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Slaves and land were necessary to grow cotton; the land was available in Alabama,
Georgia, and Mississippi; the slaves were available from the excess on the Virginia plantations. These were the central economic facts in the life of the Virginia gentry, whose principal export soon became slaves.
Profitable as it was to him, Jefferson hated slavery. He regarded it as a curse to Virginia and wished to see it abolished throughout the United States. Not, however, in his lifetime. He said that his generation was not ready for such a step. He would leave that reform to the next generation of Virginians, a...
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And it turned out he had to buy his own horses; Congress, thinking it an outrage that the government should pay for the president’s horses, ordered that the ones Adams had turned over to Jefferson be sold. Adams was so mortified over this action that he left town before the inauguration.12
In the spring of 1801, however, Jefferson learned of the secret treaties between France (read Napoleon) and Spain (read Napoleon’s brother) that had transferred Louisiana from Spain back to France. It was called a retrocession.
“The day that France takes possession of New Orleans fixes the sentence which is to restrain her forever within her low water mark,” he warned, because “From that moment we must marry ourselves to the British fleet and nation.”9
And he flatly declared that his government would consider any attempt to land French troops in Louisiana a cause for war.
But Napoleon had not become emperor of France by giving things away. Though he agreed with the logic, he would rather sell than give.
Dwight Eisenhower, that in war, before the battle is joined, plans are everything, but once the shooting begins, plans are worthless.
The planning process, therefore, is as much guesswork as it is intelligent forecasting of the physical needs of the expedition. It tends to be frustrating, because the planner carries with him a nagging sense that he is making some simple mistakes that could be easily corrected in the planning stage, but may cause a dead loss when the mistake is discovered midway through the voyage.
Once the expedition left St. Louis, Lewis would be stuck with the decisions he had made during the planning process.
In its final version, dated July 4, 1803, this must be the most unlimited letter of credit ever issued by an American president.
“The sale assures forever the power of the United States, and I have given England a rival who, sooner or later, will humble her pride.”
As Jefferson nicely put it, the Louisiana Purchase “lessened the apprehensions of interruption from other powers.”
But a Boston Federalist newspaper did not like the deal at all: it called Louisiana “a great waste, a wilderness unpeopled with any beings except wolves and wandering Indians. We are to give money of which we have too little for land of which we already have too much.” Jefferson was risking national bankruptcy to buy a desert.19
One denounced it as “a great curse,” and another feared that the Purchase “threatens, at no very distant day, the subversion of our Union.”20
Alcohol in any form has always been a curse and a necessity to military leaders. Drunkenness causes more discipline and personnel problems than any other cause, but soldiers must have their alcohol.
IV. It is today as Lewis saw it. The White Cliffs can be seen only from small boat or canoe. Put in at Fort Benton and take out three or four days later at Judith Landing. Missouri River Outfitters at Fort Benton, Montana, rents canoes or provides a guided tour by pontoon boat. Of all the historic and/or scenic sights we have visited in the world, this is number one. We have made the trip ten times.
Anyone who has ever canoed on the upper Missouri River knows what a welcome sight a grove of cottonwoods can be. They provide shade, shelter, and fuel. For Indian ponies, they provided food. For the Corps of Discovery, they provided wheels, wagons, and canoes.
from the singular appearance of this place I called it the gates of the rocky mountains.”
It would be sixty years before Willard’s Creek was renamed Grasshopper Creek and the Beaverhead country teemed with gold miners.
the view today is still spectacular. There are modern intrusions—Interstate Highway 90, Montana Highway 287, and a few secondary roads run through it, and the little town of Three Forks is a few miles away—but the overall scene is as it was.
But whatever Lewis felt as he first saw the Bitterroot Range of the Rocky Mountains, he never wrote about. Nor did he write about his feelings as he took his first step on the western side of the Divide, outside of Louisiana.
This was the first vote ever held in the Pacific Northwest. It was the first time in American history that a black slave had voted, the first time a woman had voted.
The governor of New Mexico tried. Over the next two years he dispatched at least four armed parties from Santa Fe to search for Lewis.
