I just finished reading ‘Undaunted Courage’ by Stephen Ambrose, and was intrigued (frankly, rather surprised) by learning that Lewis killed himself after several attempts, only four years after returning from his exploration of Louisiana.
The evidence that he was manic-depressive, or at least, a bit off his rocker seemed inconclusive, and Ambrose himself was puzzled by it. Lewis was something of a fuckup after he came back - incredible considering his leadership during the trip. He was incapable of even getting his priceless journals published - a simple matter of hiring an editor, and was mired in debt.
Anyone else familiar with other books on the guy? Do they promote any other theories save he was easily depressed? It doesn’t ring true, given everything the guy went through going west. There seems to be a few theories on murder, but no suspects, and at any rate Jefferson and Clark made no inquiries into the death.
I read that same book, with the same admiration for not only Lewis and Clark but for Ambrose as well. But I found Ambrose’s account of Lewis’ death convincing. True, the only other person around was the landlady of the roadside inn, but her description of Lewis’ behavior just is too bizarre to have been an invention, as I see it. If he was murdered, why not just hide the body somewhere? Who’d ever know?
Ambrose also described Lewis’ erratic behavior during the voyage itself. Apparently, there were long gaps, even months-long, in his journals, presumably because he was too depressed to carry out the duties of the adventure he was leading. Ambrose also described the concern Clark and the others constantly showed him, this in a time when mental illness was poorly understood and rarely discussed. Ambrose also speculated how his absorption in adventure and the overall newness of everything he saw and experienced, along with the responsibilities of command, might have helped Lewis keep some form of self-control even during bouts of depression. The manic periods might even have helped him.
That sounds plausible. Accounts of the expedition I’ve read often mention how Lewis almost never smiled, and how he acted like he was far older than 30 years. There are obviously certain physical symptoms of depression that he wasn’t suffering, namely, hypersomnia, but there are other he was probably suffering. Insomnia would be possible and may even have come in handy out in the wilderness.
In any case, a lot of the positive feedback (not positive in the good sense, positive in the self-reinforcing sense) of depression would have been avoided on the trail. After the expedition, he lived mostly alone and probably went days or weeks without seeing anyone. On the trail, he would never have been lonely. He always had a mission and men depending on him.
The aspect I don’t understand is the manic depression theory. This is mainly because I haven’t seen any evidence of Lewis suffering hypomanic episodes. But then my memory is fuzzy. I kind of pictured him suffering textbook major depression: insomnia, loss of appetite (he was known to refuse his rations, dividing his share among the hungriest men), perhaps some agitation. These things are certainly unpleasant, but none of them would be crippling to a frontiersmen. A light-sleeping, light-eating leader with a paranoid streak might be a good thing, especially if balanced with a lively, gregarious personality like Clark’s.
Meriwether Lewis was killed by federal agens because he had threatened to reveal that the expedition was a hoax. Check out the shadows in his drawing of a grizzly. Portland is a hoax too.