This remarkable expedition of one hundred and seventy men equipped with small arms only, against a force at least five hundred strong, garrisoned and equipped with cannon - this and the culminating assault and brilliant victory that forever dethroned the British power in the northwest made a fitting climax to one of the most romantic chapters of American history. The document known as Bowman's Journal, a daily diary kept by Captain Joseph Bowman, and Clark's Memoir has preserved for us a circumstantial and graphic account of the whole enterprise. The march of "eighty leagues" (the distance actually covered by Clark is estimated by the late Henry Cauthorne, a local authority of Vincennes, as having been from 160 to 170 miles) occupied eighteen days. The bottomless mud of southern Illinois might, of itself, been well considered as impassable by Hamilton, but in addition at least thirteen of those days, as recorded by Bowman, were spent in struggling through water in the form of rain, of rivers to be forded, or of vast shallow lakes of "drowned" country where the men waded for miles, sometimes hip deep. IN one or two instances the water is described as breast deep, and one night the ice formed to the thickness of half an inch, or more. To find spots dry enough for camping places was almost impossible; as said, the troops had no tents to shelter them from the rain, and their clothing must have been saturated, virtually, during the whole expedition, Clark describes their experiences as "incredible hardships far surpassing anything that any of us had ever experienced" - which was certainly saying a great deal. That men could have stood such fatigue and exposure shows a hardihood that is almost unbelievable in a more effeminate generation.