Compare And Contrast Lewis And Clark

Famous Democratic-Republican Thomas Jefferson won the presidential election in 1801, and in his time of reign came the expansion of the United States. Jefferson conceptualized the United States as a vast land run by small farmers and landholders. With this in mind, Jefferson acquired an immense amount of land called the Louisiana Purchase. America bought this from the French in 1803. Acquisition of almost 830,000 square miles of land, he needed a way to explore its entirety. With many people in mind to select, Jefferson appointed his former secretary Meriwether Lewis due to his conglomerate amount of skills. With Lewis in place, he chose William Clark because of his abilities as a draftsman and frontiersman. Lewis and Clark’s exploration of

For almost 105 days of travel, Lewis and Clark charted many maps and noted many foreign plants and animals. During the expedition, Lewis and Clark kept an almost day-by-day journal that documented the numerous events and observations of the trip. Lewis identified 177 plants and 122 animals on the trek to the Pacific. Bitterroot, prairie sagebrush, Douglas fir, and ponderosa pine were some of the numerous plants identified by Lewis. In one of Lewis’s journal entries, the group encountered many prairie dogs, as well as rattlesnakes: “[he] found two frogs in the hole, and killed a dark rattlesnake near with a ground rat [or prairie dog] in him. Those rats are numerous.” Lewis would continue to describe that the prairie dogs covered almost 4 acres and created little holes in the ground. The Corps Of Discovery also encountered a fearsome animal known as the grizzly bear. In another journal entry, Lewis describes that Private Willam Bratton had “shot a brown bear which immediately turned on him and pursued him a considerable distance but he had wounded it so badly that it could not overtake him.” The grizzly bear was the most feared mammal among the group, as it stood taller than a human and was resilient to gunfire. When conversing with the local Native Americans, they described it took six to ten persons to kill one grizzly bear. Despite the dangers of the expedition, the Corps of Discovery successfully relayed the discoveries of new plants and animals. Many uncoverings of the West made the Corps Of Discovery famous around the whole U.S. The corps left for their hike on May 14th, 1804, and arrived at the Pacific coast on November 15th, 1805. Upon arrival, they mapped the area, hunted for food, and built forts around present-day Astoria, Oregon. These actions were time-consuming, and the corps spent around three months charting maps and erecting fortifications. After