who were lewis and clark

Lewis and Clark were Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, two U.S. Army officers chosen by President Thomas Jefferson to lead the “Corps of Discovery” expedition that explored and mapped the newly acquired Louisiana Territory and lands to the Pacific Ocean from 1804 to 1806.

Quick Scoop

• Meriwether Lewis was born in 1774 in Virginia, served as an Army officer, and became President Jefferson’s private secretary before being picked to command the expedition.

• William Clark , born in 1770 in Virginia, was a former Army officer and skilled frontiersman whom Lewis requested as his co-leader, making them joint leaders of the Corps of Discovery.

• Their mission was to map the West, study plants, animals, and geography, and establish relations and trade possibilities with Native American nations across the newly purchased Louisiana Territory.

• They traveled from near St. Louis up the Missouri River, over the Rocky Mountains, to the Pacific Ocean and back, a journey of more than two years that became one of the most famous exploring expeditions in U.S. history.

• The expedition included dozens of others, notably Sacagawea, a young Lemhi Shoshone woman who, along with her husband Toussaint Charbonneau, served as interpreter and helped them communicate with Native nations in the West.

Mini Timeline

• 1803: Jefferson organizes the “Voyage of Discovery” after the Louisiana Purchase and selects Lewis, who then asks Clark to join as co-leader.

• 1804–1806: The Corps of Discovery travels from the St. Louis area to the Pacific and back, recording maps, journals, and scientific observations that greatly expand U.S. knowledge of the West.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.