volume v of our series, p. 39, note 9.--ED.
[11] Cap-au-Gris is situated on the Mississippi a few miles above the mouth of Cuivre River. In 1812 Fort Howard was erected near that point, for the protection of the Missouri frontier; its name was in honor of the governor, Benjamin Howard. Fort Howard was a shipping port of some importance until the advent of the railroads into that region, but it now exists only in name. The event here related was an attack upon Fort Howard by Black Hawk and his band, immediately after the siege of Fort Meigs (July, 1813).--ED.
[12] Fort Bellefontaine was established (1805) by General James Wilkinson, governor of Louisiana, on the site of an old Spanish fort named Charles the Prince. It was on the Missouri River, four miles above its junction with the Mississippi, and was occupied by United States troops until the construction of Jefferson Barracks in 1827. For further details, see Thwaites, _Original Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition_, v, p. 392, note 2.--ED.
[13] Thomas McNair was a son of Robert, a blacksmith living at Troy, about eighteen miles west of Cap-au-Gris; and a nephew of Alexander McNair, governor of Missouri (1820-24). The family had emigrated to St. Louis from Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, about 1800.--ED.
[14] As Pattie obtained his discharge in 1813, he must have yielded his command to Lieutenant John McNair, brother of Thomas, who was stationed at Cap-au-Gris during the latter part of the war. See Goodspeed, _History of Lincoln County, Missouri_ (Chicago, 1888), p. 224.
The Sauk and Foxes signed a treaty of peace in May, 1816, wherein they acknowledged the cession of 1804; but the consequent removal across the Mississippi was one of the causes of the Black Hawk War (1832).--ED.
[15] Gasconade River rises in southern Missouri, and flowing northeast empties into the Missouri about a hundred miles above the latter's junction with the Mississippi.--ED.
[16] Newport, now Dundee, is a small town on the Missouri, at the mouth of Buffalo Creek, some sixty miles above St. Louis.--ED.
[17] This was an important place during the fur-trading era. It was more commonly known as Bellevue, and was situated about nine miles above the mouth of the Platte. The first post was established about 1810, and soon passed into the control of the Missouri Fur Company, under Joshua Pilcher--hence the name of Pilcher's Post. For a sketch of Pilcher, see James's _Long's Expedition_, in our volume xiv, p. 269, note 193.--ED.
[18] Chariton was about two hundred and twenty miles up the Missouri, at the mouth of Chariton River. In 1818 the sale of government land began in that region, and the town sprang up with extraordinary rapidity. Many lots in St. Louis were exchanged for lots in Chariton, but the site of the latter is now a farm.--ED.
[19] This was Cabanne's Post, nine or ten miles (by land) above Omaha. It was established about 1822 for the American Fur Company, by J. P. Cabanne. He remained in charge until 1833, and soon thereafter the company moved its trading station to Bellevue.--ED.
[20] Silvester Pratte was born in St. Louis (1799), the son of Bernard Pratte, a partner in the American Fur Company. He did not return from this expedition, but died in New Mexico; see _post_.--ED.
[21] For the early history of Council Bluffs, see Brackenridge's _Journal_, volume vi of our series, p. 78, note 28.--ED.
[22] For Elkhorn River, see James's _Long's Expedition_, in our volume xiv, p. 240, note 182.--ED.
[23] For the Pawnee Indians, consult Brackenridge's _Journal_, in our