: James's Account of S. H. Long's Expedition 1819-1820 part 1 by James Edwin Long Stephen H Stephen Harriman Say Thomas Thwaites Reuben Gold Editor - Indians of North America; West (U.S.) Description and travel; Rocky Mountains; United States Discovery and e

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Dedication 33

Preliminary Notice 35

"Map of the Country drained by the Mississippi" 30

"Indian Record of a Battle between the Pawnees and the Konzas--a Fac-Simile of a Delineation upon a Bison Robe" 202

"War Dance in the interior of a Konza Lodge" 208

"Oto Council" 238

"Pawnee Council" 246

As originally planned, the scientific observations of the expedition were to be conducted by a company of specialists under the command of Major Long, to whom detailed instructions were issued by Secretary of War Calhoun. The military branch, under Colonel Henry Atkinson, was set in motion in the autumn of 1818, and a considerable body of troops passed the following winter near the present site of Leavenworth, Kansas. In the spring of 1819, however, defects in the plans began to hamper the execution of the enterprise. Those were the early days of steam navigation, and the waters of the Missouri had not yet been stirred by paddle-wheels. Prudence counselled that the success of the movement should not be staked on the behavior of steamboats in untried waters. Nevertheless, the authorities decided against the old-fashioned keel-boats recommended by Atkinson; in arranging for transportation, a further blunder was made in engaging a contractor without competition or adequate securities. The service proved entirely inefficient, and it was not until late in September of 1819 that the troops were concentrated at Council Bluffs, where, perforce, a halt was made for the winter.

The scientific members of the expedition had meanwhile assembled at Pittsburg, and on May 5, 1819, they began the descent of the Ohio in the steamer "Western Engineer." Stephen Harriman Long, the chief of this party, was born at Hopkinton, New Hampshire, in 1764. After being graduated at Dartmouth , and teaching for a few years, he entered the army as lieutenant in the corps of engineers. Until 1816 he was assistant professor of mathematics at West Point, being then transferred to the topographical engineers, with the brevet rank of major. Previous to the exploration which forms the subject of our text, he travelled extensively in the South-west, between the Arkansas and Red rivers, and his journals, although never published, ranked among the most useful sources of information for that region. Major Long's associates in the present undertaking were Major John Biddle, journalist of the party; Dr. William Baldwin, physician and botanist; Dr. Thomas Say, zoologist; Augustus Edward Jessup, geologist; T. R. Peale, assistant naturalist; Samuel Seymour, painter; and Lieutenant James D. Graham and Cadet William H. Swift, assistant topographers.

The "Western Engineer" arrived at St. Louis on the ninth of June, and proceeded again on the twenty-first, after the party had completed certain arrangements for their journey and examined the Indian mounds in the vicinity. The voyage up the Missouri was begun on the twenty-second, being marked by no more important incident than an occasional halt to repair the machinery or clean the boiler. Notwithstanding it drew but nineteen inches of water, the boat grounded twice on sand-bars within four miles of the Mississippi; but on the whole, it worked fairly well and gave comparatively little annoyance. At St. Charles, on June 27, the party was joined by Benjamin O'Fallon, agent for Indian affairs, and John Dougherty, his interpreter. Here Messrs. Say, Jessup, Peale, and Seymour left the boat and made a land excursion, rejoining the party at Loutre Island. At Franklin, then the uppermost town of any importance on the Missouri, a halt of several days was made; here Dr. Baldwin, who had been ill since the departure from Pittsburg, was left behind, his death occurring on the thirty-first of August. From Franklin a party under Dr. Say proceeded by land to Fort Osage, where they arrived on July 24, a week in advance of the boat. On the sixth of August Dr. Say left Fort Osage in command of a party bound for the principal village of the Kansa Indians, then situated near the site of the present village of Manhattan, Kansas. Arriving there on the twentieth, they were hospitably entertained for four days; but after their departure were set upon and robbed by a war party of Pawnee braves, and consequently forced to abandon further progress by land and return to the boat.

Meantime the steamer had left Fort Osage on August 10, and eight days later arrived at Cow Island, near Leavenworth, where a portion of the troops of the Yellowstone expedition had wintered. Here another week was spent in a council with the Kansa Indians. On the twenty-ninth of August, Say and his companions arrived at Cow Island, four days after the departure of the boat; both Say and Jessup were ill, and the party had decided to return to the river at that point instead of attempting the longer journey to Council Bluffs, the appointed rendezvous. The others succeeded in overtaking the steamer, the invalids remaining for a time at Cow Island.

Near the quarters of the troops at Council Bluffs , Long's party also halted, on September 17, and prepared a winter camp, named "Engineer Cantonment." Here Long left his companions, and, accompanied by Jessup, returned to the East for the winter. His colleagues at the cantonment pursued such studies as were possible in the winter season, collecting much valuable information relative to the neighboring tribes of Pawnee, Oto, Iowa, Missouri, and Omaha Indians, and making short excursions which gave them some knowledge of the geology and natural history of the vicinity.

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