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Book Review
| The Forgotten Expedition, 1804–1805: The Louisiana Purchase Journals of Dunbar and Hunter. By Trey Berry, Pam Beasley, and Jeanne Clements. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2006. xxxvi + 248 pp. Illustrations, notes, bibliography, and index. Cloth $29.95.
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| Of the voyages of discovery that Thomas Jefferson sanctioned to explore the territory purchased from France in 1803, George Hunter and William Dunbar's journey up the Ouachita River to the hot springs in what is now south-central Arkansas was clearly the least eventful. Meriwether Lewis and William Clark crossed the continental divide, making it to the Pacific Ocean and becoming national heroes. Peter Custis and Thomas Freeman got through the Great Raft in the Red River only to be turned around by hostile Spanish troops. Zebulon Pike's party was arrested near Santa Fe and briefly imprisoned in Mexico. So there is good reason that Hunter and Dunbar's effort has been forgotten. But the uneventfulness of their expedition allowed Hunter and Dunbar more time to contemplate the order that the United States would try to impose on the newly acquired land, making this collection of the explorers' daily journals essential reading for those interested in the Louisiana Purchase, westward expansion, and the young republic's conception of itself. |
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