Jefferson's America: The President, the Purchase, and the Explorers Who Transformed a Nation

Jefferson's America: The President, the Purchase, and the Explorers Who Transformed a Nation by Julie M. Fenster

THERE IS A RED "CLOSEOUT/REMAINDER" MARK ON THE BOTTOM PAGE EDGES.

At the dawn of the nineteenth century, as Britain, France, Spain, and the United States all jockeyed for control of the vast stretches west of the Mississippi River, the stakes for American expansion were incalculably high. Even after the American purchase of the Louisiana Territory, Spain still coveted that land and was prepared to employ any means to retain it. With war expected at any moment, Jefferson played a game of strategy, putting on the ground the only Americans he could: a cadre of explorers who finally annexed the territory through courageous investigation.

Orchestrating the American push into the continent, Jefferson most famously recruited Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, who led the Corps of Discovery to the Pacific. But at the same time there were other teams doing identical work, in places where it was even more crucial. William Dunbar, George Hunter, Thomas Freeman, Peter Custis, and the dauntless Zebulon Pike -- all were dispatched on urgent missions to map the frontier while keeping up a steady correspondence with Washington about their findings.

But they weren't always well-matched -- not with one another and certainly not against a Spanish army of a thousand soldiers or more. These tensions and perils threatened to undermine Jefferson's goals for the nascent country, leaving the United States in danger of losing its foothold in the West. Deeply researched and thrillingly told, Jefferson's America rediscovers the inspiring and often harrowing action from these seminal expeditions and illuminates the president's vision for a continental America.

THERE IS A RED "CLOSEOUT/REMAINDER" MARK ON THE BOTTOM PAGE EDGES.

Crown Publishers, Hardcover, 1st Edition, 1st Printing, 2016