It remained to explore the unknown land; and this task fell, not to mere wild hunters, such as those who had first penetrated the wooded wilderness beyond the Alleghanies, but to officers of the regular army, who obeyed the orders of the National Government. Lewis, Clark, and Pike were the pioneers in the exploration of the vast territory the United States had just gained. The names of the Indian fighters, the treaty-makers, the wilderness wanderers, who took the lead in winning and exploring the West, are memorable. More memorable still are the lives and deeds of the settler folk for whom they fought and toiled; for the feats of the leaders were rendered possible only by the lusty and vigorous growth of the young commonwealths built up by the throng of westward-pushing pioneers. The raw, strenuous, eager social life of these early dwellers on the western waters must be studied before it is possible to understand the conditions that determined the continual westward extension of the frontier. Tennessee, during the years immediately preceding her admission to statehood, is especially well worth study, both as a typical frontier community, and because of the opportunity afforded to examine in detail the causes and course of the Indian wars. In this volume I have made use of the material to which reference was made in the first; beside the American State Papers, I have drawn on the Canadian Archives, the Draper Collection, including especially the papers from the Spanish archives, the Robertson MSS., and the Clay MSS. for hitherto unused matter. I have derived much assistance from the various studies and monographs on special phases of Western history; I refer to each in its proper place. I regret that Mr. Stephen B. Weeks' valuable study of the Martin family did not appear in time for me to use it while writing about the little state of Franklin, in my third volume. THEODORE ROOSEVELT. SAGAMORE HILL, LONG ISLAND, _May_, 1896. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. ST. CLAIR'S DEFEAT, 1791 II. MAD ANTHONY WAYNE; AND THE FIGHT OF THE FALLEN TIMBERS, 1792-1795 III. TENNESSEE BECOMES A STATE, 1791-1796 IV. INTRIGUES AND LAND SPECULATIONS--THE TREATIES OF JAY AND PINCKNEY, 1793-1797. V. THE MEN OF THE WESTERN WATERS, 1798-1802 VI. THE PURCHASE OF LOUISIANA; AND BURR'S CONSPIRACY, 1803-1807 VII. THE EXPLORERS OF THE FAR WEST, 1804-1807. APPENDIX INDEX [Illustration: Map Showing the First Explorations of the Great West. Based on a map by G.P. Putnam's Sons, New York and London.] THE WINNING OF THE WEST. CHAPTER I. ST. CLAIR'S DEFEAT, 1791. The Westward March of the Backwoodsman. The backwoods folk, the stark hunters and tree-fellers, and the war-worn regulars who fought beside them in the forest, pushed ever westward the frontier of the Republic. Year after year each group of rough settlers and rough soldiers wrought its part in the great epic of wilderness conquest.