard. Lewis recruited fourteen of Bissell’s men for the first phase of the expedition, but most returned from Fort Mandan in the spring of 1805 and did not accompany the Corps of Discovery to the Pacific. For more on the crucial role of the military in the Lewis and Clark Expedition, see Sherman J. Fleek’sarticle beginning on page 8. More Haynes art can be found on his Web site, www.mhaynesart.com. Grinder’s Stand, p. 23 November 2004 We Proceeded On ! 1 Letters Map maker Plamondon was Clark’s alter ego November 2004 • Volume 30, Number 4 We Proceeded On is the official publication of Thanks for your tribute to cartographer the Lewis and Clark Trail Heritage Foundation, Martin Plamondon II (Passages, August Inc. Its name derives from a phrase that appears 2004). This trusted friend, whose three- repeatedly in the collective journals of the volume Lewis & Clark Trail Maps: A expedition. 2004 Cartographic Reconstruction is his last- E. G. Chuinard, M.D., Founder ing monument, was every bit the giant ISSN 02275-6706 and trailblazer as his hero William Clark, and with the same easy-going demeanor Editor and lightness of smile. I once heard his- J. I. Merritt torian John Logan Allen say, “If Clark 51 N. Main Street walked into a room and met you for the Pennington, NJ 08534 first time I believe you would like him 609-818-0168 [email protected] immediately.” That sentiment applies to Martin as well. the news item “Lost Bear-claw necklace Volunteer Proofreaders I’m an airline pilot, and on long lay- found after 105 years” about the newest H. Carl Camp overs in Tokyo or London I like to read L&C object at Harvard’s Peabody Mu- Jerry Garrett Stephen Ambrose’s Undaunted Courage seum (L&C Roundup, May 2004). Printed by PRISM Color Corporation, and pore over the maps Martin created. There is, however, an important error Moorestown, New Jersey In the short hours we spent together I in the piece about the recently discovered asked Martin many questions about the grizzly bear-claw necklace. The article EDITORIAL BOARD L&C Trail. If we were talking at his states, “The 38-claw necklace was almost James J. Holmberg, leader house, sometimes in response to a ques- certainly presented to the captains dur- Louisville, Kentucky tion he would disappear for a moment ing their stay with the Mandan and Robert C. Carriker and return with one of the original maps Hidatsa Indians in the winter of 1804- Spokane, Washington he had drawn. 1805.” That sentence did not appear in Robert K. Doerk, Jr. He recognized the mistakes Clark the Peabody Museum’s press release cir- Fort Benton, Montana made in his celestial sightings and under- culated last winter. We would never Glen Lindeman stood what was going through Clark’s speculate so freely about the cultural at- Pullman, Washington mind when he recorded every bend in the tribute of an object in the absence of re- river, angle of the sun, and eddy of the search, which has barely begun. In fact, Membership Information Missouri. Listening to Martin talk about due to the widespread use of such items, Membership in the Lewis and Clark Trail Clark, I could feel the captain’s aching feet we may never know for sure where this Heritage Foundation, Inc. is open to the public. at the Three Forks, his hunger on the object was first made and used. I would Information and applications are available by Lolo Trail, and his exhilaration upon appreciate your clarifying this point for writing Membership Coordinator, Lewis and Clark Trail Heritage Foundation, P.O. Box sighting what he thought was the Pacific your readers, as the cultural origins of the 3434, Great Falls, MT 59403. (“Ocian in view!”). objects in this collection are a serious When Martin died, I believe he found matter, especially to Indian people. We Proceeded On, the quarterly magazine of the Foundation, is mailed to current members an old friend waiting for him—a friend CASTLE MCLAUGHLIN in February, May, August, and November. who greeted him warmly and showed Cambridge, Mass. Articles appearing in this journal are abstracted him some maps he had just finished. Mar- and indexed in HISTORICAL ABSTRACTS and tin Plamondon, like William Clark, has EDITOR’S NOTE: the writer is the associate AMERICA: HISTORY AND LIFE. proceeded on. I will miss him and am curator of North American ethnography Annual Membership Categories: grateful to have known him. at the Peabody Museum of Archaeology J.P. BROOKS & Ethnology, Harvard University. Student $30 Individual/Library/Nonprofit $40 Camas, Wash. Family/International/Business $55 EDITOR’S NOTE. Our obituary for Martin Heritage Club $75 Boudin blanc Explorer Club $150 Plamondon neglected to mention that he Jefferson Club $250 was the 2003 recipient of the LCTHF’s WPO readers might enjoy the photo be- Discovery Club $500 Distinguished Service Award. low. It is of boudin blanc, Toussaint Expedition Club $1,000 Charbonneau’s specialty sausage, after Leadership Club $2,500 cleaning, stuffing, boiling, and frying. Some friends and I made it from actual The Lewis and Clark Trail Heritage Foundation, Inc. Bear-claw necklace is a tax-exempt nonprofit corporation. Individual buffalo intestines (courtesy of Crawdad, membership dues are not tax deductible. The portion Thank you for your recent review of my a mail-order company) using the recipe of premium dues over $40 is tax deductible. book, Arts of Diplomacy, and for running found in Lewis’s journal entry for May 2 ! We Proceeded On November 2004 The Lewis and Clark Trail tional Exposition, held in San Francisco Heritage Foundation, Inc. in 1915. A check on the Internet reveals that 1915 is the correct year for the expo- P.O.B. 3434, Great Falls, MT 59403 sition. A map of the exhibition (www. 406-454-1234 / 1-888-701-3434 sfmuseum.net/hist/ppiemap.html) indi- Fax: 406-771-9237 cates there was an area for amusements www.lewisandclark.org and concessions, and the background of The mission of the LCTHF is to the photo shows something like an stimulate public appreciation of the amusement park. We’ll stay out of the Lewis and Clark Expedition’s middle of this question and hope that the contributions to America’s heritage and Gass descendants can resolve it. to support education, research, development, and preservation of the Lewis and Clark experience. 9, 1805. We were a little more judicious Officers in cleaning the intestines. The sausages Airgun redux President were prepared outdoors and cooked over Michael Carrick’s letter in the May 2004 Gordon Julich a campfire. They were avowed by all as WPO defends his assertion that the 19th- Blue Springs, Mo. delicious (our word, not the captain’s). century travel diary of Thomas Rodney GARY LENTZ proves that Meriwether Lewis carried a President-Elect Dayton, Wash. Girandoni-system repeating air rifle. Patti Thomsen Hartland, Wis. Carrick agrees with statements by Rodney’s editors that his travel accounts Vice-President include “creative exaggeration and rich Jim Gramentine embellishment” but suggests that such Mequon, Wis. perverse reporting might not apply to his Secretary description of Lewis shooting his airgun. Phyllis Yeager Is there some logical reason why we Floyd Knobs, Ind. should believe that Rodney was honest Treasurer in one account but not in another? As Charles H. “Chuck” Holland, Jr. Rodney’s editors noted, “it is virtually Meza, Ariz. impossible to sift fact from fancy in some Immediate Past President of his descriptions.” They further state Ron Laycock that some of his accounts should be con- Benson, Minn. sidered “fanciful” and that his “tales mul- tiplied imaginatively” or were otherwise Executive Director Patrick Gass’s descendants Carol A. Bronson “shaky.” They tell us that Rodney was a As a fifth-generation direct descendant of mystic and reported not just what he wit- Directors at large Patrick Gass, I enjoyed the article about nessed but also “all that he dreamed of, Jane Angelis, Carbondale, Ill. • Tom Davis, the Corps of Discovery’s sergeant which mused of, or imagined,” and that the truth Ft. Washington, Penn. • Jim Mallory, appeared in the February 2004 WPO. The in some of his accounts is “infinitesimal.” Lexington, Ky. • David Peck, San Diego, caption accompanying the photograph on They also report that Rodney’s “bumpy” Calif.