Alcohol Rations

Meriwether Lewis must have blinked when Dr. Rush advised him how to take care of his health. In Philadelphia in June 1803, preparing for his voyage of discovery across the continent, Lewis had been referred by President Jefferson to Benjamin Rush. Dr. Rush was the leading physician and professor of medicine at the nation’s first medical school, the University of Pennsylvania. He drew up a list of eleven rules as a guide for Lewis in caring for the medical needs of the Expedition.^[2]Donald Jackson, ed., Letters of the Lewis and Clark Expedition with Related Documents, 1783-1854, 2nd ed., 2 vols. (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1978), 1:54-55. Most of Rush’s rules seem rather routine to us today. “Rest in a horizontal position,” he said—a standard bit of advice, certainly, for soldiers who learn in boot camp never to stand when you can sit and never to sit when you can lie down. Other rules had to do with fasting, sweating, washing, and “gently opening the bowels.” But rules number 6 and 8 must have caused Lewis to suppress a smile:

Rule 6: “The less spirit you use the better.”
Rule 8: “After having your feet much chilled it will be useful to wash them with a little spirit.”

What was an Army captain, about to lead a contingent of frontier soldiers on a prolonged campaign, to make of these injunctions about “spirits?” Could Dr. Rush have realized (or did he know all too well?) how much the military of this era depended upon the liquor ration? After seven years of frontier experience prior to his tour with the President, Lewis knew well enough that spirits were not for foot baths, and that rations must be ample to last throughout a mission

His acquired learning on such matters began with his very first days in the Army. As a volunteer at age 20 in the Virginia Corps during the Whiskey Rebellion of 1794, the new recruit wrote home from western Pennsylvania that he and his mates were each “cutting a most martial figure. . . . We have mountains of beef and oceans of whiskey, and I feel myself able to share it with the heartiest fellow in camp.”^[3]Richard Dillon, Meriwether Lewis, A Biography (New York: Coward-McCann, 1965), 19. A year later, commissioned an Ensign, serving with General Anthony Wayne in the Ohio Valley Campaigns, Lewis became involved in a “spirited” dispute with a fellow junior officer. Accused of being drunk and ungentlemanly, he was brought before a court martial, the first held in Wayne’s Legion.^[4]Ibid., 20-21. He emerged from this scrape “not guilty” and was acquitted with honor but one wonders whether too much whiskey had been shared among these “hearty young fellows in camp.” Considering the rough and tumble life of a soldier on the frontier, with its daily conditioning to the use of spirits, such incidents were inevitable.

Background of the Liquor Ration

Despite its risks, the liquor ration was an absolute necessity. No military commander of the 18th Century would have thought of leading his troops on any mission without planning for this need. Frederick the Great, probably the greatest military strategist of that time, advised in his writings:

If you contemplate some enterprise against the enemy, the commissary must scrape together all of the beer and brandy that can be found en route so that the Army does not lack either, at least during the first days. As soon as the Army enters enemy territory all of the brewers and distillers, especially of brandy, must be seized so that the soldier does not lack a drink, which he cannot do without.^[5]Jay Luvaas, ed., Frederick the Great on the Art of War (New York: Free Press, 1966), 110.

Thomas Jefferson, as Governor of Virginia during the Revolution, attended to these needs through legislation by the General Assembly. “Officers, soldiers, sailors and marines raised under the Laws of the Commonwealth, shall, during their continuance in the service, be furnished . . . with . . . rum or brandy at ten shillings by the gallon, whiskey at five shillings by the gallon.”^[6]Charles T. Cullen and Julian Parks Boyd, eds., The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, 21 vols. (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1983), 2:379. And in August 1780 he writes that “We have lately appointed a commercial agent within whose particular line of duty it will be to provide spirit for the army. To him we shall refer the proposition of General Roberdeau to furnish whiskey.”^[7]Ibid., 3:543. These “furnishings” were not cheap. Jefferson’s papers include an order on the State of Virginia of 4 April 1781 from General Nathanael Greene for $14,500 for 110 gallons of whiskey “purchased for the use of the Southern Army.”^[8]Ibid., 5:342.

The liquor ration authorized by resolution of Congress 4 November 1775 for General Washington’s Continental Army included “one quart of good spruce or malt beer.”^[9]Willam A. Ganoe, The History of the United States Army (New York: Appleton, 1924), 13-14. After the Constitution was established, Congress by the Act of 30 April 1790 gave the enlisted man of the Army (in addition to clothing and food allowance) a daily ration of “half a gill of rum, brandy or whiskey.”^[10]Ibid., 95-96. This basic ration was revised by Congress by the Act of 16 March 1802 authorizing a liquor ration of one gill of rum (thus the official ration throughout the Lewis and Clark Expedition) which remained in effect through the War of 1812.^[11]“The United States Army Rations,” Miscellaneous Files (Food), Mimeo compilation of ration ingredients, 1775-1930s. U.S. Army Military History Institute, Carlisle Barracks, Carlisle, … Continue reading By the time of that war, temperance sentiments seemed to have set in. A veteran of 1812, Charles Cist, relates his belief that the whiskey ration “was drank by parts only of each mess; but its presence, and the convivial spirit of those days, doubtless led too many to contract a relish for ardent spirits, which brought individuals in after-periods of their lives to a premature grave.”^[12]Charles Cist, The Cincinnati Miscellany, or Antiquities of the West, compiled from the Western General Advertiser (1845; reprint, New York: Arno, 1971), 251-2.

Cist’s conclusion as to the dire effects of Army spirits seems tellingly confirmed during the Black Hawk Campaign in Illinois in June 1832. The commanding general, Winfield Scott, seeing the effects of drunkenness in connection with an epidemic of cholera among his troops, echoed Cist’s vision of premature graves with his famous order as follows:

That every soldier or ranger who shall be found drunk or sensibly intoxicated, after the publication of this order, be compelled as soon as his strength will permit, to dig a grave at a suitable burying place, large enough for his own reception, as such graves cannot fail to be wanted for the drunken man himself or some drunken companion. This order is given as well to serve as a punishment for drunkenness, as to spare good and temperate men the labor of digging graves for their worthless companions.”^[13]Ganoe, History, 171-2.

Scott’s order was issued at the very time when “ardent spirits” were abolished from the ration and were forbidden in any camp, fort or garrison. Sugar and coffee had replaced the issue of whiskey. Thus it was that by November 1832 the Army had been the “first institution of our government to prescribe prohibition for its personnel.”^[14]Ibid., 172. See also Gerald Carson, the Social History of Bourbon, an Unhurried Account of our Star-Spangled American Drink (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1963), 8-9, 20-21, 72ff, 251n.

Logistics of the Ration

But at the time of Lewis and Clark, the ration was still very much a part of military life. To understand its implications for the Expedition, one must know its logistics: quantities, procurement, shipment, storage, distribution and usage. In legislation and military orders of the day, the ration was typically expressed in “gills.” The journals of the Expedition refer also to “drams” and to “grog.” How much is a gill? The Oxford English Dictionary defines a gill as “a measure of liquids containing one fourth of a standard pint.” In folk terms, “a pint is a pound the world around.” Thus, at one fourth of a pint, a gill equates to four ounces. With two pints to the quart and four quarts to the gallon, there are thirty-two gills to the gallon—in other words, one soldier’s ration for thirty-two days per the authorized ration at the time of the Lewis and Clark Expedition.

A fluid “dram” equals one-eighth of a fluid ounce (containable in two thimbles of average size), thus 128 drams per pint (i.e. 8 X 16 oz.) and 1024 drams per gallon (i.e. 8 X 128). “Grog” is defined as a drink “consisting of spirits (originally rum) and water . . . ‘half and half grog,’ a drink made of equal parts of spirits and water.” All of these terms appear repeatedly in the journals of the Expedition and should be clear in mind as the reader follows Lewis and his party across the continent.

To give the reader a modern-day perspective on the effect of a ration of one gill (equivalent as noted above to four ounces of whiskey), it should be noted that the American Medical Association and the National Safety Council have made studies of levels of alcohol in the blood causing intoxication.^[15]Encyclopedia Britannica (1966), “Alcoholism.” These studies became the basis for the conclusion that blood values of 0.10% or more is evidence of being “under the influence.” This standard has been generally adopted in many states of the U.S. as legal evidence of intoxication and grounds for apprehension as a dangerous driver.^[16]See State of Washington, RCW 46:61:502. The accompanying illustration shows volumes of whiskey or beer necessary to produce such level. The inference is that the daily ration authorized for Lewis’s Corps of Discovery would have been at an intoxicating level.

“6 kegs of 5 gallons each making 30 gallons of rectified spirits such as is used for the Indian trade
6 kegs bound with iron Hoops.”^[17]Jackson, Letters, 1:72.

The accounts show that $70.00 was paid 1 June 1803 (i.e., $2.44 per gallon) for “Strong Spt. Wine” plus $1.20 each for the 6 kegs.^[18]Ibid., 1:88. This supply was shipped by wagon along with the other purchases in Philadelphia to Pittsburgh, put on board the barge (called the ‘boat’ or ‘barge’ but never the ‘keelboat’) there to accompany Lewis down the Ohio, thence up to St. Louis and Camp Dubois, the Expedition’s staging ground. But, as noted above, one gallon of spirits would supply one man’s ration for only 32 days; thus this purchase of 30 gallons would have supplied Lewis’s ultimate party only about one month. As the scale of the project began to expand beyond the small cadre of soldiers originally contemplated, provisions had to be made at the staging area for additional supplies. The record is sketchy as to the extent of liquor acquisition there. Clark notes on 28 January 1804 that “Mr. Cummins came with meel & Brandy from contractor . . . at 6 oClock 14° above O, Porter all frosed & several bottles broke.”^[19]Gary E. Moulton, ed., The Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, 13 vols., (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1983-2001), 2:155. All quotations or references from the Journals noted herein … Continue reading And the next day Clark records receiving 8 bottles of wine on the “Express returned from Koho.” Lewis also accounted for additional supplies while the Corps was at Camp Dubois. He calculated, as of 21 May 1804, amounts due to Elijah G. Galusha for purchase of 538 rations furnished the detachment between December 1803 and March 1804^[20]Jackson, Letters, 2:429n.—the period when the men recruited or assigned to the Expedition were reporting for duty. 538 rations translate to about 17 soldiers for 32 days. On 18 May 1804 Clark records that “two keel boats arrive from Kentucky today loaded with whiskey, Hats, etc. &c.” Can the reader assume that these boats carried cargo for delivery to the Expedition or is Clark merely observing commercial civilian traffic on the river? This reference may have been a basis for an assumption that these boats delivered their “whiskey, Hats, etc.” to Lewis and Clark; at least one commentator (Rochonne Abrams) alleges that the Expedition carried 300 gallons of spirits.^[21]Rochonne Abrams, “Meriwether Lewis: the Logistical Imagination,” The Bulletin, Missouri Historical Society, 36, 4, pt. 1 (July 1980), 229. No real grounds have been found for such a high figure. As to the actual amount of liquor ultimately transported, specific references in the journals remain the basis for our estimates. The most informative reference is Lewis’s undated memo (probably mid-April 1804) regarding his expenses, compiled at Camp Dubois.^[22]Moulton, 2:200. This included the following:

100 G. Whiskey 128 cents 128.00
20 G. Whiskey Do 25.00

The above figures may tie in with Clark’s entry made earlier at Camp Dubois, 26 January 1804 when Clark was planning for the stowing away of provisions in the Expedition’s military barge. He offered the following table:

On the presumption that Clark is recording the dimensions of barrel-type kegs (i.e., broader or “thicker” in the middle than at top and bottom) we may estimate the gallonage of spirits which were stored in the hold. A barrel-shaped keg 15″ high, 12″ wide at its “thickest” middle and 10″ wide on top and bottom (on the assumption that the staves, the lid and the bottom were½” thick) would contain 1184.761 cubic inches.^[23]The formula for calculating the interior cubic inches for a keg of such dimensions, on the assumptions made, is: V = .262H(2D2 + d2) where V = volume, H = height, D = diameter at widest point, and d … Continue reading One gallon contains 231 cubic inches. Thus one keg of such dimensions would contain ca. 5.13 gallons and 18 kegs would contain 92.34 gallons—assume then that these were 5 gallon kegs; the 18 kegs would account for 90 gallons. This supply plus the 30 gallons purchased in Philadelphia would account for the 120 gallons in Lewis’s expense estimates noted above, which we assume here for the purpose of this paper was the total supply carried when leaving Camp Dubois.

Sufficiency of the Ration

Two questions come to mind: First, how long would this level of supply last, and second, what supply would have been necessary to last until 4 July 1805, the date recorded for the last of the ration? In addressing both questions, a tentative assumption is made that the daily ration distribution was the official one gill authorized by law and that the distribution was limited to U.S. soldiers on board.

These assumptions are prompted by Donald Jackson’s analysis of “The Expedition as a Military Detachment.”^[24]Donald Jackson, Thomas Jefferson & the Stony Mountains: Exploring the West from Monticello (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1981), 164-9. Jackson reminds us that “Lewis and Clark were Army men going by the book.” Further, that soldiers like those on the Expedition knew, when they lined up for the ration, “exactly how much whiskey they would receive while it lasted.” Going “by the book,” rations could be drawn only for U.S. soldiers, sworn in and on duty, not for the non-soldier members of the party such as the accompanying French engagés, and the “hires,” including Drewyer, Charbonneau, et al. To determine the adequacy of the supply, the number of those participating in the ration can be calculated by journal references to the personnel complement, such as when the voyage paused near the junction of the Missouri and the Kansas Rivers. Clark provided then a short summary of the party as of 4 July 1804 below a list of the engagés as follows:

3 sergts. & 23 men from the Boat (good)
George Drewyer
1 Corpl & 4 Privates in a Perogue . . .
Mr. Dueron
Capt. Lewis myself & York
in all 46 men July 4th 4 horses & a Dog

Extrapolating from this table, there were 33 U.S. soldiers (including the two captains) entitled to participate in the base ration. Captains were authorized three rations a day (on the premise that they had to provide for servants);^[25]Ibid., 182-3 and note 8. the 33 base number would thus be augmented by 4, i.e. plus 2 each, for both Lewis and Clark, in addition to the per capita count. This makes a total ration base of 37 for the period from 14 May 1804 (departure date) through the winter to 7 April 1805 when the permanent party headed west, and the return party south, i.e., 330 days in all. Thereafter the permanent party “consisted of the two Captains, three sergeants, twenty-three privates, Drouillard, Charbonneau, Sacagawea and her infant and York”^[26]Moulton, 3:4. the military ration base was then 32, from 7 April 1805 through 4 July 1805, the date on which there was no longer any supply of ardent spirits.

Remembering that one gallon provides one ration for 32 days, the questions as to adequacy of the supply for the above bases can be answered: First, 120 gallons would have provided 37 rations at the “legal rate” for only 104 days, that is, would have lasted only from 14 May 1804 until about 26 August 1804, still a long way from winter quarters at the Mandans. Second, if full rations could have been distributed from 14 May 1804 to 4 July 1805, approximately 470 gallons of spirits would have been needed, i.e. 94 kegs of gallons each! Where could Clark have stashed an additional 70 kegs or more on the barge? Even that supply could have lasted the party only as far as the Great Falls. These considerations make it clear 1) that the estimated supply of ardent spirits was grossly inadequate for soldiery expectations, but on the other hand, 2) that it would have been impossible as a practical matter of available cargo space to have started the voyage with provisions for full rations for even half the distance to be traveled. If indeed only 120 gallons were on board at embarkation, the Commanders would seem to have erred significantly. Paul Russell Cutright has noted that when Lewis was in Philadelphia preparing for his trip he “knew in general what articles he wanted to take, but he chafed under the problems of how much to buy. . . . He made mistakes.”^[27]Paul Russell Cutright, “Meriwether Lewis Prepares for a Trip West,” The Bulletin, Missouri Historical Society, 23, 1 (October 1966), 3-20. Cutright ranks the shortage of the liquor supply alongside the failure to buy enough of the blue trading beads as among the most serious of Lewis’s mistakes. In short, after less than four months of the voyage up the Missouri, there was an insufficient ration of spirits on hand.

Problems Caused by Liquor

Beginning with his preparations for the trip down the Ohio from Pittsburgh, Lewis had to contend with “rivers,” if not “oceans” of whiskey! In August 1803, he lost valuable travel time as he waited for drunken Pittsburgh carpenters to finish the Expedition’s large boat.”^[28]Arlen J. Large, “The Empty Anchorage: Why No Ship Came for Lewis and Clark,” We Proceeded On, 15, 1 (February 1989), 7. Once under way from there his party of 11 hands, “7 of which are soldiers, a pilot and three young men on trial”^[29]Moulton, 2:66. began to give him disciplinary problems from too much imbibing. The Ohio journey became a prologue for the whiskey problems suffered at Camp Dubois:

14 September 1803, near Marietta: “Set out this morning at 11 oClock was prevented setting out earlyer in consequence of two of my men getting drunk and absenting themselves. I f[i]nally found them and had them brought on board, so drunk that they were unable to help themselves”

18 November 1803, near junction of the Ohio and Mississippi: “landed on the Spanish side . . . found a number of our men who had left camp contrary to instructions and drunk.”

It would have been easy for these men whenever in the vicinity of civilian settlements to find liquor in excess of their daily military ration. Whiskey in this era was a kind of medium of exchange. Keelboats carrying copious quantities constantly plied the river arteries of the frontier, serving settlements along the way. Lewis made note of such traffic 22 November 1803 near Cairo, Illinois, when he “overtook two keels from Louisville bound to Kaskaskias loaded with dry goods and whiskey.”

Promptly after the party had settled in at Camp Dubois near St. Louis, the men wasted no time in finding local sources to quench their thirst. Christmas morning, Clark was awakened to find that “Some of the party had got drunk (2 fought),” and a week later he had to record “Colter . . . Willard Leakens Hall & Collins drunk.” He issued orders prohibiting a “Certain [blank] Ramey from selling liquer to the Party.” (This was apparently Nathan Rumsey who was agent for Elisha G. Galusha, contractor for army rations in the area.) Clark’s undated notes of the period evaluating his men^[30]Ibid., 2:148. list the drinking propensities of some of them. Collins is shown as a “blackguard” and

“Howard—never Drink water”

“Hall +_________+ Drink”

Other drinking bouts ensue:

4 January 1804—Clark notes “Warner Potts fight after Dark without my knowledge.” (Robertson, the Corporal apparently then in charge of these men, was busted to private for failure to control them, and had himself some difficulties involving drinking. Clark’s Field Notes (12 April 1804) show Robertson designated for the return party.) Clark later (6 January 1804) ordered the men “who had fought got Drunk & neglected Duty to go and build a hut for wo[man] who promises to wash & Sow etc.”

15 January 1804—”at Sun Set Maj. Rumsey the Comsy arrived with Some provisions in a waggon . . . Seven or eight men followed the waggon Intoxicated from the whiskey they receed [received] or R [Ramey, Rumsey?] on the way out of the barrel which was for the party.” Rumsey was doubtless the source for part of the whiskey supply which was put on board the barge beyond the 30 gallons which Lewis had purchased in Philadelphia.

3 March 1804—Lewis punishes Colter, Boyle, Wiser and Robinson (Robertson) by confining them to quarters for ten days for having “made hunting or other business a pretext to cover their design of visiting a neighboring whiskey shop.”

16 April 1804—”Several men confined for Drunkness to day”

2 May 1804—”Several Drunk”

By far the most serious or “sobering” episode in these drinking annals of the Expedition occurred in late June. The party had paused several days near the “mouth of the Kanseis” river, the site of present-day Kansas City, Missouri. On 29 June 1804, Clark records that John Collins was charged “with getting drunk on his post this morning out of whiskey put under his Charge as a Sentinal and for Suffering Hugh Hall to draw whiskey out of the . . . Barrel intended for the party.” Hall too was charged with “takeing whiskey out of a keg this morning which whiskey was Stored on the Bank (and under Charge of the guard) Contrary to all order, rule or regulation.” These were heavy crimes in the eyes of the party. Collins and Hall were tried by a court martial of their peers. Collins was sentenced to receive one hundred lashes on his bare back, Hall fifty lashes. Clark notes the party was “always found verry ready to punish Such Crimes.” This incident marked a turning point in drinking problems of the Expedition, there being no further disciplinary action recorded for drinking abuses—whether because of the more severe punishment levied or simply because opportunities for infractions diminished as the Corps penetrated further into the wilderness? Were the men becoming more “civilized” the farther they got from civilization?

Distribution of the Ration

Beyond this frontier point the consumption of spirits falls into place as an orderly part of military protocol. The first Detachment Order issued 26 May 1804 after the river voyage had commenced defined how the ration was to be handled. According to this order, the men were assigned to messes, squads and places of duty on board; duties of the Sergeants were specific. Included among the duties of the sergeant at the center of the barge (a post “rotated” among the three sergeants) was command of the guard; he was also charged to “attend to the issues of sperituous liquors.” Whiskey had also been previously prominent in earlier orders of the Expedition. For example, a large part of the very first Detachment Order, issued by Lewis at Camp Dubois on 20 February 1804, had been devoted to the ration. “No whiskey,” Lewis ordered, “shall . . . be delivered from the contractor’s store except for the legal ration and as appropriated by this order, unless otherwise directed by Captain Clark or myself.” This order sets forth in detail a system of rewards of extra gills of whiskey each day to the sawyers and the blacksmiths during the days they labored at their tasks; the sugar producers were similarly awarded a half gill. Extra rations (or, better said, “extra shots”?) were also offered as incentives to excel in rifle target practice. The order specified that the practicing party “will discharge only one round each per day . . . all at the same target and at the distance of fifty yards off hand. The prize of a gill of extra whiskey will be received by the person who makes the best show at each time of practice.”

Aside from the above rewards, the issuance of extra portions of spirits during the first year accented special days or events, as well as relieved unusual strains and stresses among the party. Until the end of September 1804 (when the supply as noted above must have been considerably depleted) the extra distributions were in gills, on the following occasions:

13 April 1804: Clark returned to Camp Dubois after several days absence. “I give out to the men Lead, Powder, & an extra gill of whiskey.”

4 July 1804: Independence Day—”we Closed the [day] by a Discharge from our bow piece, an extra gill of whiskey.”

18 August 1804: Lewis’s 30th birthday, also trial of Reed for desertion—”the evening was Closed with an extra gill of whiskey & a Dance until 11 oClock.”

Were Spirits Involved in Sgt. Floyd’s Death?

This later serving of an extra gill has been intruded into discussions concerning the death of Sergeant Charles Floyd which occurred two days afterward on 20 August 1804. Dr. E.G. Chuinard cites J.G. Jacob, author of The Life and Times of Patrick Gass, who wrote that the “immediate cause” of Floyd’s death was as follows: “he had been amusing himself and carousing in an Indian dance until he became overheated, and it being his duty to stand guard that night, he threw himself down on a sandbar of the Missouri despising the shelter of a tent offered him by his comrades on guard, and was soon seized with the cramp cholic, which terminated his life.”^[31]E. G. Chuinard, M.D., “Some Thoughts on the Death of Sergeant Charles Floyd,” We Proceeded On, Publication No. 4, December 1980. J. G. Jacob’s edition of Gass’s journal was … Continue reading This passage was presumably based upon discussion personally with the aged Sgt. Gass (who had been elected to replace Floyd as Sergeant) more than a half century after the event. It was taken by some as an inference that Floyd had really died of “drunkenness,” rather than the now generally accepted explanation of appendicitis. Considering what we know of Floyd and all the circumstances surrounding his illness, such an inference seems utterly unreasonable.

Conservation Measures

On 30 September 1804, Clark reports that he “refreshed” the men with a “glass of whiskey after Brackfast,” the party having just gone beyond a possible encounter with the Lakota Sioux. A “glass” is also dispensed on 5 October 1804 near the Little Cheyenne River in present-day South Dakota. Of all the references to the issue of spirits in the Expedition records to this point, these are the first which are not referred to as “extra.” Heretofore, when the extra gills were mentioned, the reader could reasonably assume that the regular, daily ration of one gill to each soldier had occurred as a routine part of each day’s proceedings. At this point, if not sooner, it is a good guess that the Captains have begun seriously to conserve the supply. This seems confirmed by the next occurring reference—Clark’s entry of 3 November 1804. Having arrived at the winter site with the Mandans, the party sets about building a “cabin.” At the end of this work, Clark says that “the men were indulged with a Dram this evening.” From this date on, the liquor references (with one exception) are all in terms of drams and none are described as “extra.” Remember that a dram is only 1/32nd of a gill! A rather drastic cutback, particularly on the assumption that there is no longer a daily issue. Apparently there were no further distributions until almost four weeks later on 30 November 1804: Clark had led a troop on a bitterly cold venture to find the Sioux who were threatening the Mandan villages. Upon return to quarters he reported “I then Paraded and Crossed the river on the ice and Came down on the N. Side the Snow So deep, it was verry fatigueing arrived at the fort after night, gave a little Taffee [dram] to my party.” (Tafia is described by journal editors as an inferior kind of rum made from coarse molasses.)

Christmas Day and New Year’s, true to frontier tradition, called for less restraint. On Christmas, Clark says he “gave then all a little Taffia.” Private Whitehouse amplifies this and records three “glasses” of brandy during the day, prompting much dancing and “frolick”—”kept it up in a jovel manner” says Whitehouse.^[32]Reuben Gold Thwaites, ed., Original Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition 1804-1806, 7 vols. and atlas (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1904), 7:72. Three “glasses” of “good old whiskey” as Sgt. Gass described it, also made the rounds on New Year’s Day 1805, with more merriment resulting.^[33]Moulton, 10:68.

Thereafter a long, dry spell seemingly sets in. Not until 26 April 1805 is there any mention of spirits. On that date the Corps is encamped at the junction of the Yellowstone River with the Missouri. In a meditative mood, Lewis observes his party “much pleased at having arrived at this long wished for spot and in order to add in some measure to the general pleasure which seemed to pervade our little community, we ordered a dram to be issued to each person; this soon produced the fiddle, and they spent the evening with much hilarity, singing & dancing and seemed as perfectly to forget their past toils as they appeared regardless of those to come.”

Three weeks later, on 14 May 1805, one of the most toilsome and nerve-wracking days of the expedition is recorded—at a place the Captains named “Brown Bear Defeated Creek.” Here occurred the famous encounter with the grizzly bear which took 8 rifle balls, 2 through his lungs and I through his head, before expiring, and also the narrow escape of the white perogue with its precious cargo. After these harrowing events, Lewis wrote that “we thought it a proper occasion to console ourselves and cheer the sperits of our men and accordingly took a drink of grog and gave each man a gill of sperits.” (This is the only reference to a “gill” after the entry of 18 August 1804; Whitehouse’s journal however refers to this distribution as “a draghm of ardent spirits.”^[34]Thwaites, 7:83. Note that Lewis for the first time refers to “grog,” in other words, a dilution of spirits—further evidence of rigorous conservation.

On 29 May 1805, after weathering the assault of a stampeding buffalo bull which damaged the white pirogue and wrecked York’s gun, and encountering a “most horrid stench” of buffalo carcasses near Judith’s River, the Captains gave each man “a small dram.” The record of this date confirms the absence of liquor from the ration over an extended period. Despite the small portion issued this time, Lewis notes “several of them were considerably effected by it; such is the effects of abstaining for some time from the use of sperituous liquors.”

Two days later, 31 May 1805, the men labor in the cold river water under the White Cliffs at the Missouri River Breaks, up to their armpits, in their bare feet or with tattered moccasins, dragging the heavy burden of a canoe—again the “evil genii” of the White perogue when the tow rope broke! Certainly it was time for a “dram,” which “they received with much cheerfulness, and well deserved.” The mounting stress and pain of the journey posed further needs for the Captains to “refresh” and “console” the party. Additional issues of spirits occurred as follows (all described as “drams” and as “grog”):

Finally, on 4 July 1805 all hands were employed “in completing the leather boat.” Whether because of finishing this task (long a pet project of Lewis’s) or because of the national day of celebration, the captains “gave the Party a dram.” Sgt. John Ordway‘s journal reads, “it being the 4th of Independence we drank the last of our ardent Spirits except a little reserved for Sickness.”^[35]Milo M. Quaife, ed., The Journals of Captain Meriwether Lewis and Sergeant John Ordway (Madison: State Historical Society of Wisconsin, 1916), 242. Some of the men, Lewis noted, “apeared a little sensible of its effects. the fiddle was played and they danced very merrily until 9 in the evening. . . . they continued their mirth with songs and festive jokes and were extremely merry until late at night.” Having thus exhausted the supply, the Corps was forced on this special day to become “independent” of spirits for more than a year. It was also on this Fourth of July that Lewis heard the mysterious, thunder-like noise in the distant West. “I am at a loss to account for this phenomenon,” he wrote; but it was an appropriate sound for a day of such “Independence.”

Ahead, the Corps was yet to face the challenge of finding the Shoshones and their horses, and the pain of the Bitterroot Mountains—with no prospect of “refreshments” nor “consolation” along the way. After surmounting these trials, over the hump and on the downhill grade, 3½ months after Independence Day, on 21 November 1805 the men enjoyed an agreeable surprise, courtesy of John Collins, the man Clark had earlier described as a “blackguard” and who had been court martialed for being drunk on post. The journals report that Collins “presented us with Some verry good beer made of the Pa-shi-co-quar-mash bread, which bread is the remains of what was laid in as [X: a part of our] Stores of Provisions, at the first flat heads or Cho-pun-nish Nation at the head of the Kosskoske river which by being frequently wet molded & Sowered &c.” It seems that Collins had redeemed himself, if not earlier on the voyage, then certainly by this bit of ingenuity in contriving a beer substitute for spirits.

Why No Beer?

Collins’s inventiveness raises a further question as to Lewis’s pre-departure plans for the Expedition. Why were there no plans for producing self-made “spirits” from natural resources available in the interior during the course of the journey? The question is especially pertinent, considering that in this era of voyages of discovery, famous expeditions had been harassed by scurvy and similar diseases, and had relied on spruce beer as an antiscorbutic and a very palatable brew served to crews in lieu of “Spirits.” These measures had been happily employed by such notables as Captain Cook, and later by Captain George Vancouver in 1792, navigating America’s Northwest waters.^[36]W. Kaye Lamb, ed., George Vancouver: A Voyage of Discovery to the North Pacific Ocean and Round the World, 1791-1795, 4 vols. (London: The Hakluyt Society, 1984), 1:364; 2:605, 698; 3:937; 4:1306. … Continue reading Dr. Rush must have known of the risks of scurvy for Lewis’s voyage, and of such curative measures. Both Rush and Lewis (and Jefferson also) would be expected to have professionally reviewed the lessons and experience of these famed explorers.

Indeed, Lewis did experience medical problems among his men which Dr. Chuinard has suggested may have been “mild scurvy.”^[37]Moulton, 4:139n. Lewis had had access to Vancouver’s work while in Philadelphia preparing for the Expedition.^[38]Thwaites, 3:193, 198, 206, 222, 2226. If he had studied Vancouver’s narratives (and those of his lieutenants) as carefully as he studied the Vancouver surveys and maps of the West Coast, Lewis would have read of the excellence of their spruce beer. This brew had been made from pine, fir and spruce trees of Northwest shores, following the example and methods recorded earlier by Captain Cook. It was then considered a rewarding refreshment and a specific scurvy fighter. But Lewis’s notes and sketches from Vancouver’s work were by his own admission “taken in a hasty manner” and he did not acquire a copy of the work because it was “both too costly and too weighty for me either to purchase or carry.”^[39]Thwaites, 7:225. It is thought that he did carry however a copy of a four-volume encyclopedia commonly called “Owen’s Dictionary.”^[40]Donald Jackson, “Some Books Carried by Lewis and Clark,” The Bulletin, Missouri Historical Society, 16, 1 (October 1959), 3-13. These volumes purported to comprehend “all the branches of useful knowledge, with accurate descriptions as well of the various machines, instruments, tools, figures and schemes necessary for illustrating them, as of the classes, kinds, preparations and use of natural productions, whether animals, vegetables, minerals, fossils or fluids.” It would seem safe to expect that simple beer brewing methods such as used by Private Collins as well as Cook, Vancouver, et al., would have been included therein. One can only surmise that Lewis and Clark were preoccupied with other weightier matters and did not take the time to learn how to produce beer—but at what discomfiture to the Corps! Lewis’s party was thus deprived of the “consolation” of the customary drams—beer which could have been produced freely from the countryside, by “do-it-yourself” methods on a “pay-as-you-go” basis.

Though “sperituous refreshments” were not on hand after 4 July 1805, they were not out of mind—poignantly so on Christmas Day at Fort Clatsop. In that cold, wet and dismal setting, on the very day which was a traditional time for sharing grog in the harshness of the frontier, Lewis and Clark are able only to divide out “the last of their tobacco among the men that used it”; to the rest of the men “they gave each a silk handkerchief as a Christmas gift.” Sergeant Ordway adds bravely, with a nostalgic air, “but all are in good health which we esteem more than all the ardent Spirits in the world.”^[41]Quaife, Ordway’s Journal, 318.

Spirits and Ethnography

The Captains used much of their time during these disheartening winter days to write up their findings, recollections and observations, and to bring their records up to date—just as Clark had done the previous winter with his “Mandan Miscellany.” Recall that Dr. Benjamin Rush had prepared a series of ethnographic questions for Lewis in Philadelphia about Indian customs.^[42]See James Ronda, “The Names of the Nations: Lewis and Clark as Ethnographers,” We Proceeded On, 7,4 (November 1981); also WPO Special Publication No. 9, August 1990. On the basis of this list and others, Clark compiled for his own reference an elaborate further list^[43]Jackson, Letters 1:158. which included the following queries “Relative to Morrals” of the Indians:

“Do they use any liquor or Substitute to promote intoxication, besides ardent spirits? Are they much attached to spirituous liquors, and is intoxication deemed a Crime among them?”

While at Clatsop, both captains recorded observations in response to these questions. On 8 January 1806 Lewis comments on “the Clatsops, Chinnoks and others inhabiting the Coast.”

“These people do not appear to know the use of sperituous liquors, they never having once asked us for it; I presume therefore that the traders who visit them have never indulged them with the use of it; from what ever cause this may proceede, it is a very fortunate occurrence as well as for the natives themselves as for the quiet and safety of those whites who visit them.”

Lewis adds that these natives are “exessively fond of smoking tobacco,” and by inhaling it “no doubt the smoke of the tobacco in this manner becomes much more intoxicating.” Other “ethnographic” comments of the Captains about Indian liquor usage appear elsewhere in the documents:

Concerning the above observations, there is a tinge of inconsistency with the notes written by Nicholas Biddle during his visit with Clark in Virginia, April 1810, preparing for his editing of the journals. Biddle recorded then, that “none of the nations except Sioux fond of drink”—hardly a sustainable proposition in light of the above-referenced entries. It seems clear that the captains attributed any native propensities for drink to the fur trade and the prevalance of liquor as a medium of exchange on the frontier.

Gifts to the Natives

The Expedition itself frequently contributed liquor in native encounters, surprisingly liberally on occasion. For example as follows:

By this time the whiskey supply had been so diminished that no further gifts to natives are recorded, the balance being reserved for the occasional drams to the troops (referenced earlier in this article) and entirely consumed by 4 July 1805.

Homeward Bound

No prospect for replenishment of a supply occurs until 25 July 1806, more than a year later on the homeward journey; Clark then commissions Sergeant Nathaniel Pryor with three other privates to take the party’s horses, at the Yellowstone, cross country to the Mandans. There, Pryor was to trade the horses “for such articles as we may stand in need of . . . ” such as flints, knives, paint, pepper, sugar, coffee, tea, handkerchiefs and “2 small kegs of Sperits . . . .” This mission died aborning as the horses were soon stolen in an Indian raid before Pryor managed to get very far; he and his men were reduced to improvising small “bull-boats” to float down river to their rendezvous with the rest of the party. Any hope for all those good things which were to come from Pryor’s mission (including renewed “consolation”) had vanished with the horses in the dark of night!

It is not until the last three weeks of the homeward voyage that the dry spell ends. Drawing close to “civilization” and the river traffic on the lower Missouri, the party met one of Choteau’ s trading boats, out of St. Louis, on 7 September 1806. Clark records that “we purchased a gallon of whiskey of this man [Henry Delorn), promised to pay Choteau who would not receive any pay and gave to each man of the party a dram which is the first spiritious licquor which had been tasted by any of them the 4 of July 1805.” In rapid succession after this, the party passed other up-river travelers on 10 September 1806 and 14 September 1806, who greeted them very warmly and “with great friendship . . . pressed on us Some whisky for our men.” After the latter of these meetings “our party received a dram and Sung Songs until 11 oClock at night in the greatest harmony.” The party is indeed getting closer to home!

On 17 September 1806, meeting Captain John McClallan who also replenishes the whiskey ration, the party is informed that it “had been long since given out [up) by the people of the U.S. Generally and almost forgotten … “And a final jarring note on September 20- “we purchased of a citizen two gallons of whiskey … for which we were obliged to give Eight dollars in Cash, an imposition on the part of the citizen.” Biddle’s narrative, of notes taken from his discussions with Clark, 43 has a passage for the date of 13 September 1806 which capsulates this entire chronicle of spirits on the Expedition. Reflecting upon the first week in which abstinence of more than a year had been ended, Clark says (as Biddle recorded it):

We had among us several men who had been accustomed to drink a great deal— others who had not—this last observed that the liquor seemed as it always did— the others after a long privation were perfectly weaned from it, & did not care anything about it. But they after relapsed into their old habits.

Afterword

This comment was recorded in 1810, well after Lewis’s death on the Natchez Trace on 11 October 1809. Is it possible that of those men who had “relapsed,” Clark was thinking not only of certain privates of the Corps but also of his old friend and fellow officer, Captain Lewis himself? Students of the Expedition and of Lewis’s life cannot ignore the dialogue and insinuations which have accumulated over time concerning Lewis’s alleged intemperance.^[44]Ibid, 2:575n. This has been dealt with by others in some detail; any further speculation about it here is beyond the scope of this paper. Suffice it to say that both Clark and Jefferson have been described as suggesting that a ” habit” or dependency did indeed contribute to Lewis’s apparent suicide. His biographer, Richard Dillon, ponders the correspondence and statements of Captain Gilbert C. Russell, the commanding officer of Fort Pickering at Chicasaw Bluffs (where Lewis recuperated from “mental derangement” shortly before embarking on his last fateful journey on the Trace).^[45]Dillon, pp. 328-9, 346-7. Russell refers to Lewis’s ” indisposition,” taken by some to have meant “alcoholism.”^[46]Paul Russell Cutright, A History of the Lewis and Clark Journals (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1976), 49-51. Further, Donald Jackson has noted Jefferson’s letter to Russell of 10 April 1810 opining that Lewis’s “hypocondria” was ” probably increased by the habit into which he had fallen & the painfull reflections that would necessarily produce in a mind like his.^[47]Jackson, Letters, 2:728.

A nagging question lingers with the reader while reflecting upon Meriwether Lewis’s military career, his masterly management of the Expedition, the incalculable heritage he brought to his country, and the tragic circumstances of his death. Was he indeed a casualty of a soldiery tradition in his time of the value of ardent spirits? Had there been a “habit” developed with years of the daily ration which later, under political pressure of a governor’s life, incompatible with that of a soldier’s, was reasserted, causing a fateful relapse?

These questions crowd into mind alongside the image of that late evening songfest when Lewis’s men were “in the greatest harmony.” One is left with a sense of melancholy in the wake of Lewis’s last days on the Natchez ‘frace. But mercifully, we can turn back to the final leg of the river journey, and share in the warmth and cheer of the homecoming of the Corps of Discovery as the last drams of consolation are measured out and Lewis’s men part to go their separate ways.