President Thomas Jefferson conceived the Lewis and Clark Expedition of 1804-06 as an Army mission to explore the West and reach the Pacific Ocean, search for an all-water route across the West, and describe the land acquired in the Louisiana Purchase. Commanded by Captains Meriwether Lewis and William Clark and manned by soldiers recruited from western Army posts, the expedition at first was to have Lewis travel overland to Fort Southwest Point in 1803, recruit his core soldiers there, march west on the Avery Trace to Nashville, take possession of a previously ordered keelboat, and then descend the Cumberland and Ohio rivers, continue to the Mississippi, and go north to the mouth of the Missouri near St. Louis. Lewis instead chose to travel overland to Pittsburgh and descend the Ohio in a keelboat built there, requiring recruits from Fort Southwest Point to join the expedition at Fort Massac near the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers. When Lewis and Clark reached Fort Massac in November 1803 and the recruits had not arrived, Lewis hired local hunter George Drouillard to go to Fort Southwest Point and lead them to the winter camp on the Illinois side of the Mississippi near St. Louis. Drouillard successfully brought eight men to Camp Dubois near the mouth of the Missouri River, and four Fort Southwest Point recruits were selected: Corporal Richard Warfington and Privates Hugh Hall, Thomas P. Howard, and John Potts. All four rendered outstanding service. The three privates joined the Permanent Party that reached the Pacific Ocean in 1805 and returned to St. Louis in 1806. Corporal Warfington commanded the Return Party that went back to St. Louis by keelboat in the spring of 1805 carrying the captains’ journals to that point, a first draft of Clark’s map of the West, plant, animal, and mineral specimens, including live birds and a prairie dog, and 45 Indian chiefs who had accepted an invitation to visit President Jefferson in Washington. After the expedition, all four Southwest Point soldiers received land grants for their service.