“Thomas Jefferson’s America, 1801” Stephen Ambrose, in “Thomas Jefferson’s America, 1801”, tells how the third President of the United States [Jefferson] was a creative, innovative, and highly intelligent man. Ambrose exemplifies Jefferson’s ability of mind in the descriptions of him, his colleagues, and things he saw or was a part of. in the text, Ambrose states how Jefferson saw things differently than others; how he wanted to unite the country from coast to coast at nearly any cost. Jefferson thought about many different things and had many preeminent ideas. Ambrose reveals this purpose to explain these aspects of Jefferson through his choices of language, individuals, and events included in the text. Language is a key element in Ambrose’s strategy to develop the reader’s understanding of Thomas Jefferson. When speaking about Jefferson, Ambrose uses …show more content…
Explaining and walking through Jefferson’s motives for doing many of the things he did, Ambrose shows how he wanted readers to see the manifestation of our former president that he had re-created in this excerpt. When Jefferson first saw a hot air balloon, he had an idea of commercial and personal air travel. Jefferson had the idea for a steam powered vehicle decades before the car was even thought of. He Fought for control of the Louisiana territory so as to have a connecting way from the East coast to the West coast of North America and to tighten the hold of the “Empire of Liberty” as Jefferson called the United States. Another instance of Ambrose using events is when he refers back to when Jefferson was elected wartime governor of Virginia. The British had invaded the Carolinas, but Jefferson could not send help because he had spent all the military funding of Virginia on an campaign force to destroy British outposts in the area north of the Ohio River. This almost cost the United States their independence, as Ambrose