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William Clark, Lieutenant card art from Lost Chapters (Emerald, Character)
Card art: William Clark, Lieutenant

William Clark, Lieutenant: Emerald Character

William Clark was a Virginia-born Army officer who co-led the Corps of Discovery with Meriwether Lewis from 1804 to 1806 and drew its maps of the West. The Army commissioned him only as a lieutenant, but Lewis treated him as an equal captain, and he later spent decades in St. Louis as a top federal official for Indian affairs.

Cost
4 crystals
Type
Character · Adventurer
Power / Health
3 / 4
Color
Emerald (Frontier & Explorers)
Rarity
Rare
Set
Liberty & Lightning (Set 1)

While you control Lewis, gets +2/+2 and Explore.

Cartographer extraordinaire whose red hair fascinated natives almost as much as his ability to chart the unknown.

Real history

The real history

William Clark was born on August 1, 1770, in Virginia, the ninth of 10 children. His older brother George Rogers Clark was a Revolutionary War militia commander. When William was 14, the family moved to Kentucky, near Louisville. He joined the Kentucky militia in 1789 and later became a U.S. Army officer. Meriwether Lewis served under him in Ohio, and the two became friends.

In 1803 Lewis invited Clark to share command of the journey west, writing that there was no one he would rather share its dangers and honors with. Both men believed they would be equal captains. Shortly before they left St. Louis, word came that Clark would stay a lieutenant. The men were never told and called him Captain Clark all the way. In 2001, President Bill Clinton promoted him to captain after his death.

On the expedition Clark drew what was then the most accurate map of the West beyond the Missouri River, and his plain, creatively spelled journals kept the record when Lewis stopped writing. The Corps also included York, a man Clark enslaved. York hunted for the party, cared for the sick Sergeant Charles Floyd and helped save Clark, Sacagawea and her baby from a flash flood. Afterward he got none of the double pay and land the other men received, and Clark did not free him until sometime after 1815.

Jefferson made Clark the principal Indian agent for the Louisiana Territory. In 1813 he became governor of the Missouri Territory, and from 1822 he was Superintendent of Indian Affairs in St. Louis. In that work he negotiated treaties in which Native nations gave up land, including an 1825 treaty in which Kanza leaders ceded much of eastern Kansas. Clark died in St. Louis on September 1, 1838.

Sources

  1. William Clark, Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail, National Park Service
  2. William Clark, National Park Service
  3. York, National Park Service
  4. Treaties To Take Indigenous Lands, National Park Service

Checked against these sources on October 2, 2026. Spot a mistake? Report an error. How we check facts.

Game lore (invented)

In the game's story

In the game's invented story, Clark would like it known that the card calling him a lieutenant is technically correct and that it annoys him. In Marginalia the Folio Council hears the story and grants him the rank of captain by royal decree. He draws the best maps the realm has ever had, which the Longroad Lancers carry, and on quiet evenings he has slowly started to talk about York, the enslaved man who made the whole journey with him.

In Lost Chapters' frame story, history's heroes fall into an invented world called Marginalia. That story is fiction; the history on this page is real.

How the card plays

William Clark, Lieutenant costs 4 crystals and is a 3/4 Rare Emerald Adventurer with no keywords of his own. While you control Lewis, he gets +2/+2 and Explore, becoming a 5/6 that only Explore characters can block.

The plan is simple: get Meriwether Lewis, Captain onto the field, then add Clark, or play them on back-to-back turns. Lewis draws a card each time he charges, and Clark turns into a big, hard-to-block attacker for 4 crystals. In a deck led by Amelia Earhart, her passive already gives Adventurers Explore, so Clark can fly over blockers even before Lewis shows up.

Sacagawea, River Guide searches your deck for an Adventurer when she arrives if you control Lewis or Clark. Corps of Discovery also searches for an Adventurer, which can be the missing captain.

  • Playable in decks led by Amelia Earhart, and by any Traveler Leader whose colors include Emerald.
  • In the Earhart starter deck (1 copy). Deck code: LC2-Ax8CIAEhASIBIwIkAiUBJgEnASgCKQEqAisBLAEtAS4BLwEwATEBMgEzATQBNQE2ATcBOAE5AToBOwE8AT0BZQJ0Anuc
  • Works with Meriwether Lewis, Captain; Sacagawea, River Guide.
  • A deck holds up to 3 copies of this card.

Questions about Clark

Was William Clark a captain or a lieutenant?

Officially a lieutenant. The captain's commission Lewis expected for him never came, but the men called him Captain Clark, he shared command equally, and he was promoted to captain after his death, in 2001.

Who was York on the Lewis and Clark Expedition?

York was a man enslaved by William Clark who made the whole journey to the Pacific and back. He hunted, worked and even voted with the Corps in November 1805, but he was denied pay and his freedom when the expedition returned.

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