Meriwether Lewis, having put behind him one set of duties, now addressed himself to another, and did so with care and thoroughness. A few of his men, a part of his outfitting, he found already assembled at Harper's Ferry, up the Potomac. Before sunset of the first day the little band knew they had a leader.
There was not a knife or a tomahawk of the entire equipment which he himself did not examine--not a rifle which he himself did not personally test. He went over the boxes and bales which had been gathered here, and saw to their arrangement in the transport-wagons. He did all this without bluster or officiousness, but with the quiet care and thoroughness of the natural leader of men.
In two days they were on their way across the Alleghanies. A few days more of steady travel sufficed to bring them to Pittsburgh, the head of navigation on the Ohio River, and at that time the American capital in the upper valley of the West. At Pittsburgh Captain Lewis was to build his boats, to complete the details of his equipment, to take on additional men for his party--now to be officially styled the Volunteers for the Discovery of the West. He lost no time in urging forward the necessary work.
The young adventurer found this inland town half maritime in its look. Its shores were lined with commerce suited to a seaport. Schooners of considerable tonnage lay at the wharfs, others were building in the busy shipyards. The destination of these craft obviously was down the Mississippi, to the sea. Here were vessels bound for the West Indies, bound for Philadelphia, for New York, for Boston--carrying the products of this distant and little-known interior.
As he looked at this commerce of the great West, pondered its limitations, saw its trend with the down-slant of the perpetual roadway to the sea, there came to the young officer's mind with greater force certain arguments that had been advanced to him.
He saw that here was the heart of America, realized how natural was the insistence of all these hardy Western men upon the free use of the Mississippi and its tributaries. He easily could agree with Aaron Burr that, had the fleet of Napoleon ever sailed from Haiti--had Napoleon ever done otherwise than to cede Louisiana to us--then these boats from the Ohio and the Mississippi would at this very moment, perhaps, be carrying armed men down to take New Orleans, as so often they had threatened.
There came, however, to his mind not the slightest thought of alteration in his own plans. With him it was no question of what might have been, but of what actually was. The cession by Napoleon had been made, and Louisiana was ours. It was time to plot for expeditions, not down the great river, but across it, beyond it, into that great and unknown country that lay toward the farther sea.