President omas Jefferson was a man with a vision. When serendipity gifted the United States a vast swathe of new and unexplored territory, he immediately sent a handpicked team of soldiers and frontiersmen across the Mississippi and into the void beyond, to explore North America’s longest river, the mysterious Missouri, and push his newborn nation’s horizons as far as they could go.
GO WEST, YOUNG MEN The expedition’s punishing river and mountain journey brought them into contact with many Native American tribes
SUPERSTOCK X1, ALAMY X1
The 35-man expedition was spearheaded by Jefferson’s personal secretary and, besides surviving whatever the wilderness threw at them – including bone-crunching rapids, mountains, grizzly bears and unknown tribes – the explorers had to become cartographers, journalists and scientists on the hoof. Their journey is one of the most celebrated feats of endurance and discovery in the history of the US. Indeed, it was a crucial part of the jigsaw puzzle that pieced the country together in the first place.