A Violent and Untimely End for Meriwether Lewis

October 11th, 1809. The crisp autumn day began with a shot. And then another. A rural inn in Tennessee woke to find its infamous guest, Meriwether Lewis, dead. History tells us Lewis, of the legendary exploring duo Lewis & Clark, died of two self-inflicted gunshot wounds—one to the head and the other to the abdomen—along with several lacerations to his extremities. In other words, Lewis committed suicide.

Such an historic fact may not be known by most Americans, but it is well documented in the textbooks. Meriwether Lewis, one of the most heroic names in American history, went to his grave a shameless coward.

Or did he?

Some experts have put forth the theory that Lewis was murdered. Such an end certainly seems more fitting for a man who single handedly tamed the American west. And, of course, today's scandal— and conspiracy theory—hungry public might view such a death with far more interest. Stephen E. Ambrose, in his best selling book Undaunted Courage, even acknowledges the possibility. "There is a considerable literature on the possibility that Lewis did not commit suicide but was murdered. The first to put forth that claim in any detail was Vardis Fisher. Dr. Chuinard has more recently made the same assertion." Ambrose was quick to dismiss the possibility, though. "The literature is not convincing; the detailed refutation by Paul Russell Cutright is."

The evidence would seem to support Ambrose and the suicide theory. Although, certainly there were men with the means and motive to prematurely put Lewis in the grave. Politics, after all, hasn't changed all that much in two hundred years. And as I discovered while researching my latest novel, Cryptid: The Lost Legacy of Lewis & Clark, Lewis's death—whether by suicide or murder—may have had something to do with his field journals. For another little known fact regarding Lewis is the existence of many sizable gaps within his journals that document his experience as the leader of the infamous Corps. of Discovery. Ambrose speaks at length of these gaps, but can offer no resolution to the mystery. "Yet there are long periods—months at a time, nearly a year in one case—for which few and only sporadic journal entries by Lewis are known to exist . . . There is no explanation for the gaps." The matter at this time appears to be wide open for speculation, and thus any conspiracy theorist worth his weight would not be able to resist connecting these two murky facts of history. Certainly I was not able to resist.

Were his journals edited upon his return? Were they censored by the government prior to publication, as are documents sensitive to national security today? Could such censoring explain the eight-year delay in publishing their journals? One can only speculate, and there will always be those who do. Human nature seems compelled to connect such dots when it comes to its heroes and legends.

Either way, by suicide or murder, Lewis still died a violent and untimely death at Grinder's Inn along the Natchez Trace on that October morning. After surviving the perils of the Missouri, the torture of the Bitterroots, a winter on the frigid plains and one on the damp Columbia, and three years among potentially hostile enemy nations, Lewis couldn't survive the deadliest force on earth—the killing hand of man, his own or the malicious hand of another.

Suicide. Murder. The difference is semantics, really. Meriwether Lewis's life was tragically ended by no force of nature but by that of man. And so by his life and death a valuable lesson should be learned by those of us who are blessed by the sacrifice of men and women such as Lewis. Humanity's ability to create, to discover, to learn is rivaled only by its ability and predisposition to enslave, corrupt, and destroy.

So the next time you think of Lewis & Clark and their epic victory over nature, remember too the failure of Lewis's death. The darkness of humanity can only be avoided by remembering its lurking presence so that we might reach out and turn on the light, banishing it to where it's best kept—in the past.