“When Jefferson or young Virginians like Lewis and Clark looked at an Indian, they saw a noble savage, ready to be transformed into a civilized citizen. When they looked at a Negro, they saw something less than a human, something more than an animal. Never in their lives did they imagine the possibility of a black man’s becoming a full citizen.”

This quote showcases the profound and tragic limitations of Lewis and Jefferson’s mentalities when it came to race. Their understanding of race could not reflect reality since they had been so irrevocably shaped by the ‘depravity’ of slavery. Even their comparatively charitable view of Indigenous people assumes the superiority of white American culture and assumes that Indigenous people will assimilate into that culture.

“In battle, what cannot be predicted is the enemy’s reaction; in exploration what cannot be predicted is what is around the next bend in the river or on the other side of the hill.”

This quote displays the military mindset that shaped the expedition from the beginning. The expedition birthed, in Ambrose’s words, the wholly American invention of the military naturalist, someone who could engage in battle, then study the battlefield looking for new specimens to record.

“The expedition ran short of, but never out of, many critical items. But when it got home, the expedition had sufficient powder and lead to repeat the journey, and plenty of rifles.”

Jefferson and Lewis did not know what to expect, but they knew that their firepower would be the most effective tool at their disposal. The redundancy in rifles and powder showed the accepted necessity of the deadly tools. The parallel structure of the phrase “short of, but never out of,” emphasizes the importance of good preparation.

“Lewis knew that Clark was competent to the task, that his word was his bond, that his back was steel. Clark knew the same about Lewis. Their trust in each other was complete, even before they took the first step west together.”

This quote shows Lewis’s deep regard for Clark, reflected further in his insistence on Clark’s equal billing as co-captain. Their shared culture also allowed the two men a deeper level of understanding and friendship.

“When they shook hands the Lewis and Clark Expedition began. Each man was about six feet tall and broad-shouldered. Each was rugged in the face, Clark somewhat more so than Lewis, who had a certain delicacy to his face. Their bodies were rawboned and muscled with no fat. Their hands—sunburned, like their faces, even this late in the season—were big, rough, strong, capable, confident.”

This quote represents one of the few physical descriptions of Lewis and Clark in the book. Ambrose uses this passage to point out their similarities, painting them as two of a kind.

“These young heroes were in great shape, strong as bulls, eager to get going, full of energy and testosterone—and bored. So they fought, and drank—and drank, and fought.”

The men of the expedition were chosen for their hearty resilience and strength, but these traits also made them difficult to manage when the expedition was forced to be idle. This trouble foreshadows the issues they would face at future winter camps.

“Do what we say, in other words, or no white man will come to you again, ever. That was an extreme threat, strange as it sounds to modern ears. Without contact with European trade goods, the Otos would suffer a severe setback in their living conditions and would be seriously vulnerable to their neighbors who had access to guns and powder.”

A modern understanding of Indigenous relationships with white people takes the long arc of colonial domination into account, but at this time, proximity and friendly relations with white men was a necessity to survive conflict with other Indigenous groups.

“Put together correctly, and properly organized and labeled, all this information would constitute the first systematic survey of the trans-Mississippi West, and would thus provide an invaluable contribution to the world’s knowledge.”

This quote underlines the momentous achievement even an imperfect survey represented. Americans had little knowledge of the continent west of the Mississippi River. Lewis had a real chance to help Americans understand the potential of the Louisiana Purchase and beyond.

“He was ready, intensely alive. Every nerve ending was sensitive to the slightest change, whether what the eye saw or the skin felt or the ears heard or the tongue tasted or the fingers touched. He had an endearing sense of wonder and awe at the marvels of nature that made him the nearly perfect man to be the first to describe the glories of the American West.”

Lewis was an adept naturalist and in his element while enduring the wilderness and studying it. Later, his failures in politics only highlighted his talents in scientific endeavors and frontier living.

“In choosing the south fork, the captains made their most critical decision yet. It was not quite irrevocable, but, considering the lateness of the season, it was almost so. Not one noncom, not one enlisted man, not Drouillard, presumably not York or Charbonneau or Sacagawea agreed with the decision.”

At this moment in the expedition, the total trust that Lewis and Clark had cultivated was shown in full force. The “not quite irrevocable” decision creates suspense, emphasizing the consequences of mistakes in this unforgiving environment. Even though all the other men thought the captains were wrong, they still followed them willingly.

“Together, under the leadership of the captains, they had become a family. They could recognize one another at night by a cough, or a gesture; they knew one another’s skills, and weaknesses, and habits, and background: who liked salt, who preferred liver, who shot true, got the cooking fires going quickest; where they came from, what their parents were like, what dreams they had.”

Under Lewis’s leadership and the harsh privations of the wilderness, the crew bonded, forming a cohesive unit to stay alive. This unique intimacy was likely a crucial part of Lewis’s good mental health at this time period.

“The captains shared a hubris, that they could handle Indians. They believed they needed Sacagawea’s translating ability only to trade for horses, not to establish contact. And they had no ability whatsoever to see the initial encounter from the Shoshones’ point of view.”

The captains were blinkered by their imperial perspectives, believing, even subconsciously, that their superior intellect could handle negotiating with suspicious, frightened Shoshone. Even when reality contradicted that belief, they still were unable to change it.

“One wonders if Lewis was comparing Sacagawea with the young black female slaves he had known, or with white women of his own class. One wonders too how the man who could be so observant about so many things, including the feelings and point of view of his men, could be so unobservant about Sacagawea’s situation. A slave, one of only two in the party, she was also the only Indian, the only mother, the only woman, the only teen-aged person. Small wonder she kept such a tight grip on her emotions.”

Lewis’s racism frequently prevents him from empathizing with people of color. He was incapable of seeing Sacagawea as a full human like himself, and he thus fails to understand how her dangerous predicament might prevent her from showing vulnerability.

“The biggest change the white man effected among the Shoshones was the introduction of horses, brought to the New World by the Spanish. Next came rifles, provided by the English and French to their trading partners on the Plains, the Blackfeet, Hidatsas, and some others. As Cameahwait so movingly noted, the arms trade with the enemies of the Shoshones put his people at a terrible disadvantage and regulated their lives.”

The Shoshone were uniquely isolated, and so presented a great opportunity for ethnographic observation. However, the influx of Western goods had transformed their material culture and way of life.

“First Sacagawea, now Watkuweis. The expedition owed more to Indian women than either captain ever acknowledged. And the United States owed more to the Nez Perce for their restraint than it ever acknowledged.”

Lewis and Clark’s expedition could not have succeeded without Indigenous benevolence. It’s clear from Ambrose’s account that the expedition would have been wiped out several times over if not for the support, supplies, and good advice of Indigenous peoples along the way. This truth did not fit with Lewis and Clark’s worldview, nor with that of the expanding United States, so they simply ignored it.

“Lewis called them savages, even though they never threatened—much less committed—acts of violence, however great their numerical advantage. Their physical appearance disgusted him. He condemned their petty thievery and sexual morals, and their sharp trading practices.”

In this quote, Ambrose continues the theme of Lewis’s tragic inability to understand or even attempt to understand the Chinook and Clatsop. It’s possible that his mental health had deteriorated at this point, but even minor inconveniences were enough to make him write off an entire race of humans.

“Hypocrisy ran through his Indian policy, as it did through the policies of his predecessors and successors. Join us or get out of the way, the Americans said to the Indians, but in fact the Indians could do neither.”

Jefferson’s understanding of Indigenous people, despite his curiosity, was equally limited. He refused to accept that his policy of American expansion meant land theft and genocide for Indigenous people.

“He had, however, four times lost his temper and twice threatened to kill. His behavior was erratic and threatening to the future of the expedition. There would be other tribes to encounter, other forms of provocation. Lewis would be tested on his self-control, not his strongest character trait.”

At this point on the return journey, Lewis’s mental health was noticeably poor. Likely experiencing bipolar disorder or severe depression, Lewis had to survive the wilderness inside his own mind as well as the real one outside it.

“The Nez Perce had seen white soldiers hungry and fed them; seen them cold and provided fuel; seen them without horses and put them on mounts; seen them confused and provided good advice; seen them make fools of themselves trying to cross mountains ten feet deep in snow and not snickered; seen them lost and guided them.”

Ambrose’s modern perspective sheds light on Lewis and Clark’s obliviousness to Indigenous experience. This passage uses a repeating structure to emphasize that the Nez Perce saw the Americans much more clearly than they saw themselves. Again and again, they see the expeditions vulnerability and respond with aid. The tragic irony here is that the Nez Perce, like many other Indigenous groups, were soon driven from their ancestral lands by the expanding American state that followed in the expedition’s wake.

“The sad news he had to tell could not be helped: it was simple geographical fact. There was no all-water route, or anything close to it, and the Missouri River drainage did not extend beyond forty-nine degrees north latitude.”

Lewis had to break the news that America was much more difficult to navigate from East to West than they had hoped. The results of the natural and geographical survey were a great recompense for this disappointment, however.

“East versus West, technology versus human endeavor, partisanship versus patriotism. These are permanent themes in American politics. Lewis had been private secretary to the president, a Washington insider, He should have protected Jefferson, and his expedition, by providing information and justify the costs.”

Lewis, after leaving the wilderness, found himself in equally threatening territory in Washington. He stumbled when it came to playing the game of partisan politics, showing less skill in manipulation than he did in observing the world and inspiring loyalty in soldiers.

“Lewis was leading a very heady life. At thirty-three, he was the most celebrated man in Philadelphia, a city world-renowned for its celebrated men. He was the protégé of the president. Balls and testimonials were held in his honor, the biggest in the nation’s capital. He had been generously rewarded by Congress, praised by the leading scientists of the day, appointed governor of the biggest territory of the United States, and was the center of attention wherever he went.”

Lewis’s celebrity did not seem to provide him with financial stability, and his mental health was declining. Still a young man, he started to behave erratically at this point, and his attempts to marry were stymied, possibly by said behavior.

“We cannot know. We only know that he was tortured, that his pain was unbearable.”

Ambrose deals with Lewis’s suicide with sympathy. So much remains unknown about the death that Ambrose uses questions as a narrative device when describing the acts that led up to his passing. Since some have questioned whether Lewis’s death was a suicide or a murder, Ambrose uses the passive voice (“was tortured”) to obviate the question: Whether his torturer was himself or someone else, his pain was the same.