DID YOU KNOW?
Fort Clatsop
On August 12, 1806, Lewis and Clark and their crews reunited and dropped off Sacagawea and her family at the Mandan villages. They then headed down the Missouri River with the currents moving in their favor this time and arrived in St. Louis on September 23, where they were received with a hero’s welcome. Lewis and Clark returned to Washington DC, in the fall of 1806 and shared their experiences with President Jefferson.
While they had failed to identify a coveted Northwest passage water route across the continent, they had completed their mission of surveying the Louisiana Territory from the Mississippi River to the Pacific Ocean and did so against tremendous odds with just one death
On March 23, 1806, the Corps left Fort Clatsop for home. They took a shortcut north to the Great Falls of the Missouri River and explored Marias River, a tributary of the Missouri in present-day Montana, while Clark’s group, including Sacagawea and her family, went south along the Yellowstone River.
On July 25, 1806, Clark carved his name and the date on a large rock formation near the Yellowstone River he named Pompey’s Pillar, after
recovered, they built dugout canoes, then left their horses with the Nez Perce and braved the Clearwater River rapids to Snake River and then to the Columbia River. They finally reached the stormy Pacific Ocean in November of 1805. They had completed their mission and had to find a place to live for the winter before heading back home. They decided to make camp near present-day Astoria, Oregon and started building Fort Clatsop on December 10 and moved in by Christmas. It was not an easy winter at Fort Clatsop. Almost everyone was weak and sick with stomach problems (likely caused by bacterial infections), hunger, or influenza-like symptoms.
Sacagawea’s son whose nickname was “Pompey.” The site is now a national monument managed by the U.S. Department of the Interior.
Two days later, at Marias River near present-day Cut Bank, Montana, Lewis, and his group encountered eight Blackfeet warriors and were forced to kill two of them when they tried to steal weapons and horses. The location of the clash became known as the Two Medicine Fight Site. It was the only violent episode of the expedition, although soon after the Blackfeet fight, Lewis was accidentally shot in his buttocks during a hunting trip, but not fatal.