Undaunted Courage by Stephen Ambrose

Meriwether Lewis is the central figure in this book which gives a full account of the famous Lewis and Clark expedition of 1804-1806.  Undaunted Courage by Stephen Ambrose doesn’t skimp on details or personal opinions and has plenty of maps.  Overall, it is a very readable and probably very accurate book though maybe not the best book on the subject.  

Meriwether Lewis was born in 1774 to “one of the distinguished families of Virginia.”  His father died when Lewis was five years old and his mother, a respected and capable woman, remarried a man named Marks.  Lewis maintained ties with all family members although he was out of the house at a fairly young age.  From Ambrose’s choppy description, one gets the picture of Lewis as a restless sort, almost a loner, though maybe just an independent, adventurous type. 

Lewis joined the military and worked his way up through the ranks.  Through his military connections and knowledge of the West, Meriwether Lewis came to Jefferson’s attention and when Jefferson became President, he selected Lewis to be his personal secretary (an “Aid de camp” in Jefferson’s own words).  The fellow Virginians became friends and colleagues.  When President Jefferson finally put into action his plan for exploring the continent west of the Mississippi, he was confident that Meriwether Lewis was his man. 

Lewis was educated but he became much the scholar under Jefferson’s tutelage.  As preparation for the western expedition, Lewis also met with various educated cognoscenti of the day to study astronomy, geography, mineralogy and even pharmaceuticals.  He learned the use of scientific and navigational instruments and mastered botany to the degree that he was able to give detailed descriptions of plants using technical terms.  This complete man was already a skilled horseman, hiker, woodsman, shooter and hunter. 

The main points of the expedition are well-known.  President Thomas Jefferson was keen on exploring the continent beyond the Mississippi and was already making plans for exploration before he purchased the Louisiana tract from the French.  He knew of the potential wealth of the fur trade, the importance of the United States dominating the continent and the value of an all-water route from the Mississippi to the Pacific.  Jefferson was also interested in the geography and flora and fauna of the region, a more personal interest perhaps. 

Lewis and Clark’s party, called the Corps of Discovery, was considered an infantry division of the U.S. military.  Roughly 25 men departed from St. Charles (near St. Louis, MO) in May of 1804 and headed up the Missouri River.  They spent that winter at Fort Mandan and in April of 1805, their real work began.  Just shy of the mouth of the Yellowstone River, Lewis and Clark led their men into territory unknown to the white man.  With that, they unlocked the West for their growing nation and their countrymen.  Although Lewis and Clark found no all-water route to the Pacific, they charted and documented countless features of a huge expanse of land that was or would become the United States. 

After a sojourn at Fort Clatsop on the Columbia River (in the same area where the Astorians would set up camp some 7 years later) the expedition party made its way back east taking a slightly different route.  Lewis headed north to Blackfeet Indian country to explore the Marias River.  Clark took his portion of the party and explored parts of the Yellowstone River.  No lives were lost on this expedition (with the exception of one Sgt. Floyd who was laid to rest before leaving St. Charles).  Lewis and Clark returned to St. Louis and the known U.S. to great fanfare and acclaim.  

We meet some old friends in this book.  First, Sacagawea, the famed female Shoshone Indian who accompanies Lewis and Clark to the Pacific and back, appears in a rather diminished role in Ambrose’s account. I suspect this is an accurate depiction.   Sacagawea is the pregnant teenage wife of Toussaint Charbonneau when the Lewis and Clark party meet up with her.  She had been captured by the Hidatsa Indians along with several other Shoshone teenage girls and it was as a prisoner of the Hidatsa that Charbonneau, a French-speaking Canadian hunter, took her (along with the other girls) for his bride.  

Technically, it was Charbonneau who was hired on as an interpreter though Sacagawea’s Shoshone roots were important; Lewis knew they would have to procure horses from the Shoshone once they crossed the Continental Divide.  But Sacagawea’s translation process was a cumbersome one.  She began in Hidatsa, Charbonneau then translated from Hidatsa to French and a third party, sometimes one Rene Jessaume who was said to speak French badly, took the whole matter from French to English.  Charbonneau, Sacagawea and their little Jean Baptiste were additional mouths to feed and while Sacagawea could gather roots and berries and cook, so could everyone else.  As for Charbonneau, frankly, he seemed a bit of a lay-about.  

Although Charbonneau and Sacagawea were interpreters, that role was more often, and apparently more capably, filled by George Drouillard, a part Shawnee independent hunter and master of Indian sign language.  He was to play a prominent role in the expedition and was recognized by Lewis as an invaluable companion.  For Drouillard, the Lewis and Clark expedition was just the beginning of his western wanderings.  Drouillard was an explorer who covered miles of western territory in the years following the Lewis and Clark expedition.  It was due to his explorations as well as those of his counterpart John Colter that Clark was eventually able to draw up a suitably reliable map of the West.  Drouillard is declared a “mountain man prototype” by Robert Utley in his wonderful book called A Life Wild and Perilous, which gives more information about Drouillard.  

Meriwether Lewis could never find his footing after this tremendous feat of adventure and leadership.  He was named governor of Upper Louisiana by Jefferson but it was a position he never filled adequately.  Neither could Lewis seem to decide among a life of politics, entrepreneurship, marriage and family or bon vivant.  He was never able to bring himself to write up his journals for publication.  He seemed to suffer mightily from the “how-do-I-ever-top-this” syndrome. For two years, out in the middle of nowhere, Lewis had on a daily basis called it as he saw it and had answered to no one. Back in civilization, he seemed unable to find a similar niche that would allow his strengths to flourish.  Just three years after the expedition, he died by his own hand from gunshot wounds in 1809 at age 35.  

Stephen Ambrose is considered a popular historian.  While there’s no shame in that, his writing often lacks heft.  He could be repetitive (same words), redundant (different words but same idea) and sometimes just too informal.  Chapter Sixteen begins like this:  “It was always cold, often brutally cold, sometimes so cold a man’s penis would freeze if he wasn’t quick about it.”  Ambrose went on to discuss Lewis’s weather diary, but Lewis didn’t write that in his diary.  In fact, I can’t imagine the well-bred Lewis writing anything like that.  Later in the book, when Lewis was shot by friendly fire, Ambrose correctly described the shot as going through Lewis’s buttocks.  That lasted for about a paragraph and thereafter when the subject arose it was Captain Meriwether Lewis who had been “shot in the ass.” Lewis is a major figure who changed the landscape of American history.  Enough about his ass already!

In addition, Ambrose often kept the content at the surface level when covering issues that touched on his main subject.  For example, Jefferson and Lewis were frequently referred to as men of the Enlightenment, but Ambrose gave no insight into what that meant. A short chapter on the subject might have helped enhance the narrative a bit.  Similarly, the historical context for the Lewis and Clark expedition could have been more thoroughly discussed.  Ambrose gives us a seven-page overview in Chapter Four entitled ‘Thomas Jefferson’s America.’  Westward expansion and Jefferson’s agricultural vision for the country were not universally popular ideas of the day.  Nor was Jefferson’s purchase of the Louisiana Territory uncontroversial especially in the Federalist Northeast.  Jefferson’s various motives for sending a military unit to explore this western territory at times appeared at cross purposes one with the other.  The historical backdrop for the Lewis and Clark expedition was covered but almost as a sidebar.  More discussion would have given the book added depth.     

On an editorial note, at least a portion of Mr. Ambrose’s final chapter entitled ‘Aftermath’ would have better served the reader as a preface.  In this chapter, Ambrose gives a summary of the Lewis and Clark literature.  Throughout the text, Ambrose frequently referenced some of this literature.  The review would have been helpful as a precursor to understanding just where Ambrose’s book fits in and on which types of sources he was relying.  Ironically, he explains in this chapter that Thwaites--whom he did not frequently reference--is “an American classic” on Lewis and Clark. (Thwaites is Ruben Gold Thwaites, editor of Original Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, 1969.) 

What I did like about this book was the chapter titles.  They included the dates covered in that chapter, a very helpful feature in a book about an expedition that unfolds over a two-year period.  The maps were very good, but they were scattered throughout the text.  Essential maps should be placed on the inside front and back covers of a book so that they can be easily referenced.  Mr. Ambrose’s familiarity with the territory of the expedition gave the book some added color and personality.  Ambrose, who died in 2002, seems to have been a rugged type who enjoyed the great outdoors.  He was a part-time resident of Helena, Montana. 

While this was certainly a good book though maybe not a great one, I might hesitate just a bit before reading another of Stephen Ambrose’s books.  I would choose instead a historian who writes less for the casual reader of history and more for the history aficionado.  As for reading more about Lewis and Clark and Jefferson’s America, there should be no hesitation at all on that score.  What an exciting and defining time in American history.  My choices might be A History of the Lewis and Clark Journals by Paul Cutright,  James Ronda’s Lewis and Clark Among the Indians or maybe Donald Jackson Thomas Jefferson and the Stony Mountains; Exploring the West from Monticello.  

A related topic, fascinating in its own right, is the story of the mountain man’s contribution to America’s westward expansion.  Men like George Drouillard were unique, self-sufficient types whose appetite for adventure, solitude, and physical challenges are undervalued in today’s soft, risk-averse age.  For this topic, do read Utley’s book cited above.  You may also wish to consult the report I wrote in 7^th grade entitled ‘Trappers, Traders and Mountain Men.’😊