Description: Account of William Clark with Jonathon Clark. [Clark{u2019}s signature removed.].

This collection of William Clark's letters to his brother Jonathan - many published for the first time - reveals important new details about the Lewis and Clark Expedition, Meriwether Lewis's mysterious death, the status of Clark's slave, York, and life in Jeffersonian America.

Description: Letter from William Clark's eldest Jonathan regarding family Christening and William expedition.

Over the course of his career, American explorer William Clark (1770-1838) wrote at least forty-five letters to his older brother Jonathan, including six that were written during the epic Lewis and Clark Expedition. This book publishes many of these letters for the first time, revealing important details about the expedition, the mysterious death of Meriwether Lewis, the status of Clark's slave York (the first African American known to have crossed the continent from coast to coast), and other matters of historical significance. There are letters concerning the establishment of the Corps of Discovery's first winter camp in December 1803, preparations for setting out into the country west of Fort Mandan in 1805, and Clark's 1807 fossil dig at Big Bone Lick, Kentucky. There are also letters about Lewis's disturbed final days that shed light on whether he committed suicide or was murdered. Still other letters chronicle the fate of York after the expedition; we learn the details of Clark and York's falling out and subsequent alienation. Together the letters and the introductions and annotations by James J. Holmberg provide valuable insights into the lives of Lewis and Clark and the world of Jeffersonian America.

Between 1803 and 1806, Meriwether Lewis and William Clark co-captained the most famous expedition in American history. But while Lewis ended his life just three years later, Clark, as the highest-ranking federal official in the West, spent three decades overseeing its consequences: Indian removal and the destruction of Native America. In a rare combination of storytelling and scholarship, bestselling author Landon Y. Jones vividly depicts Clark's life and the dark and bloody ground of America's early West, capturing the qualities of character and courage that made Clark an unequaled leader in America's grander enterprise: the shaping of the West.