What do you think?
Rate this book
By His Own Hand?: The Mysterious Death of Meriwether Lewis
For two centuries the question has Was Meriwether Lewis’s death a suicide, an accident, or a homicide? By His Own Hand? is the first book to carefully analyze the evidence and consider the murder-versus-suicide debate within its full historical context. The historian contributors to this volume follow the format of a postmortem court trial, dissecting the case from different perspectives. A documents section permits readers to examine the key written evidence for themselves and reach their own conclusions.
208 pages, Paperback
First published August 21, 2006
3 people are currently reading
61 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
October 12, 2016
(N.b., I'm writing this review on the one hundred seventh anniversary of Meriwether Lewis's death.)
This slim volume (as I believe the correct phrase is) consists of the arguments for (John D. W. Guice) and against (James J. Holmberg) the homicide theory in the death of Meriwether Lewis, supported and surrounded by non-partisan essays and with a selection of the relevant documents (which I personally would find more helpful if they had stuck to transcriptions and not bothered with photographing Lewis' diary and Clark's letters (beautiful handwriting though both of them had).
And the thing we need to talk about is what constitutes evidence of which.
1. Character assessments of Meriwether Lewis and whether he was or was not feeling suicidal when he came to Grinder's Stand are NOT RELEVANT to the question of whether someone murdered him. The fact that William Clark, Lewis's friend and exploration partner, and Thomas Jefferson, Lewis's patron and employer, both felt he was capable of killing himself and were certainly not surprised to learn that he had, while it lends credence to the idea that he might have committed suicide, has nothing to do with whether his death, on the evidence, can be judged self-inflicted or not. Just because he might have killed himself is not proof that someone else didn't beat him to it.
(1.a. Suicidal depression has nothing to do with "character" or "strength of will"; admitting that Lewis was prone to what we today would call clinical depression or major depressive disorder (or, possibly, was bipolar) is not a denigration of him as a person and casts no shadow on his accomplishments. So just leave that strawman out already, okay?)
2. What we have in the way of evidence is a collection of unreliable testimony from eyewitnesses, none of whom saw the shots fired (Lewis was shot twice, once in the head and once in the torso, with his own .69 caliber flintlock pistols; bonus point: a .69 caliber pistol ball is half an inch in diameter), and most of whom weren't there when Lewis received his fatal injuries. The exception is Priscilla Grinder, whose story seems to have changed depending on who she was talking to. Hearsay accounts from Captain Gilbert Russell (especially when he doesn't explain where he's getting his information from) are not evidence. It certainly seems like the 1848 Monument Committee, when they exhumed Lewis's body to rebury him beneath his monument in Hohenwald, Tennessee (milepost 385.9 on the Natchez Trace Parkway), saw something that made them suspicious, since they officially endorsed the murder theory, but they didn't explain themselves, and the National Park Service has steadfastly refused to allow a second exhumation. So that's not actually evidence either.
3. Yes, the Natchez Trace was dangerous. Yes, after dark on a night of the new moon in Tennessee is going to be pitch fucking black and Mrs. Grinder probably couldn't see much of anything happening in the yard beyond the door she refused to open. IF the version of her story in which Lewis wandered pathetically around the yard begging for water is the closest version to the truth. Which seems doubtful. The story she told nearest in time to the actual events, the story relayed by Neelly (who himself seems to have been a somewhat unreliable witness), is much simpler and, by Occam's Razor and what I know of the effects of (1) time on human memory; (2) leading questions from an interlocutor; and (3) the desire of an interview subject to tell a story that will please the interviewer, I suspect that that first version is true--or, at least, as close as we can get:
Could Priscilla Grinder be lying? Yes, of course, although she'd have to bring the servants in on the deal, and Lewis's personal servant John Pernier had no reason to go along with it, especially once he was away from Grinder's Stand. (Pernier did commit suicide--or, at least, Jefferson passed on the story that he committed suicide--in 1810, which might, or might not, be evidence of a guilty conscience.) Could James Neelly be lying? Yes, of course, although he'd have to bring the servants and the Grinders in on it, and that starts getting iffier and iffier as you go.
The case for homicide seems to rest mostly on inconsistencies in the eyewitness testimony and is significantly lacking in both suspects and motive (aside from highway robbery, but none of the evidence really seems to fit that. The case for suicide rests mostly on character testimonials and evidence from people who saw Lewis in the time leading up to his death. It's one of those irritating situations where I agree with Holmberg but find his argument completely unconvincing because he seems to have no ability to understand what constitutes evidence. Guice does a better job, but I'm not persuaded by him, either.
Most likely scenario: Meriwether Lewis, possibly on the downward swing of a bipolar cycle, possibly simply in a suicidal depression (either way, please remember, this is a mental illness; it has nothing to do with either Lewis's character or his situation as viewed rationally), used his .69 caliber flintlocks to kill himself. (I did like the testimony of the gun expert Guice found, who said, "Personally I am doubtful that anyone could shoot himself twice with such a weapon as the learning curve from this type of self-abuse would be quite nearly vertical" (94).) Homicide is less likely, but I could absolutely be convinced with the presentation/discovery of better evidence.
This slim volume (as I believe the correct phrase is) consists of the arguments for (John D. W. Guice) and against (James J. Holmberg) the homicide theory in the death of Meriwether Lewis, supported and surrounded by non-partisan essays and with a selection of the relevant documents (which I personally would find more helpful if they had stuck to transcriptions and not bothered with photographing Lewis' diary and Clark's letters (beautiful handwriting though both of them had).
And the thing we need to talk about is what constitutes evidence of which.
1. Character assessments of Meriwether Lewis and whether he was or was not feeling suicidal when he came to Grinder's Stand are NOT RELEVANT to the question of whether someone murdered him. The fact that William Clark, Lewis's friend and exploration partner, and Thomas Jefferson, Lewis's patron and employer, both felt he was capable of killing himself and were certainly not surprised to learn that he had, while it lends credence to the idea that he might have committed suicide, has nothing to do with whether his death, on the evidence, can be judged self-inflicted or not. Just because he might have killed himself is not proof that someone else didn't beat him to it.
(1.a. Suicidal depression has nothing to do with "character" or "strength of will"; admitting that Lewis was prone to what we today would call clinical depression or major depressive disorder (or, possibly, was bipolar) is not a denigration of him as a person and casts no shadow on his accomplishments. So just leave that strawman out already, okay?)
2. What we have in the way of evidence is a collection of unreliable testimony from eyewitnesses, none of whom saw the shots fired (Lewis was shot twice, once in the head and once in the torso, with his own .69 caliber flintlock pistols; bonus point: a .69 caliber pistol ball is half an inch in diameter), and most of whom weren't there when Lewis received his fatal injuries. The exception is Priscilla Grinder, whose story seems to have changed depending on who she was talking to. Hearsay accounts from Captain Gilbert Russell (especially when he doesn't explain where he's getting his information from) are not evidence. It certainly seems like the 1848 Monument Committee, when they exhumed Lewis's body to rebury him beneath his monument in Hohenwald, Tennessee (milepost 385.9 on the Natchez Trace Parkway), saw something that made them suspicious, since they officially endorsed the murder theory, but they didn't explain themselves, and the National Park Service has steadfastly refused to allow a second exhumation. So that's not actually evidence either.
3. Yes, the Natchez Trace was dangerous. Yes, after dark on a night of the new moon in Tennessee is going to be pitch fucking black and Mrs. Grinder probably couldn't see much of anything happening in the yard beyond the door she refused to open. IF the version of her story in which Lewis wandered pathetically around the yard begging for water is the closest version to the truth. Which seems doubtful. The story she told nearest in time to the actual events, the story relayed by Neelly (who himself seems to have been a somewhat unreliable witness), is much simpler and, by Occam's Razor and what I know of the effects of (1) time on human memory; (2) leading questions from an interlocutor; and (3) the desire of an interview subject to tell a story that will please the interviewer, I suspect that that first version is true--or, at least, as close as we can get:
the woman reports that about three o'clock she heard two pistols fire off in the Governors Room. the servants being awakined by her, came in but too late to save him. he had shot himself in the head with one pistol & a little below the Breast with the other. when his servant came in he says, I have done the business my good servant give me some water. he gave him water, he survived but a short time, I came up some time after, & had him as decently Buried as I could in that place.
(150)
Could Priscilla Grinder be lying? Yes, of course, although she'd have to bring the servants in on the deal, and Lewis's personal servant John Pernier had no reason to go along with it, especially once he was away from Grinder's Stand. (Pernier did commit suicide--or, at least, Jefferson passed on the story that he committed suicide--in 1810, which might, or might not, be evidence of a guilty conscience.) Could James Neelly be lying? Yes, of course, although he'd have to bring the servants and the Grinders in on it, and that starts getting iffier and iffier as you go.
The case for homicide seems to rest mostly on inconsistencies in the eyewitness testimony and is significantly lacking in both suspects and motive (aside from highway robbery, but none of the evidence really seems to fit that. The case for suicide rests mostly on character testimonials and evidence from people who saw Lewis in the time leading up to his death. It's one of those irritating situations where I agree with Holmberg but find his argument completely unconvincing because he seems to have no ability to understand what constitutes evidence. Guice does a better job, but I'm not persuaded by him, either.
Most likely scenario: Meriwether Lewis, possibly on the downward swing of a bipolar cycle, possibly simply in a suicidal depression (either way, please remember, this is a mental illness; it has nothing to do with either Lewis's character or his situation as viewed rationally), used his .69 caliber flintlocks to kill himself. (I did like the testimony of the gun expert Guice found, who said, "Personally I am doubtful that anyone could shoot himself twice with such a weapon as the learning curve from this type of self-abuse would be quite nearly vertical" (94).) Homicide is less likely, but I could absolutely be convinced with the presentation/discovery of better evidence.
June 10, 2018
An excellent exposition for and against the finding of suicide in the Meriwether Lewis death of 1809. Dr. Guice's essay "Why not murder" is the better reasoned and more well written of the two, and did a lot toward convincing me. I know there won't ever be a definitive answer, but it's really interesting reading.
August 3, 2014
I know very little about the life of Meriwether Lewis. All I know about his death came from some "conspiracy theory" show on TV which strongly pushed the idea that he was murdered. I went into this book with that take on events uppermost in my mind.
What I came out of this book with, though, is that the only person that knows the details of how Meriwether Lewis ended up with two .69 calibre pistol balls in his body is Meriwether Lewis. This book really doesn't shed any great light on either the suicide or the murder arguments because no real hard proof exists for either theory. Both arguments are based on nothing but speculation, hearsay, and subjective interpretation of the historical record, which is spotty at best.
Because the circumstances surrounding Lewis's death are really unknown and speculative, this book is also an exercise in speculation. As it became clear to me that no historian can possibly know what really happened on the night of Lewis's death, I found myself paying more attention to the tone of the gentlemen making the arugments in this book. Frankly, this book ended up coming off as a (forgive the phrase) pissing contest between historians who were just as interested in sticking their tongues out at each other as they were in laying out their claims as to how they thought Lewis's death came about. The authors seemed to write this book at each other, not for readers, and boy, at times they really did come off as pompous!
The book did have some merit, to me, though. I am thankful that it pulled me out of the "conspiracy theory" show idea that Lewis was "almost certainly" murdered, and made me realize the truth, which is that no one really knows whose finger(s) were on the triggers of the guns that killed Meriwether Lewis.
What I came out of this book with, though, is that the only person that knows the details of how Meriwether Lewis ended up with two .69 calibre pistol balls in his body is Meriwether Lewis. This book really doesn't shed any great light on either the suicide or the murder arguments because no real hard proof exists for either theory. Both arguments are based on nothing but speculation, hearsay, and subjective interpretation of the historical record, which is spotty at best.
Because the circumstances surrounding Lewis's death are really unknown and speculative, this book is also an exercise in speculation. As it became clear to me that no historian can possibly know what really happened on the night of Lewis's death, I found myself paying more attention to the tone of the gentlemen making the arugments in this book. Frankly, this book ended up coming off as a (forgive the phrase) pissing contest between historians who were just as interested in sticking their tongues out at each other as they were in laying out their claims as to how they thought Lewis's death came about. The authors seemed to write this book at each other, not for readers, and boy, at times they really did come off as pompous!
The book did have some merit, to me, though. I am thankful that it pulled me out of the "conspiracy theory" show idea that Lewis was "almost certainly" murdered, and made me realize the truth, which is that no one really knows whose finger(s) were on the triggers of the guns that killed Meriwether Lewis.
February 15, 2013
This book presents an argument with no hope for resolution. But that's not what makes it good or bad.
The good news: The book stands as a strong reminder that history is not always as cut-and-dried as it is presented; that one weak point begats another ... And that not infrequently a disputed point is repeated often enough that it is taken as fact. I really like the timeline that indicates the published works that have supported suicide, and those that have supported murder, showing something of a seesaw over the years.
The bad news: The opinionated and often poor writing overwhelms any legitimate evidence. One example of just plain sloppiness, which seems to be a big part of this controversy -- neither side can be conclusive, so they seem to throw lots of stuff against the fan -- is comparing Lewis to the death of King Tut. "For hundreds of years people believed King Tut had been murdered by a blow to the head... (until a 2005 CAT scan by Nat Geo indicated otherwise)." Huh. That his tomb was discovered only about 85 years ago kinda weirds out this little factoid.
The good news: The book stands as a strong reminder that history is not always as cut-and-dried as it is presented; that one weak point begats another ... And that not infrequently a disputed point is repeated often enough that it is taken as fact. I really like the timeline that indicates the published works that have supported suicide, and those that have supported murder, showing something of a seesaw over the years.
The bad news: The opinionated and often poor writing overwhelms any legitimate evidence. One example of just plain sloppiness, which seems to be a big part of this controversy -- neither side can be conclusive, so they seem to throw lots of stuff against the fan -- is comparing Lewis to the death of King Tut. "For hundreds of years people believed King Tut had been murdered by a blow to the head... (until a 2005 CAT scan by Nat Geo indicated otherwise)." Huh. That his tomb was discovered only about 85 years ago kinda weirds out this little factoid.
December 22, 2023
I had never read anything on the topic of the death of Meriwether Lewis before this. I had heard that he committed suicide, and I wasn’t aware of any controversy. When I discovered that some people believe he was murdered, I looked for a credible book about the question.
I certainly found it in this book. The format is interesting. First, there is a lengthy introduction introducing the reader to the known facts of the case and some of the arguments for each point of view. Then there is an essay by a historian who believes that Lewis committed suicide. He argues his point convincingly. Then there is an essay by another historian who believes Lewis was murdered. He also argues his point convincingly. Finally, an essay by yet another historian who reviews the important point of each.
I approached this book thinking it would be an introduction to this fascinating historical mystery. But I believe I have gotten all the relevant information available, and there is no need for further reading.
I strongly dislike conspiracy theories. I find that most often, the main “arguments” are actually made up of a scattershot cloud of odd coincidences and contradictions in the accepted narrative. I find that most events can be picked apart this way, but that those unusual circumstances mean very little. This book was not really like that. The authors are intelligent and serious.
Tis book is all one really needs to acquaint oneself with the mystery surrounding the death of Meriwether Lewis.
I certainly found it in this book. The format is interesting. First, there is a lengthy introduction introducing the reader to the known facts of the case and some of the arguments for each point of view. Then there is an essay by a historian who believes that Lewis committed suicide. He argues his point convincingly. Then there is an essay by another historian who believes Lewis was murdered. He also argues his point convincingly. Finally, an essay by yet another historian who reviews the important point of each.
I approached this book thinking it would be an introduction to this fascinating historical mystery. But I believe I have gotten all the relevant information available, and there is no need for further reading.
I strongly dislike conspiracy theories. I find that most often, the main “arguments” are actually made up of a scattershot cloud of odd coincidences and contradictions in the accepted narrative. I find that most events can be picked apart this way, but that those unusual circumstances mean very little. This book was not really like that. The authors are intelligent and serious.
Tis book is all one really needs to acquaint oneself with the mystery surrounding the death of Meriwether Lewis.
October 26, 2022
This book has three sections. The last section should be read first as it gives a report of both arguments. Then the second should be read and lastly the first section. I have decided that Lewis was definitely not well. I suspect the “medicine” he was taking caused his “derangement” as well as some bad actors that drove him to the brink. I think the answer lies somewhere in between the theories posited. I want his bones exhumed and postulated about. It’s fascinating. I loved the handwritten letters at the back of the book. Doesn’t feel like over 200 years ago this took place when you read their handwritten words. Definitely worth a read. Now I’m going to read the fictionalized mysteries about Lewis’ death.
November 30, 2019
A great read on the opposing theories by historians whether Lewis died by murder or by suicide. The author sides with suicide, however, he leaves it to the reader to decide based on the evidence presented on both sides. As the reader, and knowing Lewis' story and what he went through, I side with the theory that in fact, Lewis was not murdered, and that he committed suicide. Then again, the mystery remains unsolved, and so the debate continues.
December 22, 2018
This is a very interesting, non-fiction book. I read it as research for a novel I was working on, and I really enjoyed it.
August 15, 2011
This slim volume is a fascinating book about the historical debate regarding the murky circumstances surrounding the death of Meriwether Lewis.
While the evidence presented (both suggestive of suicide and suggestive of murder) is intriguing, I enjoyed this book almost as much for how it sheds as much light on how history is "made" (kind of like sausage).
I was disappointed the authors never fully explored how our stigma against suicide informs this debate. That so many historians remain passionate about this question indicates (to me) that this field of historical research is influenced by each historian's p.o.v. regarding suicide, in general.
While the evidence presented (both suggestive of suicide and suggestive of murder) is intriguing, I enjoyed this book almost as much for how it sheds as much light on how history is "made" (kind of like sausage).
I was disappointed the authors never fully explored how our stigma against suicide informs this debate. That so many historians remain passionate about this question indicates (to me) that this field of historical research is influenced by each historian's p.o.v. regarding suicide, in general.
July 11, 2010
This book included an introduction to the topic of Meriwether Lewis's mysterious death, a for suicide essay, a for murder essay and a wrap up. I felt that the suicide essay was far stronger. The wrap up did a better job of making me doubt the suicide point of view than the entire pro-murder essay.
October 8, 2012
This book did a great job of rounding up the arguments swirling around the death of Meriwether Lewis. It was academic but accessible to the reader. The wrap up trial was genius. A must read for those interested in the Lewis and Clark story and its aftermath.
June 3, 2013
While traveling the Natchez Trace Parkway, I was taken aback by the obscure burial site of one of our greatest explorers, Meriwether Lewis. It is not even a national monument. Why? It was surmised that he committed suicide. This book presents two sides of conjecture- suicide and the other, murder.
May 7, 2012
All the facts are given and it is up to you to decide. Murder or Suicide!
Murder just doesn't have a case!
Murder just doesn't have a case!
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews