In late July 1805, the Lewis and Clark Expedition entered the Rockies, searching for the Shoshone from whom they hoped to purchase horses for their journey over the mountains. Lewis led scouting parties up an Indian trail that led to Lemhi Pass, and on August 12, one of the most memorable days of the expedition, became the first American to cross the Continental Divide. The next day Lewis finally found the elusive Shoshone. On August 17, in a script seemingly out of Hollywood, as the captains and Shoshone Chief Cameahwait sat down for a council, Sacagawea shrieked and began hugging the chief; turns out Cameahwait was Sacagawea’s brother! Fortune was definitely shining on Lewis and Clark.

On May 26, 1804, Captain Meriwether Lewis noted in his journal that he “beheld the Rocky Mountains for the first time…covered with snow and the sun shone on it to give me the most satisfactory view.” Soon thereafter, the Corps came upon the Missouri River Breaks, what Captain Clark called the “Deserts of America,” a stretch of 160 miles running from today’s Fort Benton to Fort Peck Lake, where the Missouri courses between 300 foot tall canyon walls; it remains one of the most remote parts of America. But perhaps the most wondrous site they experienced on their entire journey was the Great Falls of the Missouri, which Lewis called “the grandest site I ever beheld.”

The Corps of Discovery arrived at the Mandan villages near present day Bismarck, North Dakota, in late October 1804 and immediately began work on Fort Mandan on the north bank Missouri River. While at Fort Mandan, Lewis and Clark met a French fur trader named Toussaint Charbonneau and his two teenage Shoshone wives who Charbonneau had won in a bet. They hired Charbonneau and his fifteen-year-old wife, Sacagawea, who was six months pregnant, as interpreters. On April 7, 1805, Lewis sent the keelboat back down river to St. Louis with detailed maps of lands west of the Mississippi and extensive reports written by the captains, as well as a treasure trove for President Jefferson, including almost two hundred specimens.

On October 14, 1803, Meriwether Lewis and William Clark met in Clarksville, Indiana Territory, and commenced the most famous partnership in American history. They planned to leave with the spring thaw and reach the Mandan villages, 1,300 river miles above St. Louis, and spend the winter there before proceeding west. On May 21, 1804, the Corps pushed out into the current of the Missouri and, as the men moved north, they entered an enchanting land that very few would ever see again. But despite the idyllic surroundings, the Corps of Discovery was still an independent military expedition traveling in hostile territory. 

In March 1801, Captain Meriwether Lewis received a letter from Thomas Jefferson, the newly inaugurated president and a family friend, asking Lewis to become his private secretary. At the time, Lewis was a twenty-seven-year-old captain serving as the paymaster for the First Infantry Regiment. Over the next two years, Jefferson tutored Lewis on the lands west of the Mississippi and in the sciences of astronomy, botany, and anatomy in anticipation of an exploratory expedition to the Pacific Ocean. But both Jefferson and Lewis recognized the need to find a capable second officer for the expedition, and the man Lewis wanted to fill this coveted position was William Clark.

In 1803, President Thomas Jefferson drafted his official instructions for a great expedition to explore the Louisiana Territory and asked his private secretary, Captain Meriwether Lewis, to lead it. Once assembled, the Corps of Discovery would operate like a small frontier garrison with rigidly maintained discipline. In the end, the group went forward remarkably prepared for what they would encounter over the next few years, a testament to the thorough planning of President Jefferson.

The dream of finding an all water route across North America, the mythical Northwest Passage, had been imagined since the time of Christopher Columbus, but three hundred years after the Admiral of the Ocean Seas completed his epic voyages, the vast interior of the continent was still essentially unknown to Europeans. As early as 1783, Thomas Jefferson had wanted to send an expedition to explore and chart the great unknown west of the Mississippi, and over the next twenty years, Jefferson tried on several occasions to enlist the support of some brave adventurer to undertake the exploration but with no success.

The midnight deal Robert Livingston, United States Minister to France, struck with French Finance Minister Francois Barbe-Marbois to purchase the Louisiana Territory was arguably the most impactful treaty in the history of the United States. While the purchase seemed like a gift from heaven, there were several significant issues with it. For one, the American commissioners were not authorized to purchase Louisiana; they had been instructed to purchase New Orleans and West Florida. Second, they had only been authorized to spend $10 million; they had exceeded that amount by half. Finally, there remained the legality of the purchase as the Constitution did not specifically grant the executive branch the power to purchase new lands.

When word leaked out that Spain had secretly agreed to transfer Louisiana and, possibly Florida, to France, the news hit like a thunderbolt. President Thomas Jefferson fully understood the significance of trading a weakened Spain for a powerful Napoleonic France as the country’s neighbor. In April 1802, Jefferson wrote to Robert Livingston, U.S. minister to France, to inform Napoleon, “There is on the globe one single spot the possessor of which is our natural and habitual enemy. It is New Orleans, through which the produce of three-eighths of our territory must pass to market.” Jefferson directed Livingston, who had been busy for months laying the foundation for the purchase of New Orleans, to warn Napoleon that France acquiring Louisiana “rendered it impossible that France and the United States can continue long friends.”

Because of several treaties in the 18th century, Spain controlled the entire west bank of the Mississippi and the east bank for a stretch of 150 miles, from Natchez to the Gulf of Mexico. Especially unfortunate for western Americans, Spain also controlled the river port of New Orleans, the key to the continent. The rapid influx of Americans into the region following the American Revolution became a great concern for Spanish officials, as the population of Kentucky and Tennessee grew tenfold, from 30,000 to 300,000, between 1784 and 1800.

In 1682, Robert de la Salle, a French explorer and fur trader, reached the mouth of the Mississippi River and claimed the interior of North America for King Louis XIV. Four decades later, Jean-Baptiste de Bienville founded New Orleans, creating a massive strategic arc across North America stretching from Quebec to the Gulf of Mexico. And from within this domain, the French controlled the core of the continent and the hugely profitable fur trade. But their hold did not go unchallenged and in a series of wars throughout the eighteenth century, the British dispossessed the French of its colonies in North America. As the final war drew to a close, France secretly transferred Louisiana and the river port of New Orleans to Spain rather than have Louisiana fall into British hands. When Napoleon came to power in 1799, he had visions of reestablishing a North American empire and in October 1800, he forced Spain’s King Carlos IV to give Louisiana back to France. 

On June 7, 1776, Richard Henry Lee introduced into the Second Continental Congress what has come to be known as the Lee Resolution, calling for a complete separation from Great Britain. This leap of faith into the unknown space of independence finally had been publicly demanded and a contentious debate ensued. Congress created a committee to draft a declaration of independence in the event they chose that course of action. The committee included Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, Robert Livingston, Roger Sherman, and Thomas Jefferson, and chose Jefferson to be the main penman.

Thomas Jefferson’s revolutionary journey began in the 1760s and culminated in his masterfully written Declaration of Independence in 1776. But in between these events, Jefferson crafted one of the most impactful statements ever for American independence. Entitled A Summary View of the Rights of British America, it was perhaps the most logical assessment of the true relationship between Great Britain and her American colonies; concepts that Jefferson had refined over the course of several years.

n 1765, Parliament passed the Stamp Act, the first internal tax on the American colonies, and thus began a decade of missteps by the British. That same year, Thomas Jefferson concluded his time studying law under George Wythe and began his brief but successful law career. In colonial Virginia, there were two levels of courts – county courts, which were scattered throughout the colony, and the General Court of Virginia in Williamsburg. Jefferson opted to bypass the county courts and try for immediate admittance to the General Court. His brilliance recognized, Jefferson was accepted, and at age twenty-four, he joined a small group of much older attorneys considered the best in the colony, including George Wythe, Edmund Pendleton, and Richard Bland.

Thomas Jefferson was born on April 13, 1743, in a small farmhouse on the frontier of western Virginia, in today’s Albemarle County. His father, Peter Jefferson, was a mountain of a man and well-respected throughout the region as a surveyor who ranged far and wide over the western portions of the colony. Peter’s work brought him significant wealth and put him in contact with the leading authorities in the colony. Sadly, in the summer of 1757, when Tom was fourteen, his father got sick and passed away, leaving behind a widow and eight children and a sizeable, debt-free estate. One of his father’s dying wishes was for Tom to complete his education, and in March 1760, Jefferson entered the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg.

America’s first armed conflict following the American Revolution was a mostly forgotten fight with France called the Quasi-War and was the culmination of a series of disagreements with our former ally. In 1793, to avoid getting drawn into the latest war between Great Britain and France, President George Washington issued his Proclamation of Neutrality. This declaration angered the French because they considered Washington’s refusal to help them as a violation of the 1778 Treaty of Alliance.

In response to the Alien and Sedition Acts passed by the Federalist-controlled Congress in July 1798, Democratic-Republicans howled long and loud about the legislation that they viewed as an assault on both their party and the Constitution. They immediately turned to their leader, Vice President Thomas Jefferson, to counter these acts and, if possible, turn them to their political advantage. Jefferson enlisted the support of James Madison, his fellow Virginian and brilliant political protégé. The two men created their rebuttals separately with Jefferson’s version being fairly radical, while Madison drafted a more balanced argument against the acts.

In 1798, worried that emotions would push France and America into an open war, President John Adams sent a delegation consisting of John Marshall, Elbridge Gerry, and Charles Cotesworth Pinckney to Paris to try and calm these rising tensions. The delegation arrived in Paris in early October but were denied a meeting for weeks. They were finally approached by three French officials whose code names were X, Y, and Z. These Frenchmen informed the Americans that before any negotiations could start, a few “sweeteners” would need to be provided to French officials, including $250,000 for Foreign Minister Charles Talleyrand.