The Journals of Lewis and Clark
(Lewis & Clark Expedition) by William
Clark
Excellent!
In 1803, when the United States purchased Louisiana from France, the
great expanse of this new American territory was a blank -- not only on the
map but in our knowledge. President Thomas Jefferson keenly understood
that the course of the nations destiny lay westward and that a national
Voyage of Discovery must be mounted to determine the nature and
accessibility of the frontier. He commissioned his young secretary,
Meriwether Lewis, to lead an intelligence-gathering expedition from the
Missouri River to the northern Pacific coast and back. From 1804 to 1806,
Lewis, accompanied by co-captain William Clark, the Shoshone guide
Sacajawea, and thirty-two men, made the first trek across the Louisiana
Purchase, mapping the rivers as he went, tracing the principal waterways
to the sea, and establishing the American claim to the territories of Idaho,
Washington, and Oregon. together the captains kept a journal, a richly
detailed record of the flora and fauna they sighted, the Indian tribes they

encountered, and the awe-inspiring landscape they traversed, from their
base camp near present-day St. Louis to the mouth of the Columbia River.
In keeping this record they made an incomparable contribution to the
literature of exploration and the writing of natural history. The Journals of
Lewis and Clark, writes Bernard DeVoto, was the first report on the West,
on the United States over the hill and beyond the sunset, on the province
of the American future. There has never been another so excellent or so
influential...It satisfied desire and created desire: the desire of the
westering nation.
Personal Review: The Journals of Lewis and Clark (Lewis &
Clark Expedition) by William Clark
I read books in a wide variety of topics. I decided to read about Lewis and
Clark because I felt I just did not know enough about it and I felt that I
should. When I received the book, I opened it and was fearful that I made
a mistake because it was made up of journal entries, day by day in Lewis
and Clark's own words. I started reading and I found myself immmediately
engrossed in the story. I mean immediately. You can read the letter from
Jefferson containing the instructions and mission of the expedition- just
fascinating. Then you get the story of the expedition, day by day, straight
from the horses' mouth. I could not put this book down. I could not stop
talking about it. I used Google Earth (so cool!!!) to follow the Missouri River
into the Rockies, across the mountains, finally to the Columbia to the
Pacific and then back. Canoeing up rivers, down rivers, fighting bears,
trading and smoking with indians, fighting with some indians, at times
overheated, at times freezing. Surving on the land with strategy and
forethought. I learn an incredible amount of information about that time in
our country's history. I was blown away. And the greatest part, I had to
keep reminding myself of, is that it was absent all of the politically
corrected revisionism we read today. This story is straight from them. They
are sitting down at night and recording what they experienced in 1804
(05-06). Those notes are delivered to you via an author Bernard Devoto
who uses only the most relevant parts of the journals (leaves out the
volumes of strict scientific research data). Then, when he has to make the
occasion insertion of a letter or two to make sure a misspelled word is not
misinterpreted, he gives very clear instruction on how he has denoted the
change. He also, upon occasion will give a summary of events, or a note of
interest.
The end result is a splendid story, rich in historical information, written by
the men who lived it, about one of the most important events in our
country's history. I leave you with this excerpt, logged Sunday August 18th,
1805 by a man who is in the middle of the American West, where no white
man has tread before, trading and smoking with Indians, shooting bear and
deer to survive, canoeing upriver for 2000 miles;
"This day I completed my thirty first year, and conceived that I had in all
human probability now existed about half the period which I am to remain
in this subluminary world. I reflected that I had as yet done but little, very
little indeed, to further the happiness 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..."
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