The members of the expedition were certainly running short of cloth shirts by the time they prepared to leave Fort Clatsop in the spring of 1806. Despite the great numbers of shirts they had brought with them and how long an individual shirt could last, their stock must have been low. However, references to cloth shirts continued. When William Bratton complained "of a violent pain in the small of his back" Lewis used "one of our flanel shirts, applyed a bandage of flannel to the part and bathed and rubbed it well with some vollatile linniment which I prepared with sperits of wine, camphor, castile soap and a little laudinum. he felt himself better in the evening." On April 20 William Clark attempted to trade a calico shirt, among other items, for horses the explorers needed. Charbonneau successfully traded a shirt of unspecified type, a "wrapper," plume, and tomahawk for a horse on April 22. The following day Charbonneau traded his own shirt and other items for another horse. As late as May 12, Capt. Lewis recorded that the Indian chief Broken Arm gave Capt. Clark "his [leather] shirt, in return for which we gave him a linin shirt." In his entry, Clark specified that the shirt he received from the chief was leather, that is, made in the Indian form.

Even as Lewis and Clark split their command in early July 1806, there were mentions of cloth shirts. Lewis gave on of his "shirts and a handkerchief to the two Indians whom we met on Collins's Creek and detained some [days?]" and "a shirt and a handkerchief and a small quantity of ammunition to the indians."As late as July 24, 1806, William Clark may still have had cloth shirts. In his journal he wrote of equipping Pvt. Hugh Hall with clothing including "on of my two remaining Shirts." This was the last mention in the journals of cloth shirts brought into the West by the explorers.

On the return journey down the Missouri River in September 1806, the men seemed eager to procure cloth shirts before returning to "civilization." Shirts were some of the first items they traded for with fur trapping and trading expeditions they met coming up the Missouri. On September 6, Sgt. Ordway recorded that he "traded for a hat and Shirt by giveing them beaver Skins, " and on the 12th noted that "Some of our party exchanged robes &C. for Shirts."

-from Chapter Five: "'The Regiment are to put on Clean Linen:' The Expedition's Cloth Shirts"