Only one member of the expedition died during the trip.
The Lewis and Clark expedition suffered its first fatality in August 1804, when Sergeant Charles Floyd died near modern day Sioux City, Iowa. Lewis diagnosed him as having “bilious colic,” but historians now believe he suffered from a burst appendix. Over the next two years, the expedition endured everything from dysentery and snakebites to dislocated shoulders and even venereal disease, but amazingly, no one else perished before the explorers returned to St. Louis in September 1806. One of the worst injuries came during the trip home, when an enlisted man accidentally shot Lewis in the buttocks after mistaking him for an elk. Though not seriously wounded, the explorer was forced to spend a few miserable weeks lying on his belly in a canoe while the expedition floated down the Missouri River.
