Patrick Gass received his pay for the Lewis & Clark Expedition in gold, with the promise of future consideration, and went home to his friends in Wellsburg.
Here, he arranged with the Irish schoolmaster, David M'Keehan, for the publication of his journal of the expedition, which appeared early in 1807, thus seven years before that of Lewis and Clark's own narrative was published.
Gass never exchanged the pen, though, for his sword. In the spring of 1807, he was a soldier again. He served for the next four years at the then frontier post of Kaskaskia, Illinois.
Then came the Second War of Independence, the War of 1812. Formal declaration of war was made June 18, 1812, under the administration of James Madison. Shortly before this happened, Gass was at Nashville, Tennessee, where he was drafted into the regiment raised by Andrew Jackson to fight the Creek Indians. Some disturbances had broken out along the frontier.
--Brock-Perry
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