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Zebulon Montgomery Pike was an anonymous, twenty-six year-old army lieutenant when General James Wilkinson dispatched him to explore the upper reaches of the Mississippi River in the fall and winter of 1805-1806. When news of this unauthorized expedition reached Washington, Secretary of War Henry Dearborn gave Pike command of a larger team and orders to head West. Pike crossed the Central Plains and the Rockies, in the process traversing the contested boundary of Louisiana. Together with two other men, he made a failed attempt to reach the summit of a mountain that now bears his name (Pike's Peak). By the late winter of 1807 he decided to return, but mistakenly led his men down the Rio Grande into Spanish Texas, where Spanish soldiers intercepted the expedition. After months in detention at Chihahua, Pike and his men finally returned to the United States.
Although Pike kept a log during the expedition, he lost the volume before he returned. When he eventually published an account of his two expeditions, his discussion of the second, longer trip came entirely from his memory.
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