Editing Jedediah Smith (section)

==First expedition, grizzly bear attack, and South Pass==
[[File:A rough and tumble with a grizzley.jpg|thumb|180px|left|19th-century depiction of a grizzly bear attack]]

After the campaign, in the fall of 1823, Smith and several other of Ashley's men traveled downriver to [[Fort Kiowa]]. Leaving Fort Kiowa in September, Smith and 10 to 16 men headed west, beginning his first far-western expedition, to make their way overland to the Rocky Mountains.{{sfn|Camp|2013|pp=1–2}}  Smith and his party were the first Euro-Americans to explore the southern [[Black Hills]], in present-day [[South Dakota]] and eastern [[Wyoming]].{{sfn|Camp|2013|p=1}} While looking for the [[Crow people|Crow]] tribe to obtain fresh horses and get westward directions, Smith was attacked by a large [[grizzly bear]]. Smith was tackled to the ground by the grizzly, breaking his ribs. Members of his party witnessed him fight the bear, which ripped open his side with its claws and took his head in its mouth. When the bear retreated, Smith's men ran to help him. They found his scalp and ear ripped off, but he convinced a friend, [[James Clyman|Jim Clyman]], to sew it loosely back on, giving him directions. The trappers fetched water, bound up his broken ribs, and cleaned his wounds.{{sfn|Camp|2013|pp=5–6}} After recuperating from his injuries, Smith wore his hair long to cover the large scar from his eyebrow to his ear.<ref>{{cite book |last=Carter |first=Harvey L. |editor=Leroy R. Hafen |title=Mountain Men and Fur Traders of the Far West – Eighteen Biographical Sketches |chapter=Jedediah Smith |year=1982 |orig-date=1971 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=MAhtZhX6lMEC |isbn=0-8032-7210-3 |publisher=University of Nebraska Press |location=Lincoln |page=94 }} originally published in {{cite book |editor=LeRoy R. Hafen |title=The Mountain men and the fur trade of the Far West: biographical sketches of the participants of scholars of the subject and with introduction by the editor |volume=I-X |location=Glendale, California |publisher=Arthur H. Clark Co |isbn=978-0-8706-2099-7 |oclc=866261673 |date = October 2003}}</ref> The only known portrait of Jedediah Smith, painted after his death in 1831, showed the long hair he wore over the side of his head to hide his scars.

[[File:Crow indians 0013v.jpg|thumb|200px|right|Crow Indians<br />Bodmer (''1840–1843'')]]

The party spent the rest of 1823 wintering in the [[Wind River Basin|Wind River Valley]]. In 1824, Smith sent an expedition to find an expedient route through the Rocky Mountains. Smith was able to retrieve information from Crow natives. When communicating with the Crows, one of Smith's men made a unique map (consisting of buffalo hide and sand), and the Crows were able to show Smith and his men the direction to the South Pass.<ref>{{cite book|last=Bagley |first=Will|title=South Pass: Gateway to a Continent |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=sx9_AwAAQBAJ |publisher=University of Oklahoma Press |location=Norman|isbn=978-0-8061-4511-2|year=2014|page=57}}</ref> Smith and his men crossed through this pass from east to west{{sfn|Morgan|1964|p=92}} and encountered the [[Green River (Colorado River tributary)|Green River]] near the mouth of the [[Big Sandy River (Wyoming)|Big Sandy River]] in what is now Wyoming.{{sfn|Morgan|1964|p=93}} The group broke into two parties—one led by Smith and the other by [[Thomas Fitzpatrick (trapper)|Thomas Fitzpatrick]]—to trap upstream and downstream on the Green.{{sfn|Barbour|2011|p=55}}  The two groups met in July on the [[Sweetwater River (Wyoming)|Sweetwater River]], and it was decided that Fitzpatrick and two others would take the furs and the news of the identification of a feasible highway route through the Rockies{{efn|Whereas South Pass was originally used by emigrants on the [[Oregon Trail]], [[Jim Bridger]] later found what was to become a [[Bridger Pass|shorter route]] for the emigrants over the Rockies, just south of the [[Great Divide Basin]].  Later, the [[Transcontinental Railroad]] and [[Interstate 80]] were routed over the Continental Divide through the Great Divide Basin.}} to Ashley in St. Louis.{{sfn|Barbour|2011|p=56}} Scottish-Canadian trapper [[Robert Stuart (explorer)|Robert Stuart]], employed by [[John Jacob Astor]]'s [[Pacific Fur Company]], had previously discovered the South Pass, in mid-October 1812, while traveling overland to St. Louis from [[Fort Astoria]], but this information was kept secret.{{sfn|Bagley|2014|p=45, 51}}<ref name=Chaffin_2014_p42>{{cite book |last=Chaffin |first= Tom |year=2014| title=Pathfinder: John Charles Frémont and the Course of American Empire |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=mO9IAwAAQBAJ | page=42 |location=Norman |publisher=University of Oklahoma Press|isbn=978-0-8061-4608-9}}</ref>  Smith later wrote a letter to Secretary of War John Eaton in 1830 making the location of the South Pass public information.<ref name=Chaffin_2014_p42/>
Major Henry returned to St. Louis on August 30,{{sfn|Morgan|1964|p=113}} and Ashley began making plans to lead a caravan back to the Rockies to regroup with his men.{{sfn|Morgan|1964|pages=154–55}}  Henry declined to return with Ashley, instead choosing to retire from the fur trade.{{sfn|Morgan|1964|p=154}}

After Fitzpatrick left, Smith and six others, including [[William Sublette]], again crossed South Pass, and in September 1824 encountered a group of [[Iroquois]] freemen trappers who had split off from the [[Hudson's Bay Company]] Snake Country brigade led by [[Alexander Ross (fur trader)|Alexander Ross]]. Smith told the Iroquois they could get better prices for their furs by selling to American traders and accompanied the brigade back to its base at [[Saleesh House|Flathead Post]] in Montana. Smith then accompanied the brigade led by [[Peter Skene Ogden]] back southeast, leaving Flathead Post in December 1824. In April 1825, on the [[Bear River (Great Salt Lake)|Bear River]] in what is now Utah, Smith and his companions split from the brigade and joined a group of Americans that had wintered in the area. In late May 1825, on the [[Weber River]] near present [[Mountain Green, Utah]], 23 freemen trappers deserted from Ogden's brigade, backed up by a group of American trappers led by Johnson Gardner. Several of the deserters were among the Iroquois trappers Smith had assisted in September 1824. Smith may have been present at the confrontation, but the extent of his involvement in the desertion of the freemen, if any, is unclear.<ref>Holloway, Thomas H., "'Now We Go': Snake Country Freemen and the Desertions of May 1825," The Rocky Mountain Fur Trade Journal, Vol. 12 (2018), pp. 37–72.</ref>