Snowbound and Eclipse (42 page)

In January Will Clark wrote me that his assault upon the fair citadel of Fincastle pulchritude was successful, and that he would capture his prize in January of next year. I rejoiced at his success, and have regretted being so busy with the president and Congress that I scarcely have found a moment to pursue the lovely and fragile beauty that appears at every prospect.

I expect him momentarily. He will head for St. Louis at once, with Private Frazier, bearing back pay for my men. He will also take our Mandan royalty, She-He-Ke, and his entourage, back to St. Louis and begin the preparations to take the chief upriver, past the hostile Arikaras, which will be a delicate business but one Will Clark can well manage.

I am glad he has delayed his journey to the capital because the President's House has been a hospital for several days. First Tom Randolph caught the catarrh; then I, and finally Mr. Jefferson. I bled the president's son-in-law considerably, and he recovers slowly.

Doctor Saugrain in St. Louis opposes bleeding, saying it weakens the patient, but he is isolated. I prefer the counsel of the eminent Benjamin Rush of Philadelphia, the finest of all physicians this side of the Atlantic, who instructed me in medical matters before I headed west. He, of course, believes with all progressive physicians that it is necessary to purge the blood of whatever bad humors evoke the disease, and the way to do it is to drain away the tainted blood and let the body generate healthier blood.

As for me, I examined myself with some concern upon taking sick, studying my mouth, my gums, my eyes, my skin, and found nothing amiss but a bilious fever, and for that I had Rush's excellent Thunderclappers, specially compounded to abate fevers, which I took to good effect, and upon this very day I am back to my usual bloom of health, and so is Mr. Jefferson, though Randolph lingers abed. I make no public or private mention of Saugrain; it is as if I have never met the man, though of course I am privately grateful to him.

I expect to wind up my business here by the end of the month and head for Philadelphia, where I will join the savants of the American Philosophical Society, and negotiate with a printer to begin work on the journals. Mr. Jefferson has been conversing with me about Upper Louisiana. We will need to pacify the tribes on the Missouri, arrange free passage of our traders, license them to deal with the tribes, keep the British out, and encourage settlement sufficient to anchor that vast territory firmly to the union of states.

Ah, Philadelphia! My pleasure in presenting the most
learned men of America a bounty of new plants and animals, all carefully observed and recorded, along with accurate maps, and a firsthand account of the passage through that great mystery, the interior of North America, will, I imagine, be unparalleled and perhaps will exceed even my pleasure in reporting to Mr. Jefferson that I had fulfilled his mission in all respects.

I expect to be in Philadelphia some little while preparing the journals and discovering just what the printer needs. I am in no hurry to head for St. Louis; not with Will Clark on hand to handle our Indian diplomacy, and not with an old acquaintance, the experienced public servant Frederick Bates, brother of my old friend Tarleton Bates, heading there to be secretary, my lieutenant. I rather expect the two of them will govern excellently while I see to the maps and papers, and to that sacred duty to transmit what I have learned of the world to these men of science.

I reflect, when I am alone in my room in the President's House, how fortune has smiled upon me. It was not long ago, writing on the occasion of my thirty-first birthday in the Bitterroot Mountains—just after that moment of weakness—that I wondered whether I had given the world anything worthwhile or done anything notable during my life. Now I know I have.

But I have no desire to dwell upon memories; the future beckons. I am torn between my wish to become a man of science and a man of public affairs, and I will have to resolve the matter eventually. I am in a rare position to choose my course in life. For the moment I must set science aside and focus on the western reaches of the republic, and if I am blessed in this endeavor, perhaps I will be invited to fill larger offices, perhaps even the office held by the resident of this very house.

My public purpose, then, is to draft a paper informing
Mr. Jefferson and his successors what lies to the west, and how to subdue it, and how to encourage commerce in it, and how to treat the tribes that live upon it. I will make it a first order of business to provide the government with my insights, and if my perceptions find favor, so will I.

I should like to be regarded as the new Sage of the West, publish my thoughts regularly in some news sheet, and stand up and be counted. If all that occurs as I hope, then someday my confreres in the Democratic-Republican ranks might find me worthy of higher office. And I would accept it gladly.

I have come into myself; for this was I set upon the earth. That vast Louisiana territory is mine; etched indelibly on my mind, though the world knows little of it, and won't until I publish my journals. How odd it is, during these reflective moments, that I sometimes find myself reluctant to share all that wealth of information with the public. I have little desire to publish. I would rather confide my secrets privately to men like Benjamin Smith Barton, of the philosophical society, than cast my pearls before the swine.

The Missouri country is a comely land, well watered, hilly, forested, verdant, and fertile, and I will make it my home. I am especially fond of it because it windows the world that I recently conquered. I see myself rooted in the West, settled upon a great green estate, my happy bride beside me, our children blooming. I should like to settle out there in the virgin land, my eyes upon the horizons. I should like to be a country squire, rather like Tom Jefferson, holding office, improving knowledge, and devising better ways to prosper. Every door is open.

I arrived in the City of Brotherly Love on April 10, and after settling into a room on Cherry Street rented by a Mrs. Wood, I began at once to tackle the business before me. The chestnuts were in new leaf and so was I, so happy was I to be there in that seat of learning.

I have been paid by Congress at last and am in comfortable circumstances, and can indulge my every whim if I choose. But I am a serious man, and do not indulge myself. I did, however, lay in a stock of porter, ale, and Madeira, with which to entertain guests at my lodging.

Those journals weigh heavily on my mind, along with the hundreds of specimens and drawings and pressings of plants that I have with me; not only what I had brought from the Pacific, but much that the president had kept for me, sent to him from Mandan villages in 1805.

Upon good recommendation, I chose John Conrad as my publisher and found him at his chambers at 30 Chestnut Street. I liked the man at once; a dusty, gray, scholarly gent who took his tasks seriously. His seriousness recommended him to me.

I had taken but one of the journals, and this I showed to him after we had exchanged greetings.

“I have in mind the publication of the journals in one volume, and the scientific findings, maps, and so forth, in another,” I said.

He pulled on his wire-rimmed spectacles and examined what I regarded as my treasure; the daily records, mostly done by Clark, that supplied a day-by-day progress of our journey.

“Ah, I see the captain was a little loose with his spelling,” Conrad said, “but that is easily remedied. I suppose you mean to condense these items, and perhaps improve them?”

“Yes …”

“I would recommend it. Now, what about the illustrations?”

“Well, I know little about publishing, Mr. Conrad, and perhaps you can advise me.”

“What have you?”

“Field notes, including drawings; pressed plants; some feathers, pelts, bones, seeds … and of course the maps. Clark has some gifts, and he put them to good use. The maps are most important to all, I suppose.”

“We can have them copied and I can make a plate. The drawings, Captain, are up to you. It is your project. Bring us an edited version of your journals—I'm sure a man of your experience can reduce them quite nicely. You'll need to prepare the drawings, maps, all of it, just as you wish us to produce your books.”

“Have you good artists here?”

“You have come to the very place,” Conrad said.

“We are in a great hurry,” I said. “Mr. Jefferson is fairly demanding publication as soon as it can be arranged.”

Conrad smiled for the first time. “We are honored to attend to such a project, Captain, and I assure you of our utmost cooperation. You need not complete the work before submitting it to us; in fact, the sooner you begin submitting your material, the better; I will have typesetters upon it instantly.”

“Up to me, then.”

“Yes, it is, sir.”

“I suppose we should discuss costs.”

I gave him the particulars, and he told me he would get back to me as soon as he could do the calculations.

I lost no time in contacting my old friend Doctor Benjamin Rush, from whom I had outfitted the expedition with a fine closet of medicines. He was a member of the American Philosophical Society, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, and most important for me, the nation's preeminent physician. He had charged me to make certain medical observations of the savages during the trip: time of puberty, the menses, condition of teeth and eyes, diseases of old age, and the like, and now, with utmost joy, I had the answers for him. Eagerly did I make for his home on Chestnut Street.

“Ah! The conquering captain!” the jowly old man exclaimed upon descrying my ingress into his musty brown library in the wake of a pale servant. We shook hands warmly, and the doctor promptly ordered a glass of port apiece so we might progress through our business in ample humor. “Tell me, tell me. Everything!”

“Ah, it is a joy to be back, and the pills, sir, Rush's pills, so prevailed over all manner of dispositions that I count them a universal salvation. The men, sir, called them Thunderclappers, and indeed, Doctor, they were the sovereign of all maladies. I only wish I had more with me, but I ran out of everything.”

The Thunderclappers were mighty doses of calomel, which consisted of six parts of mercury to one part of chlorine, and the Mexican cathartic jalap, the pair of them a purgative that brooked no argument from any mortal bowels. I dispensed them freely, not only for bowel troubles, but as a general cathartic to purge the blood and intestine.

“I received constant petitions from them; buffalo meat especially bound them up, and I was able to end their distress with great success!”

Rush laughed. “And did you collect answers to my questions?”

“I did, sir. The customs and practices varied so much from tribe to tribe that I can scarcely recount them now, but I plan to include my entire observations in a final volume. I've engaged Conrad to do the journals, and am already at work.”

Rush listened to my practiced tales of grizzly bears, the great falls of the Missouri, the sicknesses of the men, and all the rest, nodding as I spoke.

“I shall arrange a banquet directly,” he said. “There are men in the society aching to hear what you have accomplished, and aching, my young friend, to pay you appropriate tribute.”

Again I was awash in pleasure, and our visit proceeded with utmost joy. I could see, after the better part of an afternoon, that the grand old man was tiring, so I made haste to wind up my discourse. But one matter stayed me.

“Before I take my leave, sir, I have a matter of medicine to discuss, a delicate matter. It involves my corps, sir. Many are in St. Louis, still soldiers. During the expedition they came into intimate contact with various dusky women of the tribes, and to put matters plainly, contracted various maladies which I endeavored to heal by liberal application of mercury ointment and calomel.”

“What diseases, Captain?”

“Why, they are ordinary soldiers, sir, and as one might expect they took little care. The tribes are oddly wanton and at the same time strict; a husband might offer a guest the favors of his wife, and yet if the wife engaged in such conduct on her own account, she might be severely chastised or beaten.”

“Yes, yes?”

“Well, sir, I applied your remedies for what they vulgarly called ‘the clap,' and of course for
lues venerea,
which many of them caught, and then caught again and again. Now, upon
returning to St. Louis I contracted for their care with a French physician, a most estimable man, but of course he's isolated from the advances of science.

“I'll be returning to St. Louis soon, and thought to ask you whether there might be new remedies opened to science, known to you but not known to a physician so isolated. I have always looked after my men, sir, and continue to take their part even after the corps has been disbanded.”

“Something for the men of the corps, you say?” There was a question in Rush's eyes.

“Yes, sir. For them. The captains, of course, were above such things—at least I have every right to believe that Captain Clark stayed carefully aloof. He brims with health.”

Rush nodded. “Mercury is all we have,” he said. “But in many cases the disease simply vanishes. Mercury in steady courses usually inhibits the disorder. Salts of arsenic or bismuth are sometimes employed, but they are dangerous and without proven effect.”

“Then the St. Louis physician, Doctor Saugrain, has followed the right course?”

“I imagine,” Rush said tersely.

“I am comforted that all is being done that can be. Some of them, Private Gibson especially, are sick.”

I left with a new supply of Rush's Thunderclappers, and turned to other business.

But awaiting me at Mrs. Wood's boardinghouse was an issue of the
National Intelligencer
that had been forwarded to me by Mr. Jefferson himself. I made haste to discover what within its columns had occasioned the delivery to me, and found a letter from one McKeehan, of Pittsburgh, Sergeant Gass's publisher, slandering me in every sentence; declaring that my real purpose in suppressing the publication of other journals was my own profit; and much more of
that bilious sort of thing. He even took the liberty of recording my very thoughts, or so he imagined!