The entries of October 26, 1804, mark the Corps of Discovery’s approach to the Mandan villages near present-day Washburn, North Dakota — the complex of earth-lodge towns where the expedition would spend the winter of 1804–1805. Two sergeants, John Ordway and Patrick Gass, recorded the day’s events. Read side by side, their journals reveal both the collaborative texture of expedition record-keeping and the small but telling differences in what each man chose to preserve.
Parallel Phrasing, Shared Observation
The opening lines of both entries are nearly identical in structure. Ordway notes a large willow Bottom on S. S. high land on N. S.,
while Gass writes that the party passed a large Willow bottom on the south and high land on the north side.
Both men then describe the 10 o’clock halt at a Mandan hunting camp:
we halted at a hunting camp of the Mandens, consisting of men women and children, here we found an Irishman who was here tradeing with them from the N. W. Company of Traders. (Ordway)
we came to a hunting party of the Mandans, consisting of men, women and children. There was an Irishman with them, who had come from the North West company of traders. (Gass)
The convergence is striking. Both sergeants use the phrase consisting of men, women and children,
both identify the trader’s nationality and corporate affiliation, and both record the one-hour halt. This kind of overlap is common in the enlisted journals and suggests either shared note-taking habits at evening camp or a common source — possibly Clark’s running notes — from which the sergeants drew. Ordway, who tended to keep the most complete daily record among the enlisted men, may himself have been a source for Gass, whose published 1807 journal would become the first account of the expedition to reach the public.
Where the Narrators Diverge
The differences between the two entries are equally instructive. Ordway records a detail Gass omits entirely: the expedition took 2 of the natives on board with their Baggage in order to go to their Camp.
He also describes the campsite with ethnographic specificity, noting that the party stopped at an old field where the Manden nation had raised corn the last Summer, & Sun flowers &. C. of which they eat with corn.
The reference to sunflower cultivation is significant — Mandan and Hidatsa horticulture included sunflowers as a staple, and Ordway is among the few expedition diarists to register this on the day of arrival.
Gass, by contrast, attends to the social geography of the river. He notes that A number of the Indians kept along the shore opposite the boat all day, on the south side,
and that Some of them remained with us to 12 at night and then returned to their village.
Ordway does not mention the late-night visitors. Where Ordway looks at the ground and what grew on it, Gass watches the riverbank and the comings and goings of people.
Lewis at the Village
Only Ordway records the day’s most consequential movement: Cap Lewis walked up to the village this evening, found the nation verry friendly, &. C.
This brief notation marks the first formal contact between the captains and the Mandan towns where the expedition would build Fort Mandan and hire Toussaint Charbonneau and Sacagawea over the coming weeks. Gass’s silence on this point is curious — it may reflect the limits of his vantage at the boat camp, or simply an editorial choice in the entry’s compression.
The presence of the unnamed Irish trader from the North West Company, noted by both sergeants, is itself a reminder that the upper Missouri was not a blank space awaiting American discovery. British traders working out of Canadian posts had been visiting the Mandan towns for years, and the expedition’s winter at Fort Mandan would unfold within an existing web of commercial and diplomatic relationships that Ordway and Gass, in their parallel entries, were beginning to map.
