For two centuries the question has persisted: 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.
John D. W. Guice, Professor of History, University of Southern Mississippi, and author of the Foreword, says of Everett Dick's The Dixie Frontier, that "persons interested in the American heritage should read it because it is a 'people' book-one about the daily lives of Southern men, women, and children who pushed into the lands beyond the Appalachian Mountains."
Jay H. Buckley is Associate Professor of History at Brigham Young University, coauthor of
By His Own Hand? The Mysterious Death of Meriwether Lewis, and author of
William Clark: Indian Diplomat. James J. Holmberg is curator of special collections for the Filson Historical Society in Louisville, Kentucky, and editor of Dear Brother: Letters of William Clark to Jonathan Clark. Gary E. Moulton is editor of The Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition. He resides in Lincoln, Nebraska.