Dear Brother: Letters of William Clark to Jonathan Clark ed. by James J. Holmberg (review)

BOOK REVIEWS James J. Holmberg,editor. Dear Brother: Letters of William Clark to Jonathan Clark. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002. 311 pp. ISBN: 0300101066 ( paper ),12.60. rthe bicentennial of the Lewis and Clark Corps of Discovery expedition brought forth a fresh outpouring of scholarship, a reinterpretation of the meaning of the expedition in the context of American westward expansion,and a reevaluation of the characters involved in the undertaking. From a Ken Burns documentary and accompanying book to Stephen Ambrose' s New York Times bestselling Undaunted Courage,the expedition and corps have experienced a minirenaissance in the past few years. A common theme in many of the works focuses the attention of readers on Meriwether Lewis as the tragic central, almost heroic and mythical figure, leading the expedition through uncertainty,hardship ,and eventual triumph. Less wellknown is William Clark,the " other" leader of the journey. James Holmberg has partially filled that gap in knowledge with a collection of heretoforeunknown letters. From 1990 to 1998,Holmberg,Curator of Special Collections at the Filson Historical Society in Louisville, Kentucky,edited some fiftyone newlydiscovered letters from explorer William Clark to his oldest brother Jonathan Clark. Discovered in an attic trunk in Louisville in the late 1980s, the correspondence uncovers a previously unseen side of William Clark. In fact, the letters, ranging from 1792 through 1811, proved to be a bonanza. Holmberg's edited volume contains fiftyfive letters, all but four of which came from the Louisville attic . The other four,Holmberg believed,contained enough relevant information that they deserved to be included in this edited collection as well. Some but not all of the letters cover the period of the Lewis and Clark expedition itself,and several letters mention York,Clark' s slave who crossed the continent with the Corps of Discovery. Others detail the more mundane aspects of Clarks' life, and they provide an excellent portrait of a warm and respectful relationship between the brothers. Holmberg organized the book in a chronological and thematic format. The first chapter includes letters from 1792 through the eve of the expedition in 1802, and letters in the following chapter come from the crosscontinental voyage. After that, the chronological organization of the book becomes more thematic. Chapter three,covering the period from 1808 to 1809, consists of letters from the period of Clark' s life that he spent in St. Louis after the expedition. The letters in the next chapter document events in the following year after Clark learned of the death of his close friend and partner Meriwether Lewis. Finally, letters in chapter five covering the period from 1810 through 1811 show how Clark settled into his life as Superintendent of Indian Affairs for the Louisiana Territory and some areas east of the Mississippi. The appendix contains a series of letters from William Clark to other family members that Holmberg included because of their relevance to other correspondence in the edition. The editorial style of Dear Brother makes this an eminently readable volume, of interest to both professional historians and others with an interest in the life of William Clark. Holmberg walked a very fine line between readability and accuracy, and also between simply publishing a collection of documents and providing a usable history. The editing of the letters themselves is very lighthanded , altering the original documents as little as possible, leaving misspellings and miscapitalization of words as they appeared in the originals. Letters appear in their entirety, without regard for what the editor may have found more or less useful, allowing the reader to make those decisions. The book also includes photographic reproductions of three of Clark's letters, giving readers a feel for the original texts and the monumental task that faced Holmberg in reading and interpreting these documents. In the early nineteenth century,spelling and punctuation had not yet been standardized in American English, and Holmberg rightly notes, " Clark had few equals 82 OHIO VALLEY HISTORY in his approach to spelling and capitalization." ( xxi) A number of editorial marks provide a guide when the editor felt it absolutely necessary to make a correction, or when the handwriting or the condition of the document made it impossible to figure out what...