Undaunted Courage Meriwether Lewis Thomas Jefferson and the Opening of the American West

At the University of Wisconsin in the 1950s, Stephen Ambrose played football as a Badger for three years. He was a left guard on offense and a middle linebacker on defense, and had he been just 10 pounds heavier, he would have taken a shot at the pros. Instead, his life took an entirely different course.

Soon after completing both his undergraduate and graduate studies at the University of Wisconsin (which earned him a Ph.D. in history), Stephen Ambrose, a native of Illinois, had his first book published. A biography of Army General Henry W. Halleck, it was published by Louisiana State University Press in 1962 with a first printing of fewer than 1,000 copies. At least one copy must have been purchased, as he received a phone call from a fan, President Dwight D. Eisenhower. Eisenhower had read Halleck: Lincoln's Chief of Staff, and was impressed. The Supreme Commander of Allied Forces in Europe during World War II, and the two-term president of the United States offered Ambrose (then age twenty-eight) an opportunity to assist in the editing of his papers, and ultimately, to write an authorized biography of the president. Needless to say he accepted the assignment. It was this event that would shape his career as a writer.

Ambrose's first biography of President Eisenhower, The Supreme Commander: The War Years of General Dwight D. Eisenhower, appeared in 1970, the same year he became a full professor at the University of New Orleans. He would go on to write three more biographies of Eisenhower, all of which met with widespread acclaim.

After publishing the series of books on Eisenhower, the subject of his next series of biographies was suggested to Ambrose by his editor, Alice E. Mayhew. Ambrose did not have the same relationship with Richard Nixon as he did with Eisenhower, but he was challenged by the writing project Ms. Mayhew put before him. In 1987, Nixon, The Education of a Politician was published. Although he admits to never liking President Nixon, after writing two more books on this president, he grew to admire and respect him. In fact, Ambrose didn't even meet President Nixon until after the series was in print. This series of books, too, were celebrated with critical acclaim.

Ambrose's desire to write on Lewis and Clark began in the mid 1970s. In the summer of 1976, to celebrate the bicentennial of the United States, Stephen Ambrose, his wife and their five children, traveled the Lemhi Pass in the Rocky Mountains, where Meriwether Lewis was the first nonnative American to cross the Continental Divide in August 1805. On this trip, Stephen and his wife took turns reading to their children from the diaries of Lewis and Clark. Being so moved by this uniquely American experience, his family has repeated it every summer since -- visiting Montana, Idaho, Oregon, Kansas, or the Dakotas, and following some piece of the trail. The family has canoed more than 165 miles down the Missouri, backpacked and horse- backed along the Lolo Trail, and turned in at night at various Lewis and Clark campsites. After the publication of D-Day: June 6, 1944, Ambrose began to focus all of his attention of what would become Undaunted Courage: Meriwether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson, and the Opening of the American West.

Stephen Ambrose, now a retired professor from the University of New Orleans, lives in the Old South community of Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, in his home, Merry Weather. He also maintains a home in Helena, Montana, along the trail of Lewis and Clark.

OTHER WORKS BY STEPHEN E. AMBROSE:

• Halleck: Lincoln's Chief of Staff

• Crazy Horse and Custer: The Parallel Lives of
  Two American Warriors

• The Supreme Commander: The War Years of
  General Dwight D. Eisenhower

• Eisenhower: The President

• Nixon: Ruin and Recovery

• Band of Brothers

• D-Day: June 6, 1944: The Climactic Battle
  of WorId War II

Reading Group Discussion Points
Other Books With Reading Group Guides

Contents

INTRODUCTION

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

1 Youth 1774-1792
2 Planter 1792-1794
3 Soldier 1794-1800
4 Thomas Jefferson's America 1801
5 The President's Secretary 1801-1802
6 The Origins of the Expedition 1750-1802
7 Preparing for the Expedition
January-June 1803
8 Washington to Pittsburgh
June-August 1803
9 Down the Ohio
September-November 1803
10 Up the Mississippi to Winter Camp
November 1803-March 1804
11 Ready to Depart
April-May 21, 1804
12 Up the Missouri
May-July 1804
13 Entering Indian Country
August 1804
14 Encounter with the Sioux
September 1804
15 To the Mandans
Fall 1804
16 Winter at Fort Mandan
December 21, 1804-March 21, 1805
17 Report from Fort Mandan
March 22-April 6, 1805
18 From Fort Mandan to Marias River
April 7-June 2, 1805
19 From Marias River to the Great Falls
June 3-June 20, 1805
20 The Great Portage
June 16-July 14, 805
21 Looking for the Shoshones
July 15-August 12, 1805
22 Over the Continental Divide
August 13-August 31, 1805
23 Lewis as Ethnographer: The Shoshones
24 Over the Bitterroots
September 1-October 6, 1805
25 Down the Columbia
October 8-December 7, 1805
26 Fort Clatsop
December 8, 1805-March 23, 1806
27 Lewis as Ethnographer: The
Clatsops and the Chinooks
28 Jefferson and the West
1804-1806
29 Return to the Nez Percé
March 23-June 9, 1806
30 The Lolo Trail
June I O-July 2, 1806
31 The Marias Exploration
July 3-July 28, 1806
32 The Last Leg
July 29-September 22, 1806
33 Reporting to the President
September 23-December 31, 1806
34 Washington
January-March 1807
35 Philadelphia
April-July 1807
36 Virginia
August 1806-March 1807
37 St. Louis
March-December 1808
38 St. Louis
January-August 1809
39 Last Voyage
September 3-October 11, 1809
40 Aftermath

NOTES

BIBLIOGRAPHY

INDEX

MAPS

The Lewis and Clark Expedition
Up the Missouri
Headwaters of the Missouri
Crossing the Bitterroot Mountains
Exploring the Mouth of the Columbia
Traveler's Rest

The New copy of this book will include any supplemental materials advertised. Please check the title of the book to determine if it should include any access cards, study guides, lab manuals, CDs, etc.

The Used, Rental and eBook copies of this book are not guaranteed to include any supplemental materials. Typically, only the book itself is included. This is true even if the title states it includes any access cards, study guides, lab manuals, CDs, etc.