About this episode
Despite Lewis and Clark’s singular fame, Thomas Jefferson never intended their expedition to be the sole U.S. scientific exploration into the country’s new Louisiana Purchase. Just as compelling to him was a second major expedition into the southern reaches of Louisiana, for which he chose two leaders – Thomas Freeman and Peter Custis – who had a similar opportunity to become famous early American explorers into the West. Dispatched up the Red River of the South in 1806 with a bigger party and twice the congressional appropriation of Lewis and Clark, Freeman and Custis suffered a very different fate, one that assigned them to the dustbin of American history and made Jefferson’s “Grand Expedition” a forgotten western story. Thank you to our sponsor Velvet Buck . Subscribe now wherever you listen to podcasts. YouTube , Spotify , Apple , iHeart , Pandora , Amazon . MeatEater on Instagram , Facebook , Twitter , Youtube , and Youtube Clips Check out more MeatEater's American History audio originals " The Long Hunters " and " Mountain Men " Subscribe to The MeatEater Podcast Network on YouTube Shop MeatEater Merch See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.