From Pittsburgh to the Rocky Mountains: Major Stephen Long's Expedition, 1819-1820

Long's party left Pittsburg and steamed down the Ohio and up the Missouri before heading overland westward. As a travel documentary and expedition, the account is vivid with the joy of the men after the dreary weeks on the Great Plains when they catch their first glimpse of the Rockies. When food sources run low, the drama intensifies. Altogether the expedition shares many of the fates of the Lewis and Clark expedition, with desertion, hungry, half and then quarter rations, and the loss of equipment and documentation, the account is too specific and at length on a too broad range of subjects. While I had hoped to read more about the men's impression of new places and scenes, the journal leans more toward the classification of plants, flowers and small animals. After all this was a scientific expedition like Lewis and Clark's, but the digressions on plant and animal life make the "expedition's" journal somewhat suffer.