(I still want to see the site of the Two Medicine Fight, in which Lewis and his detachment, which had split off from the main party on the return journey, had been forced to kill two Blackfoot warriors the only two Native Americans to die at the expedition's hands. When I stood at Lewis' grave in rural Tennessee, reputedly on the spot where he died, I can't lie. From then on, any Lewis and Clark site had to be seriously out of the way from me to not attempt a visit. I picked up his book, `Out West', a chronicle of his attempt to retrace some of the Lewis and Clark Trail (in a VW bus) at a yard sale and acquired the bug. Actually, I have Dayton Duncan to blame for my infection. More than a few people now living would be tempted to sell their souls for the chance to jump back to 1804 and push off up the Missouri River with the Corps. The journey of the Corps of Discovery, as the expedition was entitled, occupies the emotional center of the history of the West in the same way that the Civil War occupies the specific history of the South.
If you doubt me, watch writer/commenter Dayton Duncan fight back tears as he recounts Meriwether Lewis' heartbreaking demise in Ken Burns' PBS special on Lewis and Clark. In fact, it's still there although it doesn't itch quite as much as it once did. If you have a love of history and the wilderness, and adhere to a certain code, the Lewis and Clark saga can get way under your skin. After Lewis' tragic demise, Wilkinson's men including Major James Neely, Lewis' shady companion during the final leg of his journey, covered up all evidence of murder, took most of Lewis' valuable belongings and incriminating evidence and paid off the owners of the cabin where Lewis had died to keep quiet and repeat the agreed cover story of suicide if anyone ever asks them about it. The book suggests that Lewis had evidence against Wilkinson and that this was the real reason why he had decided to personally travel to Washington by horse in 1809. He was also the first Governor of Louisiana Territory until Lewis took over this duty. army during the first three American Presidents who was discovered after his death to have been a spy for the Spanish Crown.
Lewis and clark corps of discovery gold coin series#
For instance, in one of the first chapters of The Secret History of Twin Peaks, a companion book to the television series Twin Peaks, it's theorized in great semi-fictional detail, some of it based on actual historical facts, that the man behind the conspiracy to murder Meriwether Lewis was none other than General James Wilkinson, commander of the U.S. Examples of this discussion can be found in pop culture as well.
Due to numerous inconsistencies, oddities and lack of hard facts and evidence, the death of Meriwether Lewis became, in time, a topic of great discussion, wild speculation and genuine controversy as more and more people including some historians began to favor the idea that he was in fact murdered.
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