Jefferson and the Gun-Men: How the West Was Almost Lost

by M.R. Montgomery

Book Overview

Contrary to popular opinion, the opening of the American frontier was not a simple land purchase; it was actually a hardscrabble fight. Even as Meriwether Lewis and William Clark set out on their... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0517702126
• ISBN13: 9780517702123
• Release Date: July 2000
• Publisher: Crown Publishing Group (NY)
• Length: 333 Pages
• Weight: 4.40 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 6.5" x 9.6"

Customer Reviews

A very entertaining and excellent account

The first thing one notices (as the other critics have stated) is that this book is written as more of a narrative ingested with humor. I found it be a fantastic and witty read which tends to be lacking in most scholastic humdrum drivel. There are some mistakes, but the overall history is there. I believe if more history books were written like this, there would be a lot more people who knew their history. I rank Mr. Montgomery up there with Gore Vidal and Shelby Foote. Excellent work!

History poised on a knife edge

If Aaron Burr had not killed Alexander Hamilton in a duel, Burr might later have become the first sociopath to be elected president of the United States. But, because of this single fatal pistol shot, he had to content himself with conspiring to become Emperor of the American West. He worked with the Commander of the United States Army, General James Wilkinson, a traitor and spy who worked for the Spanish, and with Zebulon Pike (the Pike's Peak or Bust Pike) to amputate the West from the United States.But Burr's timing was awful. During his conspiracy Lewis & Clark led The Corps of Discovery to Astoria, Oregon and back to St Louis, setting in motion a doubling of the size of the United States.Read this fascinating, engrossing story of those times, when it seemed as if the United States might double in size -- or be cut in half.

Jefferson and the Gun-Men

For a ripping-good tale about the turbulent beginning of the 19th century, read this book subtitled How the West was Almost Lost. This is a reference to the conspiracy by Aaron Burr (along with other illuminaries like Commander of the United States Army, James Wilkinson) to build their own empire by splitting off everything west of the Appalachians before seizing French Louisiana and Spanish Mexico. All this is fascinating, but I particularly enjoyed the great summary of the Lewis and Clark expedition. If you want to get someone 'hooked' on the Corp of Discovery, this would be a good book to recommend. Also of interest were uncommon insights into the Presidency of Thomas Jefferson and the military career of western legend, Zebulon Pike.

Delightful, irreverent history

Montgomery's book is a wonderful, delightful history of not only Lewis and Clark, but also the lesser known tale of Zebulon Pike's (ahem) explorations and the maneuverings of General James Wilkinson and Aaron Burr. The book is broken up by date, with each day of the history getting anything from a line to several pages. The whole book is full of humor, and Montgomery's zest for telling the story comes through consistently. This book is highly recommended for anyone who wants an introduction to Lewis and Clark (though at least passing familiarity is suggested) or wants a fresh look at their expedition. This book goes into the kind of details that many other histories ignore. For example, the sex lives of the Corps of Discovery and Aaron Burr's seductions are gone into with some detail. Where Montgomery really hits his stride is in the details of Aaron Burr's plot to make himself Emperor of the American west and James Wilkinson's part in it, as well as the General's bizarre and devious work as a Spanish spy. These divided loyalties are displayed against Lewis and Clark's loyalty to Jefferson and Jefferson's apathy for much of Burr's plot. Filled with lively anectdotes and new insight, and written more like a novel than a history, this is an excellent book on a part of our past that is unknown to far too many people.

A Wild And Woolly Cast Of Characters!

M.R. Montgomery has accomplished a historical coup with this book: He has integrated the story of the Lewis & Clark westward expedition from 1803 through 1806 into a much more interesting story - a conspiracy to sieze the very land they are exploring and meld it into a separate empire!The Author analyzes and interprets both the daily logs and their summaries, corrections, and edits of the main characters and tells the story as it's never been told before. And by writing in the present tense, the author yanks the reader right into the story. The title indicates that this is a book about Jefferson. But Jefferson is not the protagonist - the author keeps him in the background as the story unfolds. Jefferson only sees portions and segments of the sequence of events as they transpire as do all the other characters.To me, this book is like a time machine taking me back to 1803 and putting me above the story watching the characters come on stage, each acting out his (or her) unique role in the story. He puts me on the trail with Lewis and Clark describing their successes, trials and tribulations as they move ever westward. I winter with the men in the Mandan Indian reservation, move out with them in the Spring when the ice breaks on the Missouri and rejoice with them when they find Sacagawea's long lost people - the Shoshones. I agonize with Clark as he attempts to trade for horses after his men have inflated their price by purchasing the favors of the Indian Women.And then the author yanks me back to civilization and puts me inside the heads of Aaron Burr and James Wilkonsin - two of history's most interesting characters who come on stage and conspire to conquer a huge chunk of the territory that Lewis & Clark are exploring. James Wilkinson is a spy for the Spanish Government while Commander of the U.S. Army, and Aaron Burr, the man who shot Hamilton, after nearly stealing the election of 1800, has visions of becoming emperor of a West and a South including Mexico.And then, while Lewis & Clark are moving westward, I am set down with a man I've only known before as the person whom Pike's Peak was named for. But now I'm with him as he carries out the orders of the man he idolizes - General Wilkonsin's orders for finding the headwaters of the Mississippi River and later taking his rag-tag small force on a wild goose chase through what is now Kansas, Texas and New Mexico.This book reads like a novel and I'm sure some of the historians will take issue with Montgomery's interpretations and conclusions. But he has the knack of taking the reader into why and how he interprets the journals and diaries as he does, sometimes even leaving it up to the reader to make the decision about why or how an event happened the way it did.The author shows us the tender side of Clark who develops a love for the young son of "the Indian Woman" (Sacagawea) that lasts a lifetime, and a Lewis, who, even while on the exped