Thomas Jefferson, years before his Presidency, dreamed of an expedition to the Northwest that would open the door to commerce and the Manifest Destiny of the new United States of America. When he became President, Jefferson had both the opportunity and the man, his own private secretary, Meriwether Lewis. Lewis invited William Clark, and together the two embarked, with a Corps of Discovery of twenty-nine men, a woman, and a baby, on a journey of over 7,000 miles. The territory was uncharted, the challenges immense. The Corps had to feed, clothe, and otherwise sustain itself with nothing other than its wits and what it could carry, by boat, horse, and dugout canoe. Its members were not only diplomats and mapmakers, but gatherers of a wealth of zoological, geological, and anthropological information. Half a dozen of the Corps were journalists, and to them we owe our knowledge of the story. Besides Lewis and Clark, a number of characters stand out: the “robust healthy hardy young men” who did the back breaking work of the expedition; York, the involuntary enslaved member; and Sacagawea, the “Indian woman”who carved out her own place in history by her wits and mere presence.”