Undaunted
Courage:
Meriwether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson,
and the Opening of the American West
by
Stephen E. Ambrose
Book
Description
From
the bestselling author of the definitive book
on D-Day comes the definitive book on the most
momentous expedition in American history and
one of the great adventure stories of all time.
In
1803 President Thomas Jefferson selected his
personal secretary, Captain Meriwether Lewis,
to lead a voyage up the Missouri River to the
Rockies, over the mountains, down the Columbia
River to the Pacific Ocean, and back. Lewis
was the perfect choice. He endured incredible
hardships and saw incredible sights, including
vast herds of buffalo and Indian tribes that
had had no previous contact with white men.
He and his partner, Captain William Clark, made
the first map of the trans-Mississippi West,
provided invaluable scientific data on the flora
and fauna of the Louisiana Purchase territory,
and established the American claim to Oregon,
Washington, and Idaho. Ambrose has pieced together
previously unknown information about weather,
terrain, and medical knowledge at the time to
provide a colorful and realistic backdrop for
the expedition. Lewis saw the North American
continent before any other white man; Ambrose
describes in detail native peoples, weather,
landscape, science, everything the expedition
encountered along the way, through Lewis's eyes.
Lewis
is supported by a rich variety of colorful characters,
first of all Jefferson himself, whose interest
in exploring and acquiring the American West
went back thirty years. Next comes Clark, a
rugged frontiersman whose love for Lewis matched
Jefferson's. There are numerous Indian chiefs,
and Sacagawea, the Indian girl who accompanied
the expedition, along with the French-Indian
hunter Drouillard, the great naturalists of
Philadelphia, the French and Spanish fur traders
of St. Louis, John Quincy Adams, and many more
leading political, scientific, and military
figures of the turn of the century.
This
is a book about a hero. This is a book about
national unity. But it is also a tragedy. When
Lewis returned to Washington in the fall of
1806, he was a national hero. But for Lewis,
the expedition was a failure. Jefferson had
hoped to find an all-water route to the Pacific
with a short hop over the Rockies-Lewis discovered
there was no such passage. Jefferson hoped the
Louisiana Purchase would provide endless land
to support farming-but Lewis discovered that
the Great Plains were too dry. Jefferson hoped
there was a river flowing from Canada into the
Missouri-but Lewis reported there was no such
river, and thus no U.S. claim to the Canadian
prairie. Lewis discovered the Plains Indians
were hostile and would block settlement and
trade up the Missouri. Lewis took to drink,
engaged in land speculation, piled up debts
he could not pay, made jealous political enemies,
and suffered severe depression.
High
adventure, high politics, suspense, drama, and
diplomacy combine with high romance and personal
tragedy to make this outstanding work of scholarship
as readable as a novel.
About
the Author
Stephen
E. Ambrose is the author of numerous books,
including the New York Times bestseller D-Day
and multivolume biographies of Dwight D. Eisenhower
and Richard Nixon. He is the founder of the
Eisenhower Center and of the National D-Day
Museum in New Orleans. He lives in Bay St. Louis,
Mississippi, and Helena, Montana.
Chapter
1 - copyrighted material
Chapter
One: Youth 1774-1792
From
the west-facing window of the rooms in which
Meriwether Lewis was born on August 18, 1774,
one could look out at Rockfish Gap, in the Blue
Ridge Mountains, an opening to the West that
invited exploration. The Virginia Piedmont of
1774 was not the frontier -- that had extended
beyond the Allegheny chain of mountains, and
a cultured plantation life was nearly a generation
old -- but it wasn't far removed. Traces of
the old buffalo trail that led up Rockfish River
to the Gap still remained. Deer were exceedingly
plentiful, black bear common. An exterminating
war was being waged against wolves. Beaver were
on every stream. Flocks of turkeys thronged
the woods. In the fall and spring, ducks and
geese darkened the rivers...
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Reviews
Chapter
1 Book
Description Author
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Editorial
Reviews
From
Publishers Weekly
Ambrose has written prolifically about
men who were larger than life: Dwight
Eisenhower, Richard Nixon, Colonel Custer.
Here he takes on half of the two-headed
hero of American exploration: Meriwether
Lewis. Ambrose, his wife and five children
have followed the footsteps of the Lewis
and Clark expedition for 20 summers, in
the course of which the explorer has become
a friend of the Ambrose family; the author's
affection shines through this narrative.
Meriwether
Lewis, as secretary to Thomas Jefferson
and living in the White House for two
years, got his education by being apprenticed
to a great man. Their friendship is at
the center of this account. Jefferson
hand-picked Lewis for the great cross-country
trek, and Lewis in turn picked William
Clark to accompany him. The two men shook
hands in Clarksville, Ohio, on October
14, 1803, then launched their expedition.
The journals of the expedition, most written
by Clark, are one of the treasures of
American history. Here we learn that the
vital boat is behind schedule; the boat
builder is always drunk, but he's the
only one available. Lewis acts as surveyor,
builder and temperance officer in his
effort to get his boat into the river.
Alcohol continues to cause him problems
both with the men of his expedition and
later, after his triumphant return, in
his own life, which ended in suicide at
the age of 35. Without adding a great
deal to existing accounts, Ambrose uses
his skill with detail and atmosphere to
dust off an icon and put him back on the
trail west. History Book Club main selection;
BOMC split selection; QPB alternate; author
tour.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information,
Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover
edition.
From
School Library Journal
YA?Though principally a biography of Meriwether
Lewis, this narrative also provides fascinating
portraits of Thomas Jefferson and William
Clark, Sacagawea, and other members of
the group of explorers who journeyed from
the Ohio River to the Pacific Ocean in
the years 1803-1806. While scholarly and
well documented, this account is at the
same time a great adventure story, and
Ambrose generates a sense of excitement
and anticipation that mirrors, at least
to some degree, the feelings Lewis and
Clark must have had as they began their
journey. Lewis's intense curiosity about
the world around him, his training as
a naturalist, and his ability to record
what he saw and experienced provide YAs
with a fascinating picture of the American
frontier in the 19th century. The subject's
strengths and weaknesses as a leader are
revealed as he and his loyal followers
meet every kind of challenge in their
search for a navigable water route from
the Mississippi to the Pacific. Ambrose
incorporates recent research and new material
on the expedition into this history, and
includes detailed maps and examples of
Lewis's journal entries. An eminently
readable resource.?Molly Connally, Kings
Park Library, Fairfax County, VA
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information,
Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover
edition.
From
Library Journal
It has been 30 years since the last biography
of Meriwether Lewis (Richard Dillon's
Meriwether Lewis: A Biography, 1965).
Ambrose (history, Univ. of New Orleans),
best known for his histories and biographies
of the 1940-90 period, uses the journals
and documents that have turned up since
then, as well as the traditional sources,
to craft a careful and detailed biography
of Lewis that will stand as the standard
account for some time to come. Ambrose
not only recounts the expedition Lewis
led with Clark but also explains how Lewis
came to head it, how he prepared for this
task, and how his life unfolded after
he returned to Washington and reported
to Jefferson. Specialists will appreciate
this biography, but general readers will
also be enthralled by Ambrose's well-written
account. This book belongs in all libraries.
-Stephen H. Peters, Northern Michigan
Univ. Lib., Marquette
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information,
Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover
edition.
The
New York Times Book Review, Alvin M. Josephy,
Jr.
... a swiftly moving, full-dress treatment
of the expedition.
From
AudioFile
Cotter Smith provides an excellent narration
for Ambrose's absorbing tale of the Lewis
and Clark expedition. Necessarily shortened
in abridgment, the story is no less riveting
and, in fact, moves at a pace that informs
without delving into too much detail.
Smith's steady, clear voice invites the
casual enthusiast. He keeps attention
on the saga while injecting enough personality
to the characters to make them identifiable
as the story progresses. R.F.W. (c)AudioFile,
Portland, Maine --This text refers to
the Audio Cassette edition.
From
Booklist
For decades, biographer Ambrose had nursed
an ambition to chronicle the "Corps
of Discovery," as Lewis and Clark
styled their ventures. Hitherto detained
by opuses on Ike, Nixon, and D-Day, Ambrose
here loosens the reins to his admiration
of the duo's fearlessness and skill in
braving the unknown, an exploration of
which had sunk into obscurity in the 1800s
but has since ascended to iconic status
in American history. Framed as a biography
of Lewis, this work relies heavily on
both Lewis' and Clark's famed journals,
backed up by the author's personal travels
along the Missouri River route from St.
Louis to the Pacific. A stimulating tour
guide, Ambrose paces the mundane so well
with the unusual that readers will be
entranced. Not content as a mere recorder
of deeds, Ambrose often pauses to assess
the military leadership of the explorers,
how they negotiated with the Mandan, Sioux,
or Nez Perce, and what they reported to
Jefferson. Ambrose's epic, a combination
of rhapsody and reality, feels like a
final glimpse at a pristine Eden before
the crowd of trappers and settlers altered
it forever. The book clubs are also agog
over this, so prepare for many requests.
Gilbert Taylor --This text refers to the
Hardcover edition.
Midwest
Book Review
This lively survey of Meriwether Lewis,
Thomas Jefferson and the opening of the
American West is recommended both for
leisure readers of American history and
for students: it presents new scholarship
in its portrait of expedition leader Lewis
and argues that Lewis was a scientist
as well as an explorer whose achievements
deserve more scientific acclaim. --This
text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Review
DAYTON DUNCAN Author of Out West "Stephen
Ambrose had combined his considerable
taslents as an historian with his personal
enthusiasm for the Lewis and Clark expedition
to bring to life one of America's greatest-and
most enigmatic-explorers. Undaunted Courage
puts you in Meriwether Lewis's moccasins,
all the way across the great American
West."
Amazon.com
A biography of Meriwether Lewis that relies
heavily on the journals of both Lewis
and Clark, this book is also backed up
by the author's personal travels along
Lewis and Clark's route to the Pacific.
Ambrose is not content to simply chronicle
the events of the "Corps of Discovery"
as the explorers called their ventures.
He often pauses to assess the military
leadership of Lewis and Clark, how they
negotiated with various native peoples
and what they reported to Jefferson. Though
the expedition failed to find Jefferson's
hoped for water route to the Pacific,
it fired interest among fur traders and
other Americans, changing the face of
the West forever.
Ingram
A definitive chronicle of the more than
two-year journey of Lewis and Clark through
western America describes their epic expedition,
the hardships they faced, their remarkable
discoveries, and the contributions of
their guide, Sacajawea. Reprint. 150,000
first printing. NYT. "
Simon
& Schuster
Undaunted Courage is the story of a heroic
and legendary man, and the saga of a great
nation creating itself. In 1803, President
Thomas Jefferson chose Captain Meriwether
Lewis to lead the first government- backed
exploration of the vast and unknown western
territory of what would become part of
the United States. Lewis was the perfect
choice.
Undaunted
Courage is first and foremost a significant,
scholarly work, yet it reads like an adventure
novel filled with high drama, suspense,
and personal tragedy. It brings to life
the times and circumstances of Meriwether
Lewis and his unprecedented expedition,
and renews our wonder of the vastness
of our country and the heroics of our
forefathers. |
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