Espontoons

When Lewis and Clark crossed the Mississippi in 1804, they were acting out the manifest destiny of a “westering people.” There were moments on this journey, however, when destiny was not quite so “manifest.” Particularly on a few close calls when the life of Meriwether Lewis was left swaying in the balance and thereby also the fate of the Expedition. Several of these anxious moments were associated with an implement which Lewis referred to in his journal as an “espontoon,” i.e., a half pike commonly carried by an eighteenth century infantry officer.^[2]The Oxford English Dictionary (1961).

“Espontoon” is also the term used to describe the policeman’s night stick in Baltimore, Maryland.^[3]Random House Dictionary of the English Language (New York, 1967). See also Helmut Nickel, Warriors and Worthies: Arms and Armor Through the Ages (New York: Atheneum, 1969), 119: “SPONTOON: a … Continue reading Just how the Baltimore night stick came to be identified with a halfpike, such as used by Lewis, remains a mystery. Suffice to say that the city authorities of Baltimore regard their version of the espontoon just as Meriwether Lewis regarded the infantry version—as an essential piece of equipment on the officer’s “beat,” carried to protect and save life.

On Lewis’s “beat” to the Pacific and back, the espontoon may have been as omnipresent as the night stick is today with the Baltimore police. It seems to have served Lewis as a comforting “rod and staff” while he walked along some of the darker pathways of his journey. So much so that the espontoon may be considered his “trademark” or symbol, just as the surveyor’s transit is a trademark for Clark, the mapmaker. This identification has been “monumentalized” in Bob Scriver’s heroic-size statue, unveiled 4 July 1989, at Great Falls, Montana. Lewis is presented there as the party leader, grasping his espontoon, looking out across the Missouri above the Falls where his espontoon had served him so well on June 14, 1805.

In Scriver’s setting, the implement may come as a surprise to the modern-day viewer who may not be familiar with the lore of the Expedition. What is Captain Lewis of the First Infantry, USA, doing up there carrying an ancient spear? Is this really the progressive-minded American officer of the early nineteenth century, the Infantry captain so intent on providing himself and his party with the best field equipment of the time, standing there, seemingly dependent upon a primitive weapon of another age? Why indeed did Lewis take the espontoon on his journey? A partial answer is that he was probably conditioned to rely on it during his first tour of duty as a young ensign. Both Lewis and Clark had served under General Anthony Wayne earlier in their careers, in the Ohio Valley campaigns of the 1790’s. Wayne was a strict disciplinarian who required intensive training of his junior officers; he was also a champion of the espontoon. One of the most vivid images of him in the Revolution is at the capture of Stoney Point, 15 July 1779. He is reported to have charged “with espontoon in hand up the rocky slopes of the Point.”^[4]Paul David Nelson, Anthony Wayne, Soldier of the Early Republic (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1985), 98.

I myself continued to direct [the battle] even after I had rec’d my wound— & that at the point of my Spear—I at least helpt to direct the greater part of the Column over the Abatis and into the Works.

But the espontoon had a much wider use than as a mere signaling device; it was both an offensive and defensive weapon. General Wayne took care to requisition enough of these weapons for each of his junior officers prior to starting his offensive.

A spectacular use of the weapon in attack occurred at the Battle of Cowpens 17 January 1781. Colonel Howard, commanding part of Daniel Morgan’s main line against the British, observed an enemy artillery battery a short distance in front. He ordered one of his officers, a Captain Ewing, to take it. Howard then relates that another nearby officer, Captain Anderson:

hearing the order, also pushed for the same object; both being emulous for the prize kept pace until near the first piece, when Anderson, by putting the end of his spontoon forward into the ground, made a long leap which brought him upon the gun and gave him the honor of the prize”^[5]Glenn Tucker, Mad Anthony Wayne and the New Nation (Harrisburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 1973), 158.

Here is a weapon not just for defensive parry and thrust or for signaling, but also for pole vaulting directly onto the enemy.

Wayne’s insistence on the weapon was shared by the Commander-in-Chief. Washington mentioned it in his General Orders, which roll across Wayne’s ranks and throughout the Continental Armies. They provide a bill of particulars about the weapon which helps us understand why Lewis carried one westward a generation later:

Valley Forge, 22 December 1777: As the proper arming of the officers would add considerable strength to the army and the officers themselves derive great confidence from being armed in time of action, the General orders every one of them to provide himself with a half-pike or spear, as soon as possible; firearms when made use of with drawing their attention too much from the men; and to be without either, has a very aukward and unofficerlike appearance. That these half-pikes may be of one length and uniformly made, the Brigadiers are to meet at General Maxwell’s quarters to morrow at 10 o’clock in the forenoon and direct their size and form .^[6]The Writings of George Washington from the Original Manuscript Sources 1745-1799. Prepared under the directions of the United States George Washington Bicentennial Commission and published by … Continue reading

Valley Forge, 17 January 1778—The Brigadiers and Officers commanding Brigades are to meet this evening at Genl. Varnum’s Quarters to . . . critically review and examine into the State and condition of the Arms in their respective Brigades; . . . The General desires that they will . . . agree upon the most proper and speedy measure to have all the Officers in the Brigades furnish’d with half Pikes agreeable to the General Order of the 22nd. of December last .^[7]Ibid., 147.

That the Quarter Master General be directed to cause Espontoons or Pikes made for the Officers, the Staff six feet and one half in length, and one inch and a quarter in diameter in the largest part and that the iron part be one foot long.

The Commander in Chief accepts and approves the above Report and orders it to take place in every respect.^[8]Ibid., 314. See also Harold Leslie Peterson, The Book of the Continental Soldier (Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: Stackpole Books, 1968), 98-100 for further description; and C. Keith Wilbur, Picture Book … Continue reading

Moore’s house, 12 October 1779: Such officers of the line whose duty it is to act on foot in time of an engagement and who are not already provided with Espontoons are to use their utmost exertions to get them, and it is expected from commanding officers of Corps that they will use every means in their power to complete them with bayonets; In a word, they will take care that their corps are in the most perfect order for actual service.^[9]Ibid., 16:458.

Morristown, 4 April 1780: ALL Battalion officers, to captains inclusively are, without loss of time, to provide themselves with Espontoons, they are to apply in the first instance to the Quarter Master General for such as may be in his possession, and if not furnished there, to the Field Commissary of Military Stores. Those who have been already supplied by the public, and are now destitute, are to provide themselves.

None are to mount guard or go on detachment without being armed with Espontoons, to which the officers of the day will be particularly attentive; nor after a reasonable time being allowed to procure them, is any officer to appear with his regiment under arms, without an Espontoon, unless he can shew that he has not been able to obtain one.^[10]Ibid., 18:214-215.

Washington, like Lewis under Wayne, must have had the importance of the espontoon ingrained in him during his earlier years as a younger military officer. He was then subject to the orders of King George, and would have been responsible for knowledge of regulations established by His Majesty’s “War Office,” 27 July 1764. These regulations specified requirements “for the colours, clothing, etc. of Our marching regiments of foot.”^[11]Thomas Simes, The Military Guide for Young Officers , 2 vols. (reprint, Philadelphia: Humphreys Bell and Aiken, 1776). Orders were issued under these regulations 19 February 1776, requiring “the battalion officers to have espontoons.” Thomas Simes, author of The Military Guide for Young Officers (1776), and The Military Medley (1768), tabulates a list, with which Washington would have been familiar (and perhaps Lewis also at a later date), of all “things necessary for a Gentleman to be furnished with, upon obtaining his first commission in the Infantry[:] . . . regimentals, shoes, stockings, boots, spatterdashes” and, prominently listed among other necessaries, an espontoon.^[12]Ibid., 370.

The weapon was thus an integral part of a legacy from the British and Colonial Armies of the Revolution, passed on through Wayne and his peers to the Lewis and Clark generation—then regarded throughout the military as the “distinguishing arm of an officer” and a “symbol of authority.” As such, the weapon must have been much in evidence in 1804 at Camp Dubois when the Corps of Discovery was being assembled and trained, and also on the voyage up river to Fort Mandan. These were the days of the Expedition when military protocol was prominently featured; records during the period mention parade ceremonies, courts martial, disciplinary training, drill, etc.—occasions when officer-authority would be solemnized. Each of the captains carried an espontoon and would have displayed it according to custom whenever the Corps was in formation under arms, as well as in other ways noted later in the journals.

Curiously, there is no mention of the espontoon in expedition records until they reach winter quarters at the Mandans in present central North Dakota. There the implement is first noted as a reference in describing the Indian battle axe. On 5 February 1805, Lewis records the dimensions and shape of such an axe and makes a drawing, noting that the blade of the weapon “is somewhat in the form of the blade of an Espontoon.”^[13]Moulton, Journals, 3:287.

In the Lewis and Clark Journals

All later mentions of the espontoon occur in the crucial six-week period from early May 1805 to mid-June 1805; these references with one notable exception are all associated with “beastly” encounters: porcupines, bears, a rattlesnake, wolves, a “tyger cat,” buffaloes—a series of potentially fatal incidents, “curious adventures,” as Lewis described them.

That the espontoon figures in each of these “curious adventures” makes it a kind of fateful medicine stick, reminding us of climactic times in Lewis’s life. Generally these events occurred when Lewis walked by himself in the wilderness. The espontoon gave him confidence alone in the field heading into the dangers and hazards ahead. Lewis reveals this in his journal entry of 12 May 1805:

I walked on shore this morning for the benifit of excersize which I much wanted, and also to examine the country and it’s productions, in these excurtions I most generally went alone armed with my rifle and espontoon; thus equipped i feel myself more than an equal match for a brown bear provided I get him in open woods or near the water, but I feel myself a little deffident with respect to an attack in the open plains.^[14]Ibid., 4:294.

This entry sounds like a reverberation of Washington’s orders of 22 December 1777: “officers themselves derive great confidence from being armed [with the espontoon] in time of action.”

Concerning actual encounters where the espontoon is brought into play, each journal entry provides its own drama, great or small:

5 May 1805—near 2000-Mile Creek in present northeastern Montana: “I walked out a little distance and met with 2 porcupines which were feeding on the young willow which grow in great abundance on all the sandbars this anamal is exceedingly clumsy and not very watchfull I approached so near one of them before it percieved me that I touched it with my espontoon.”

26 May 1805—on one of his solitary walks after dark in present central Montana: “On my return to camp I trod within five inches of a rattle snake but being in motion I passed before he could probably put himself in a striking attitude and fortunately escaped his bite, I struck about with my espontoon being directed in some measure by his nois untill I killed him.”

29 May 1805—near Slaughter River (present Arrow Creek): Here we get our first record of Captain Clark’s use of his espontoon. Lewis writes: “we saw a great many wolves in the neighbourhood of these mangled [buffalo] carcases they were fat and extreemly gentle, Capt. C. who was on shore killed one of them with his espontoon.”

At the Falls of the Missouri

Lewis sets out alone at ten o’clock in the morning with his gun and espontoon to scout a series of rapids and the “Crooked Falls.” Realizing after a long walk that he may not have time to get back to camp, he ponders the need for food and shelter alone in the wilderness at night. Then follows one of the most vivid scenes in the records of the Expedition when Lewis did indeed do a “great sign” with his spear:

a large white, or reather brown bear, had perceived and crept on me within 20 steps before I discovered him; in the first moment I drew up my gun to shoot, but at the same instant recolected that she was not loaded and that he was too near for me to hope to perform this opperation before he reached me, as he was then briskly advancing on me; it was an open level plain, not a bush within miles nor a tree within less than three hundred yards of me; the river bank was sloping and not more than three feet above the level of the water; in short there was no place by means of which I could conceal myself from this monster untill I could charge my rifle; in this situation I thought of retreating in a brisk walk as fast as he was advancing untill I could reach a tree about 300 yards below me, but I had no sooner terned myself about but he pitched at me, open mouthed and full speed, I ran about 80 yards and found he gained on me fast, I then run into the water the idea struck me to get into the water to such debth that I could stand and he would be obliged to swim, and that I could in that situation defend myself with my espontoon; accordingly i ran haistily into the water about waist deep, and faced about and presented the point of my espontoon, at this instant he arrived at the edge of the water within about 20 feet of me; the moment I put myself in this attitude of defence he sudonly wheeled about as if frightened, declined the combat on such unequal grounds, and retreated with quite as great precipitation as he had just before pursued me . . . I now began to reflect on this novil occurrence and indeavoured to account for this sudden retreat of the bear. I at first thought that perhaps he had not smelt me before he arrived att he waters edge so near me, but I then reflected that he had pursued me for about 80 or 90 yards before I took the water and on examination saw the grownd toarn with his tallons immediately on the impression of my steps; and the cause of his allarm still remains with me misterious and unaccountable.

Proceeding this far through the journals with Lewis and his walking stick, the reader is tempted to scoff at Lewis’s finding the sudden withdrawal of the bear as “misterious and unaccountable.” The reason is apparent and “to the point”: The bear simply could not confront such powerful medicine—Lewis as saved by the magic of his rod.

During the same day this wondrous implement again performs, and again it confronts a beast:

I now determined to return, having by my estimate about 12 miles to walk . . . about 200 yards distant from the Missouri, my direction led me directly to an anamal that I at first supposed was a wolf; but on nearer approach or about sixty paces distant I discovered that it was not, it’s colour was a brownish yellow; it was standing near it’s burrow, and when I approached it thus nearly, it couched itself down like a cat looking immediately at me as if it designed to spring on me. I took aim at it and fired, it instantly disappeared in it’s burrow; i loaded my gun and examined the place which was dusty and saw the track from which I am still further convinced that it was of the tiger kind. whether i struck it or not I could not determine, but I am almost confident that I did; my gun is true and I had a steady rest by means of my espontoon, which i have found very serviceable to me in this way in the open plains.

“Serviceable” indeed! It had been an ever-present source of strength in this series of brushes with death, when “all the beasts of the neighborhood” were conspiring his destruction. But not just the beasts. The very earth itself, the river and its banks, seemed at times to be in league against Lewis, as we find in his 7 June 1805, journal entry. The incident took place on an abrupt cliff near the Marias River after an incessant rain. Here again we find the espontoon saving the Captain:

not withstanding the rain that has now fallen[,] the earth of these bluffs is not wet to a greater debth than 2 inches; in it’s present state it is precisely like walking over frozan grownd which is thawed to small debth and slips equally as bad. In passing along the face of one of these bluffs today I sliped at a narrow pass of about 30 yards in length and but for a quick and fortunate recovery by means of my espontoon I should been precipitated into the river down a craggy pricipice of about ninety feet. I had scarcely reached a place on which I could stand with tolerable safety even with the assistance of my espontoon.

Lewis goes on to explain that immediately after his misfortune he had to come to the rescue Private Windsor who was a hairbreadth from slipping to his death off the same cliff. Windsor, therefore, became a symbolic proxy for the entire Expedition. For if Lewis had fallen to his death from those heights not only would his and Windsor’s lives been lost, but the mission of the Corps of Discovery would no doubt have been aborted. In that event, American claims to the Oregon country would have been greatly diminished, and Jefferson’s grand strategy for the West would have had a terrible setback.

Aware of all that was riding on that halfpike as Lewis jammed it into the slippery bank, the reader ponders what could have happened if it had failed to hold. One’s mind turns to the fable in Poor Richard’s Almanac:

For the want of a nail the shoe was lost,
For the want of a shoe the horse was lost,
For the want of a horse the rider was lost,
For the want of a rider the battle was lost,
Fort he want of a battle the kingdom was lost—
And all for the want of a horseshoe nail.

Final Notes

There is no further reference to the espontoon in the journals after June 1805. Was this because Lewis did notably less writing for the record after these events? Perhaps the espontoons were buried in the caches at the Great Falls of the Missouri or before crossing the Divide. Lewis could possibly have had it with him on that famous walk approaching the Lemhi Shoshone brave near Lemhi Pass. He may have used it to signal Drouillard and Shields who were on his flanks as they walked toward the wary Indian.

In any case, the captains tell us nothing more of this symbol of their authority. There is, nevertheless, one final, melancholy note about it. The records of Lewis’s estate include a “Memorandum of Articles Contained in two Trunks the property of Governor Lewis of Upper Louisiana.” This “memorandum” was prepared following Lewis’s tragic death, 23 November 1809, and included a “Pike blade & part of the Handle.” At last report (8 May 1810), the trunks were in Charlottesville, having been delivered there by William Douglas Meriwether, a man active in settling Lewis’s post-death affairs.^[15]Donald Jackson, ed., Letters of the Lewis and Clark Expedition with Related Documents, 1783-1854, 2 vols., 2nd ed., (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1978), 2:472.

Was this the espontoon with which Lewis confronted the hostile league, the implement which he carried and leaned upon in so many solitary walks through the wilderness? If so (and it seems that it must have been) what has happened to it? Where is it? Wherever it may be, this pike with broken handle is a singularly important relic of the Expedition, a lifesaver. It is the special talisman of Meriwether Lewis, a reminder of his traumatic encounters, both physical and emotional, as he turned the key which opened the door to the American West.