Can't Keep a Good Man Down

On July 18, 1806, on the Yellowstone River near the Stillwater River (today's Columbus, MT), George Gibson suffered severe injury when his horse threw him. The valued private landed on a thick, burned snag that pierced two inches into his thigh.

By the next morning he ached horribly from knee to hip. The men piled skins and blankets on their gentlest horse for him. At first Gibson said he was as comfortable as if lying down, but in only a couple of hours his misery was bad enough that Clark decided Gibson should stay put for a while.

Indians were around the area, and the men didn't know whether they would attack, so Clark left two men with Gibson.

Clark had been planning to build a large canoe for the whole group as soon as they found suitable timber, but this area southwest of future Billings had no large trees. Now, Gibson's injury made a boat even more important.

Clark's group found small trees near today’s Park City, and the captain decided to build two canoes and lash them together. First, they had to find hard enough wood for ax handles, make the handles and attche ax heads. Then they made the canoes.

With Clark’s medical attention, the wound seemed to be healing. On the 24th, the canoes were finished and the party set off downriver. By July 30, Clark reported that Gibson could walk and had just killed a bison.

During their entire trip, members of the Corps suffered illnesses, infections, and injuries from dislocated shoulders and ax gashes to a single gunshot wound, Sacagawea had a recurring illness the journals mention delicately, and her son suffered a bad throat infection when teething. But the only member of the party to die was taken by an illness no doctor on earth then knew how to treat: a ruptured appendix.