The death of Meriwether Lewis will forever be a mystery… until now. The abrupt death of Lewis was, indeed, a suicide. The suicide was caused by an illness. Meriwether Lewis was an explorer and the Leader of the Corps of Discovery. After he and Clark returned from the expedition with the Corps of Discovery and they were treated like national heroes. Wherever they went, there were parties for them. Plus, they were given very good jobs; Lewis was given the job of Governor of the Upper Louisiana Territory by President Jefferson. Lewis wasn’t so quick to start his new job, for he had many things that were stopping him, including the chance he may have proposed to a woman (if he did, the woman declined, because he never married), he had to publicate journals, he visited people, and he may have attended Aaron Burr’s treason trial. The job was not for him because he was an outdoorsman. On top of that, Secretary Banes was incredibly jealous of Lewis. Lewis was having trouble adjusting, and often went to drinking to solve that problem. It was also said by friends and family that there was a high chance of him having depression. …show more content…
This was because Lewis was having issues with the War Department not giving back money that was borrowed from him and journals from the expedition were not being published, even though they were supposed to. On the way to Washington D.C., Lewis was very ill and acting “strange”. During the journey, he reportedly tried to kill himself twice. While on the Natchez Trace, Major James Neelly had lost a couple of horses, so Lewis and two servants went ahead to an inn. On October 11th, Lewis dies from two self-inflicted gunshot