And in 2010 we care, why?
For the same reason you decided to read this article, I guess.
It’s “what if” history.
Here is a guy whose entire family had anxiety and depression issues. He goes off on the greatest adventure in American history and never shows a single moment of weakness. He comes back, and ends up with a political hand-me job as governor of New Orleans.
His anxiety and depression....along with stupid business dealings....dig him into a deep pit in just a year or two. There’s no doubt over what happened in the final hour of his life. Captain Clark, who had absolute trust and compassion in his associate would have gone after any man alive if there would have been even a mere suggestion of such a crime.
Here’s the “What If” situation. There are two other scenarios which could have played out totally different.
What if....Lewis had turned down the governor’s job and quickly turned back for a second expedition along an entirely different route? He would have stayed busy and kept his problems at bay. He could have gone numerous expeditions and probably lived a long and hearty life.
What if....Lewis had returned to Virginia and wrote the volumes of books on the expedition, and by the 1830s, been elected as President of the United States?
We are left with the only true five-star saga of true American adventure, and Meriwether Lewis as a guy with demons in his mind constantly upon return to real life.
Because someone read "The Navigator"