While camped at the "Elk Sign" campsite on August 22, 1804, Captains Meriwether Lewis and William Clark acted to replace Sergeant Charles Floyd, who had taken ill and died two days earlier. They called for the Corps of Discovery to vote on Floyd's replacement, and the election of Private Patrick Gass, the first recorded election in the newly acquired Louisiana Purchase, marked a distinct break from military custom. With victory in the War of Independence barely 20 years old, democratic zeal was strong among the expedition's cadre of independent backwoodsmen and its leaders. Patrick Gass had volunteered for the Corps of Discovery over the objections of his superiors while stationed at Fort Kaskaskia in Illinois Territory. At age 33, he was among the expedition's oldest and most veteran members. Meriwether Lewis considered him a man of "capacity, diligence, and integrity." He was also considered a good soldier and a first-rate carpenter, a rare combination on the frontier. Gass kept a journal during the entire journey despite having only nineteen days of schooling. He later settled in Wellsburg, Virginia, now West Virginia, and lived to age 99 as the last surviving member of the Corps of Discovery.