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Reviews
The Fate of the Corps: What Became of the Lewis and Clark Explorers after the Expedition
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By Larry E. Morris
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Yale University Press, New Haven, Conn., 2004. Illustrations, notes, bibliography, index, 320 pages. $30.00 cloth.
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Reviewed by John D. W. Guice
University of Southern Mississippi, Hattiesburg
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| It is difficult to imagine a book more appropriately titled or more challenging to organize. Thirty-three people — including Sacagawea, her mixed-blood infant Jean-Baptiste Charbonneau, and William Clark's slave York — comprised the Corps of Discovery. Only Sgt. Charles Floyd died on the expedition. Life for Meriwether Lewis ended just over three years after the Corps returned to St. Louis on September 23, 1906. The last veteran, Patrick Gass, did not die until 1870, when he was almost ninety-nine. I admire Larry E. Morris for accepting the daunting challenge of recording the lives of nearly three dozen people over a span of roughly two-thirds of a century. |
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Morris writes an interesting book by highlighting the most celebrated events during the lives of the veterans of the Corps, rather than by stringing together a series of mini-biographies. He clusters accounts of those men who experienced similar fates or who ended their lives within the same timeframe and injects entertaining miscellany that are not directly related to the ultimate fate of his subjects. |
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Morris opens his book with a recap of the return journey of the Corps, explaining how Lewis and Clark persuaded the Mandan chief, Shekeke, to accompany them so he could confer with President Thomas Jefferson. Many of Morris's stories relate to armed conflicts with Indians that resulted in injuries and death, and others depict careers spent in the mountains as trappers and traders. John Colter's epic race for his life against the Blackfeet provides the centerpiece of one chapter. One of the most ironic accounts is of George Drouillard's murder trial with his fellow explorer, George Shannon, sitting in the jury box. Few readers will be familiar with all of the vignettes that Morris includes, such as the experiences of William Bratton and John Ordway with the horrendous New Madrid earthquakes of 1811–1812. |
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As might be expected, one of Morris's longest chapters deals with the mysterious 1809 death of Meriwether Lewis on the Natchez Trace, the unimproved wilderness trail that connected Natchez on the Mississippi River with Nashville on the Cumberland River. Morris writes as if it is proven fact Lewis killed himself. Indeed, the cause of his death remains a mystery, even if Stephen E. Ambrose and others proclaim otherwise. To Morris's credit, however, he includes a section of documents and bibliography pertaining to the debate over the demise of Lewis in the appendices. |
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In his brief prologue, Morris does an excellent job of placing his work in the context of the six decades that span the careers of the members of the Corps following its arrival back in St. Louis. Following the table of contents is a detailed chronology that begins on August 31, 1803, and ends on April 2, 1870. Appendix 1 contains the vital statistics of the members of the expedition plus a list of the temporary party that returned with the keelboat from Fort Mandan when the others began the trek across the continental divide. Appendix 2 relates to the death of Lewis, and Appendix 3 treats the controversy surrounding the fate of Sacagawea. |
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Though Morris presents his material in a lively, pleasing, and — when appropriate — moving prose, now and then he takes a bit of literary license. For instance, I doubt that any witness ever described exactly what kind of boat Meriwether Lewis took from St. Louis on his final trip down the Mississippi River, that moss draped from the trees up in the hilly section of the Natchez Trace, or that the rustic, rough-hewn Grinder's Stand out in the wilderness where he died in 1809 had a sign at the entrance. Because this reviewer has high praise for the book, he writes the previous sentences with a smile. |
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