"The air rifle astonished the crowd.
It was August 31, 1803, and by his own calculations, Meriwether Lewis had made it all of three miles. That morning, he'd finally departed Pittsburgh and started down the Ohio River..."
Fehrman, Craig. The Vast Enterprise: A New History of Lewis & Clark, p. 1.
'...Jefferson described "the object of your mission": "the most direct and practicable water communication across this continent, for the purposes of commerce." It seemed simple enough, but his instructions expanded until they covered a staggering range of tasks. Lewis needed to observe plants and animals, minerals and climate, Native language and Native culture. He needed to take detailed notes and make multiple copies.'
Fehrman, Craig. The Vast Enterprise: A New History of Lewis & Clark, p. 55-56.
Today's Featured Book:
This Vast Enterprise:
A New History of Lewis & Clark
by Craig Fehrman
Genre: Nonfiction
Published: April 21, 2026
Page Count: 544 pages
Summary:
In 1806, when Meriwether Lewis and William Clark return from their journey—having led the Corps of Discovery across eight thousand miles of rapids, mountains, forests, and ravines—they bring an incredible tale starring themselves as courageous explorers, skilled survivalists, underrated scientists, and peaceful ambassadors. While there is truth in those descriptions, there is also distortion.
From one of the most exciting new historians to emerge in the past decade, This Vast Enterprise offers a novel take on the expedition: a gripping narrative that draws on lost documents, stunning analysis, and Native perspectives. Craig Fehrman spent five years visiting more than thirty archives, interviewing more than a hundred sources, and collecting oral history passed down over centuries. He came to see that the success of Lewis and Clark depended on much more than just Lewis and Clark. We all know Sacajawea, and some of us know York, the Black man Clark enslaved. But here we meet John Ordway, a working-class soldier who fought grizzlies and towed the captains’ hulking barge. We hear from Wolf Calf, a Blackfoot teenager who watched his friend die in a battle with Lewis and his men.
Each chapter moves to a different person’s point of view, describing their desires and contradictions. We see Thomas Jefferson operating in an age of bitter partisan unrest—his secret political maneuvers to fund the expedition, revealed here for the first time, are a case study in presidential power. We witness the strategy and strength of Black Buffalo, completely upending our understanding of Lakota-American diplomacy. York, in his chapters, finds ways to wield power and make choices in an era that didn’t allow him much of either. Clark is not a folksy Kentuckian but a student of the Enlightenment. (Fehrman discovered his college notebook; no previous biographer even realized that he went to college.) Lewis is someone willing to sacrifice everything for his country and his mentor, Jefferson.
In the end, the captains are men who needed help—from Sacajawea, from the Corps, and from each other. Mile after mile, the expedition pushes on through hailstorms and flash floods, frostbite and infections, rattlesnakes and rabid wolves, with the Spanish cavalry in fierce pursuit. Fehrman balances the story’s adventure with the humanity of its protagonists. The result is a thrilling reminder that even the most familiar moments in history can still surprise us.
I'm just a few chapters into this book, and already it is captivating.
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