There probably aren't too many Americans over the age of 45 who don't know about Lewis and Clark. I wouldn't count on the younger generations knowing much of anything.
But I admit I never did any deep reading on the pair and their expedition until lately. I just finished Undaunted Courage: Meriwether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson, and the Opening of the American West by Stephen E. Ambrose, the author of D-Day and Band of Brothers.
I would commend the book to anyone who wants to know more about one of the key events in American history and the men who made it possible. This is a well-written, entertaining book by a history professor who doesn't write like one.
Although Ambrose lavishes much praise on William Clark and gives him his fair due, the focus of this book is Meriwether Lewis and, by extension, Thomas Jefferson. By extension, because Lewis was much more like Jefferson's son than he was a mere political compatriot and subordinate officer.
I had no idea Lewis was a manic-depressive alcoholic who committed suicide about three years after returning from his trans-American journey. No one ever told me Lewis did absolutely no work on his journals to ready them for publication. It seemed he did everything he could to avoid working on the journals. We'll never know why.
Regardless of how and when its story came to be published, this monumental journey by the Corps of Discovery, conceived and financed by Jefferson, was possibly the quintessential American act. We have always been a searching, seeking people, pushing toward the far horizon. But not a few of our historic acts of exploration were happy accidents. Columbus out looking for spices in India ends up in the West Indies. The Pilgrims heading for Virginia end up in Massachusetts.
Lewis & Clark were not headed into complete terra incognita, but it wasn't far from it. Few white men had ventured far into Louisiana Territory beyond St. Louis. A few British fur traders, some French Canadians doing the same. Jefferson was very much under the impression--some might say delusion--that an all-water route led from the Mississippi all the way to the Pacific. They knew there were some mountains between the Mississippi and the Pacific, but they were thinking in terms of the old, worn down Appalachians of the East. No one could have conceived of the size and majesty of the Rocky Mountains, or the difficulties involved in crossing them.
You'd have a hard time convincing me the Lewis & Clark Expedition was not the most momentous journey of exploration in American history. I'd think it would rank pretty high in world terms, too.
As Lewis wrote in his journal on August 18, 1805 near the Lemhi Pass in present day Montana, he marked his 31st birthday. His mood was introspective and self-effacing:
"I reflected that I had as yet done little, very little indeed, to further the hapiness of the human race, or to advance the information of the succeeding generation. I viewed with regret the many hours I have spent in indolence, and now soarly feel the want of that information which those hours would have given me had they been judiciously expended."
He need not have worried. What he and Clark accomplished left a permanent mark on this land. American would never be the same again. The real shame is there are no rivers in the West named after the intrepid pair and today's history books barely mention their bravery and accomplishments. Shame on us.
