He was twice prevented from committing suicide during an 1809 journey to Washington, but only a few days later, he was found dead in a cabin along the Natchez Trace with gunshot wounds to the head and chest. The great explorer reportedly suffered from money troubles, drinking too much and struggling as the governor of Louisiana.

Lewis battled depression and mood swings for most of his life, and his condition only worsened after he returned from the transcontinental expedition in 1806. (Credit: Universal History Archive/Getty Images) The lone exception came during the return journey, when Lewis and three of his soldiers engaged in a gun battle with Blackfeet Indians that left two natives dead. Despite being armed to the teeth, most of the explorers never had to use their weapons in combat. After pumping compressed air into the gunвЂ™s stock, he could fire some 20 shots-each of them almost completely silent. Lewis also had a state-of-the-art pneumatic rifle he used to impress Indian tribes on the frontier. It included an assortment of pikes, tomahawks and knives as well as several rifles and muskets, 200 pounds of gunpowder and over 400 pounds of lead for bullets. The Corps of Discovery carried one of the largest arsenals ever taken west of the Mississippi. Lewis and ClarkвЂ™s arsenal included 200 pounds of gunpowder and an experimental air rifle. Ambrose later noted, this simple show of hands may have marked the first time in American history a black man and a woman were given the vote. When the explorers later voted on where to place their winter camp in 1805, he and the Shoshone interpreter Sacagawea were both allowed to participate. Louis to the Pacific and back, and became a valued member of the expedition for his skills as a hunter.

Though not an official member of the Corps of Discovery, York made the entire journey from St. The Arikara people of North Dakota even referred to York as вЂњBig MedicineвЂќ and speculated that he had spiritual powers. The tall manservant was a hit with frontier tribes, many of whom had never seen a person with dark skin. Luckily for Lewis and Clark, the hostile search parties failed to locate them in the vastness of the frontier.ДЎ996 Researchers claim to have found signs of Martian life in Antarctic meteoriteДЄlong with more than two-dozen enlisted men and officers, the Corps of Discovery also included ClarkвЂ™s personal slave, York. Army General James Wilkinson-a Spanish spy-the governor of New Mexico dispatched four different groups of Spanish soldiers and Comanche Indians to intercept the explorers and bring them back in chains. That was distressing news for the Spanish, who feared the expedition might lead to the seizure of their gold-rich territories in the Southwest. Jefferson often described Lewis and ClarkвЂ™s expedition as a scientific mission to study the lands acquired in the 1803 Louisiana Purchase, but the explorersвЂ™ central goal was to find a water route to the Pacific, which would increase trade opportunities and help solidify an American claim on the far Northwest. The Spanish sent soldiers to arrest the expedition. The expedition failed to sight any of the long-extinct creatures, but Lewis did describe 178 previously unknown species of plants and 122 new animals including coyotes, mountain beavers and grizzly bears. Even Thomas Jefferson, whoвЂ™d amassed a small library of books on the frontier, was convinced the explorers might have run-ins with mountains of salt, a race of Welsh-speaking Indians and even herds of wooly mammoths and giant ground sloths. (Credit: Royal BC Museum, Victoria, British Columbia)Д«efore Lewis and Clark completed their expedition, Americans could only speculate on what lurked in the uncharted territories beyond the Rocky Mountains.

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