The biography Undaunted Courage: Meriwether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson, and the Opening of the American West (Simon & Schuster, 1997) is one of the great stories in American history. When Merriwether Lewis and William Clark departed St. Louis in May 1804, on what was called the Corps of Discovery Expedition, they actually failed in their stated purpose. Commissioned by President Thomas Jefferson to find “the most direct and practicable water communication across this continent, for the purposes of commerce,” their two-year journey did not find a contiguous water route across the continent.

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