Note 182 — Chapter XXIV · DESCRIPTION OF FORT CLARKE AND THE ENVIRONS

This was Atkinson's Yellowstone Expedition of 1825. After the Arikkara troubles of 1823, President Monroe appointed General Henry Atkinson and Major Benjamin O'Fallon to conduct a military expedition into the Indian country to overawe the tribesmen, and impress them with the power of the national government. The commissioners left St. Louis in the spring of 1825. Organized at Council Bluffs, the expedition, consisting of nearly five hundred enlisted men, embarked on eight keel-boats, with a cavalry escort by land. They met with no opposition and advanced a hundred and twenty miles above the Yellowstone, reaching Council Bluffs on the return the nineteenth of September. For the official report, see 19 Cong., 1 sess., House Doc. No. 117, in vol. vi. The difficulty with the Crows is described by Washington Irving, Rocky Mountains, i, pp. 216, 217, in which the white renegade Edward Rose figures as the hero who chastised the troublesome chiefs into obedience.—Ed.