On This date in USACE and Wilmington District History
January 18, 1803: Jefferson requests funding for Lewis and Clark expedition
On this day in 1803, Thomas Jefferson requests funding from Congress to finance the Lewis and Clark expedition. Jefferson officially asked for $2,500 in funding from Congress, though some sources indicate the expedition ultimately cost closer to $50,000. U.S. Army Captain Meriwether Lewis was joined by his friend Captain William Clark and 50 Soldiers and civilians on the journey, including a slave and a female Indian guide named Sacagawea. The team, which Jefferson called the Corps of Discovery, first surveyed the territory that comprised the Louisiana Purchase, a vast expanse that reached as far north as present-day North Dakota, south to the Gulf of Mexico and stopped at the eastern border of Spanish territory in present-day Texas. The team then crossed the Rockies and navigated river routes to the Pacific coast of present-day Oregon. Captains Lewis and Clark helped prepare the template for countless expeditions to the American West led by Army engineer officers. Subsequent expeditions emulated the Corps of Discovery's efforts, not simply to map the West, but to collect information about the peoples, landscape, and flora and fauna.