The expedition stopped to build Cantonment Missouri, a winter camp along the river bottom below the bluffs. Abandoning plans to establish more forts upstream, the soldiers settled in for winter. The winter of 1819–20 was very harsh; a shortfall of government contractors left the garrison without sufficient supplies. The soldiers suffered widespread scurvy (due to poor nutrition and lack of vitamin C), which claimed the lives of over 200 of the 1,120 men that first winter. Estimates of the civilian deaths is possibly as high as double the military dead; no records were kept of their losses.