Captain William Clark

William Clark, born 1 August, 1770 to a modest but accomplished and fiercely patriotic Virginia family, began his military career at 19 in the Kentucky militia and later served as a lieutenant in the Regular Army in the Old North-West, where he learned to build forts, draw maps, lead pack trains through enemy country, and fight Indians on their ground. By 1795 he had risen on merit to captain in command of a small frontier post, where he formed a friendship with Ensign Meriwether Lewis that later became one of the most successful military collaborations in history. After the 1803 acquisition of the Louisiana Territory, President Jefferson and Captain Lewis planned an expedition to explore the key geographic and economic features of the new American frontier, and Lewis recruited Clark, then in private life, to serve as co-leader of the Corps of Discovery with a commission as a Volunteer Captain. Clark helped recruit soldiers and complete preparations, and his physical strength, practical frontier skills, optimistic and charismatic leadership, keen intellect, and self-taught cartography proved invaluable to the mission's success. His mapping secured the expedition's passage and produced the first accurate map of the Missouri and Columbia river systems, opening the continental interior to settlement. He later held a distinguished military and civil career as Brigadier General of Militia, Governor of the Missouri Territory, and Superintendent of Indian Affairs, where he was a tireless and respected advocate for Native Americans, and he died in September 1838 after helping transform the wilderness he explored into a United States stretching from the Atlantic to the Pacific.

Leavenworth, Kansas · United States