54mm resin kit. Sculpted by Eduard Perez Delgado. Boxart by Danilo Cartacci. Kit includes: 10 pieces.

William Clark

Who wouldn’t like to undertake the epic voyage, from 1804 to 1806, which saw these young explorers who, leaving from St. Louis, reached the Pacific coast, paving the mythical “Passage to the North-West”?

 Meriwether Lewis, when he was chosen for the expedition, was a captain in the army at the age of 28. He had served in theVirginia militia when President Washington called him up to snuff out the so-called Whiskey Rebellion against the taxes on that liquor in Virginia. He shared command in the Corp of Discovery with his former co-militiaman Clark, a heresy for true military men, and allowed Sergeant Gass to be elected after the death of Sergeant Floyd, a typical militia custom.

Lewis was the most extraordinary member of the expedition and even the most complex. He was a man with serious emotional problems, always on the edge of bouts of depression, but he succeeded to overcome this for a long time with sheer will-power. The dark days of the expedition were probably those in which he wrote nothing in his diary, for no apparent reason. He was used to being the right hand man of the president and he probably missed the educated conversations of the White House, even though he did not have a refined education. This fact is evident in his erratic spelling, even though his style is, as described by several writers, superb. He was the political head of the expedition and probably was never at ease with his men, even though he was proper and polite as was customary of a gentleman from the south. Although we know that the other members of the expedition took advantage of the Indian sexual customs with enthusiasm, he gives the impression that he did not participate. He had a very fiery temper, sustained by the arrogant southern education: he threatened to flatten a village because they had stolen his dog. At the end of the expedition, Jefferson nominated him governor of Louisiana, a serious mistake, since Lewis was not a real politician. He saw himself involved in property and mining speculation and other economic ventures.  He took more to drinking and, due to his malaria, regularly used a mixture of opium and morphine. Used to spending government funds without saving, he borrowed sums of money which he did not have. In the meantime, Madison had become president and Lewis’ bills were not being covered. Financially ruined, in 1809 he left St. Louis to go to Washington: during the trip he tried to commit suicide, but was saved. In the vicinity of present-day Memphis, Tennessee, Lewis tried again, in a tavern, and killed himself.