The paddle wheel was placed in the stern, the steam engine hidden below the waterline, the vessel was heavily armed and had acquired a peculiar appearance intended to inspire fear and awe among the Plains Indians.

The paddle wheel was placed in the stern, the steam engine hidden below the waterline, the vessel was heavily armed and had acquired a peculiar appearance intended to inspire fear and awe among the Plains Indians.

Dr. William Baldwin was surgeon and botanist, Augustus E. Jessup geologist, Thomas Say zoologist, Titian Peale assistant naturalist, and Samuel Seymour illustrator.

Of the military men in the scientific component, Major Thomas Biddle was official diarist while Lieutenant James Duncan Graham and Cadet William Swift were assistant topographers.

With scholars, officers and artillerists aboard and followed by keelboats with troops from the 6th U.S. Infantry, it took her 36 days down the Ohio and up the Mississippi.

Going upriver on the Missouri the small Western Engineer was slowed by strong counter-currents and hindered by sandbars and log jams of driftwood.

In the spring of 1820, Major Long therefore handed over the command of the Western Engineer to Lieutenant Graham and ordered him to proceed to Saint Louis.

[13] After arriving at Saint Louis, Lieutenant Graham then followed orders and took the Western Engineer on her fourth voyage; up the Mississippi to the Des Moines Rapids and then down to Cape Girardeau, while charting the course of the river.