Undaunted Courage: The Pioneering First Mission to Explore America's Wild Frontier

One of the leading poets of the time in Washington, Joel Barlow, wrote “a poem of eight stanzas, full of bombast” (422) to celebrate the expedition. In it, he recommended that the Columbia river should be renamed the Lewis. John Quincy Adams wrote a parody of the poem ridiculing Jefferson’s philosophical obsessions and what he perceived of as Lewis’s exaggerations. This parody deflated any real potential in the proposal, and the river remained the Columbia.

Meanwhile, back pay and rewards for Lewis and his men were argued over in the House of Representatives. Lewis spoke in person about the merits of each man on his crew. In the end, Lewis and Clark each received 1600 acres of land in the West as a reward, 320 acres for each man on the crew, and double pay all around. This rich reward was hotly debated, but in the end passed the House. Clark decided to head out to distribute the land grants and rewards, since the men had disbanded along the route from St. Louis to see their families and to take other employment. Lewis would stay behind to oversee the publication of both of their journals.

Lewis, after hearing about the intentions of other men on the crew to publish their accounts for profit, behaved in a perplexingly “cheap, ungrateful” (427) way, protesting publicly that only his work would have the authority and scientific expertise necessary to be accurate, denigrating the work of his men before it was even published. This act was baffling, especially after arguing for rich rewards for the crew at the House of Representatives. It was possible that he hoped for more time to edit his notes, but journals published more quickly would reduce the demand for his own masterwork.

Lewis consoled himself with the company of the Philosophical Society, who praised him for his assiduous preservation of seed samples. They were already able to grow shoots from seeds he collected, and the cuttings he took from plants were taking root, causing a veritable explosion of natural diversity for them to study.

Lewis’s publication endeavor continued as he moved to Philadelphia, taking a room at a boardinghouse to focus fully on preparing his manuscripts. He intended to spend time taking advice from publishers and marketers before heading to St. Louis to write. He composed a formal prospectus, or summary, to send around to newspapers to advertise the coming publication. He envisioned a three volume set of his experiences which would include drawings and engravings as well as the first compilation of the exact latitudes and longitudes of the expedition that he measured along the way. He enlisted Frederick Pursh to help with the botanical descriptions and drawings, and donated the “zoological and ethnological specimens” (433) collected along the way to Peale’s Museum in Independence Hall in Philadelphia in exchange for drawings of each, for publication in the book. Peale also painted Lewis’s portrait and had a wax figure made of him for posterity. Other artists also joined to make portraits of Lewis and Indigenous people for the book.

Lewis was “leading a very heady life” (436) as a celebrity, praised as a phenomenon and honored at numerous dinners and balls. He started drinking heavily and staying out late at taverns with a rougher crowd. Perhaps in search of more stability, he informed Clark in a letter that he was “determined to get a wife” (438). Clark had been married earlier to a woman named Julia, and Lewis wanted to follow his friend’s example.

Lewis headed home to Virginia in hopes of finding a suitable wife from his home region. He pursued a few different women, but his hopes were dashed every time. Compared to his earlier determination and liveliness, in Virginia he “apparently did nothing at all” (440) of any consequence, besides helping his family with some paperwork and writing a proposal for Indian policy for Louisiana. Ambrose offers possible explanations: either “being unlucky in love, or suffering from a manic-depressive psychosis, alcoholism, malaria” (441) or some other condition led him to be despondent and unproductive. There is no explanation for Lewis’s dashed romantic hopes, though it’s possible that his well-recorded drunkenness might have scared off possible romantic partners. Additionally, his appointment as governor meant he would live in St. Louis, a rough frontier outpost, which may have been unappealing to the gentlewomen of Virginia. However, Lewis cared more about publishing his work and shaping the policy of the United States toward Indigenous peoples than he did about making himself a good romantic prospect. After his failure to find a wife, he headed to St. Louis to enact his proposed policies: a trade embargo against the Sioux, hoping to kneecap the British hold on the Indigenous fur trade in the northern plains. He was confident that the Sioux fondness for Western trade goods from America would soon lead to their surrender and agreement to trade exclusively with American posts.

St. Louis was “isolated but vibrant” (445), hosting British, Spanish, and French people as well as Americans and Indigenous people. Huge, luxurious homes contrasted with streets covered in horse manure and air filled with smoke.

Lewis displayed a much more optimistic and energetic outlook, perhaps buoyed by a new mission as governor of Upper Louisiana—a vast territory encompassing much of what would later be termed the American Midwest. He became “extremely active on the Indian front” (450), taking military action against the Osage people, who had stolen clothes and furniture from white frontiersmen and burned their homes. In response, Lewis suspended all trading licenses, a draconian move that sparked protests among the multicultural traders of St. Louis. He then sent Clark up the river with eighty soldiers to set up an American trading post to control all trade in the Osage region.

After these moves, Secretary of War Henry Dearborn “lost all patience with the young hero” (451). He ordered Lewis to wait for permission from the government before deploying any more troops, and Jefferson sent a letter to him with the same warning. He asked about the progress of Lewis’s journals, since he was surprised to hear nothing from the Philadelphia printer who had agreed to typeset the manuscript for printing once Lewis sent it.

However, Lewis had not finalized even one line of the manuscript at this point. He “spent much of his time in the routine business of government” (456) and neglected writing, even refraining from communicating with Jefferson on the issue, perhaps out of embarrassment.

Meanwhile, York, Clark’s enslaved captive, who accompanied him on the expedition, wanted “his freedom as his reward for his services on the expedition” (457). Clark refused wholesale. Lewis convinced him to let York hire himself out for a while, in hopes that he would work for a more severe master and return, chastened, to St. Louis, with more humility. York returned in May 1809, but Clark, finding him “insolent and sulky” (458), beat him to teach him a lesson. The casual cruelty of slavery, and the unthinking superiority of Lewis and Clark, are clear in this anecdote, writes Ambrose. York performed the same duties of any man on the expedition, but his basic right of freedom was denied him because of his race.

Early in 1809, Julia Clark gave birth to a baby boy, whom Clark named Meriwether Lewis Clark after his best friend. Lewis, busy and to all appearances happy, nonetheless had a “dark side to his life” (460). He drank heavily and took opium to deal with lingering malaria. He also stretched himself financially, involving himself in land speculation in the surrounding area.

He had to deal with numerous bureaucratic issues involved in running St. Louis and the surrounding region as governor. Lewis’s official secretary, appointed by the city, Frederick Bates, had been acting governor before Lewis’s arrival. Bates was “an unlikable character” (462) who was jealous of Lewis’s celebrity, believing it undeserved. He also resented Clark’s appointment as Lewis’s agent in government matters, believing that role to rightfully belong to him.

Meanwhile, Lewis’s habit of promising large sums of money to Indigenous people, traders, and frontiersmen in exchange for their cooperation, was catching up with him. At this point, Jefferson had retired, and the new president, James Madison, was unwilling to offer Lewis the same leeway. Additionally, Secretary Bates wrote a letter to the new administration, accusing Lewis of profiting off of the return of the Mandan chief Big White to this people. The Secretary of War sent a letter to Lewis, informing him that a draft he had sent in for $500 to the US government for presents for Indigenous people, for Big White’s journey, would not be honored, and Lewis would be personally responsible for those costs.

Jefferson was also frustrated with Lewis, writing him that “every body is impatient” (467) for his manuscript to be printed.

Lewis never responded to Jefferson, but he protested the Secretary of War’s decision and planned to go to Washington personally to contest it. Clark helped him liquidate some of his assets, including some land warrants, to address his mounting debts from multiple sources. Clark agreed to meet him in Washington, though Lewis would travel by river for speed and Clark over land to visit his brother and help with some of his business matters.

Lewis and Clark parted on September 3rd, with Lewis borrowing money before leaving. Clark wrote to his brother that, while he expected a visit to Washington and some progress with his manuscript would clear up all the money matters and restore Lewis’s peace of mind, “his Crediters all flocking in near the time of his Setting out distressed him much” (470). He asked his brother to keep this letter private to protect Lewis’s reputation.

Accompanied only by his personal valet named John Pernier, Lewis “was in terrible condition” (471). He wrote his last will and testament, and attempted suicide twice while on the boat.

On September 15th, he arrived at present-day Memphis, Tennessee, and met with Captain Gilbert Russell at Fort Pickering. Noting his unstable condition, Russell forbade him alcohol and kept him on suicide watch for five days. Russell asked Major James Neely, Neely’s servant, and Pernier to accompany Lewis overland the rest of the way. They took the Natchez Trace, a relatively safe road with plenty of inns along the way. On October 10th, Neely and Lewis separated after two of their horses strayed. Neely agreed to stay behind to find them, and Lewis would wait for him at the next inn he found. They reached Grinder’s Inn, and Lewis began to display erratic behavior, pacing and “speaking to himself in a violent manner” (473). The servants went to sleep in the barn about two hundred yards away. Lewis continued to pace and talk aloud, frightening the innkeeper, Mrs. Grinder. In the early hours of October 11th, he tried to shoot himself in the head, only grazing his skull. He then shot himself in the chest. Terrified, Mrs. Grinder stayed put while Lewis staggered outside, then inside again, calling for water to clean his wounds. He collapsed on the ground in his room. Mrs. Grinder sent her children out to the barn as soon as she thought he wasn’t going to attack them, and they brought the servants back. When they entered the room, they saw Lewis cutting himself “from head to foot” (475) with his razor. He was still alive, and begged Neely’s servant and Pernier to shoot him in the head to end his pain, promising all his possessions to them if they did. They refused, and shortly after sunrise, Lewis died of his wounds.

Clark got the news of Lewis’s death on October 28th, and wrote to his brother that “the weight of his mind has overcome him” (476). Jefferson found out in November, after Neely’s letter reached him. In public reflections on Lewis, Jefferson extolled Lewis’s virtues while blaming the “hypocondriac affections” (477) of the male line of Lewis’s family.

Some people believed that Lewis did not die by suicide but was in fact murdered, based on his debts and the vague account of Mrs. Grinder and the servants on his death. Ambrose dismisses this theory by pointing out that Lewis’s two closest confidantes, Jefferson and Clark, both immediately considered the suicide “entirely believeable” (477).

Clark resolved to oversee and publish the unfinished manuscripts, to honor his friend and finish his work. He traveled to Philadelphia, where he met with the artists and naturalists who had already agreed to help with descriptions and artwork. There, he also found a writer and academic named Nicholas Biddle. “Biddle was the perfect choice” (479), since he was an accomplished writer and married to an heiress, so he had plenty of free time to dedicate to the task. Finally, in 1814, after many obstacles, the journals were published. The journals sold slowly, enthusiasm for the voyage having dimmed in the years since its occurrence. Later, in 1893, 1904, 1962, and the 1980s, different authors re-edited, annotated, and published versions of the journals. Reuben Gold Thwaite’s 1904 version is celebrated as the best of the reprints, including never-before-seen historical documents and journal entries from some of the other men on the expedition.

Ambrose ends the narrative by discussing Lewis’s virtues and shortcomings. He points out Lewis’s energy, strength, curiosity, observational skills, loyalty, and care for his men. Lewis was a “much-loved commander” (482) and multi-talented man. However, Ambrose admits, “Lewis was a lousy politician” (483). He was intensely partisan, incapable of compromise, and too fond of the privileges and pleasures of high office to control himself the way he so easily could while in the wilderness with his men.

Lewis’s suicide “hurt his reputation”( 484). The stigma attached to the manner of his death made him a footnote to history throughout most of the 1800s. Only the publication of the Thwaites journals was able to revive his reputation to its revered status today. However, Jefferson’s admiration and respect for him is immortalized throughout history. In 1813, after Lewis’s death, Jefferson still insisted in a letter that Lewis was “of courage undaunted, possessing a firmness & perseverance of purpose which nothing but impossibilities could divert from its direction” (484).