Among the enlisted journalists of the Corps of Discovery, Sergeant John Ordway and Private Joseph Whitehouse have long been recognized as textually intertwined. Scholars going back to Reuben Gold Thwaites have observed that Whitehouse appears to have leaned on Ordway’s daily entries when composing his own. The fourteen paired entries surveyed here — drawn from May, August, and September of 1805, as the expedition crossed from the upper Missouri through the Lemhi and Bitterroot country and into the Bitterroot Mountains — confirm that dependence in striking detail. Yet they also complicate the simple narrative of mechanical copying. Whitehouse is no scribe. He is a reader of Ordway who reshapes, expands, occasionally contradicts, and sometimes contributes observations Ordway never made. The result is a journal that is structurally derivative but substantively independent in ways that matter for historians of the expedition.
The Architecture of Dependence
The clearest evidence of copying lies in the order of events and the precision of shared phrasing. On 1 May 1805, Ordway opens with weather and movement: “we Set off at Sun rise, the wind from the East, we Sailed on verry well passed broken bluffs & round knobs on the s. s.” (Ordway, 1805-05-01). Whitehouse’s entry for the same day reads: “we Set off at Sun rise, the wind from the east. we Sailed Some. we passed high bluffs and round knobs on the S.S.” (Whitehouse, 1805-05-01). The sequence is identical, the diction nearly so, and even the abbreviation “S.S.” for starboard side carries over. Both then move to the same observation about the country: Ordway writes that “the hills in general are not so high as they have been below and the country is more pleasant, and the timber is gitting pleantier,” while Whitehouse writes “the hills in general are not so high as they have been below, the country more pleasant, and the timber more pleanty.” The convergence is too exact to be coincidence; the small differences (“gitting pleantier” vs. “more pleanty”) suggest Whitehouse paraphrasing rather than transcribing verbatim.
The same pattern holds for 12 August 1805, where both narrators describe the near-capsizing of a canoe in identical sequence: Ordway notes “one of the large canoes was near turning over” (Ordway, 1805-08-12), and Whitehouse echoes “one of the large canoes was near turning over” (Whitehouse, 1805-08-12). Both list the hunters’ kills as “3 deer” and a “goat or antelope.” Both end with the formulaic “Came [blank] miles and Camped” construction, even reproducing the blank space where the mileage was to be entered later — a strong indication that Whitehouse was working from Ordway’s draft, blanks and all.
By 31 August 1805, as the party traded for salmon along the Lemhi, the parallel is again unmistakable. Ordway: “we bough[t] a nomber of fine large Sammon of them and proceeded on. one hunter on a head, one strange Indian seen which is supposed to be one of the flat head nation, he ran off” (Ordway, 1805-08-31). Whitehouse: “we bought a nomber of fine Salmon… a Strange Indian came in Site of these lodges who they expected to be one of the nation called the flat heads. he ran as Soon as he Saw us” (Whitehouse, 1805-08-31). The narrative beats — purchase of salmon, sighting of the stranger, his flight, the suspicion of Flathead identity — appear in the same order, suggesting Whitehouse used Ordway’s entry as scaffolding.
Where Whitehouse Diverges: Sensory Detail and Ethnographic Speculation
If Whitehouse merely transcribed Ordway, his journal would be of marginal independent value. But the paired entries reveal a consistent pattern of expansion. Whitehouse adds material that is not in Ordway, and that material clusters around three areas: sensory experience, ethnographic interpretation, and personal hardship.
The 13 September 1805 entries on the warm springs along Lolo Creek (modern Lolo Hot Springs, identified in the editorial footnote to Ordway’s entry as “Boyle’s Springs”) illustrate this divergence vividly. Ordway gives a serviceable description: “a warm Spring which run from a ledge of rocks and nearly boiled and issued out in several places it had been frequented by the Savages, a little dam was fixed and had been used for a bathing place, we drank a little of the water and washed our faces in it” (Ordway, 1805-09-13). Whitehouse’s account is markedly fuller:
passed a warm Spring, which nearly boiled where it Issued out of the rocks a Short distance below the natives has dammed it up to bathe themselves in, and the water in that place is considerable above blood heat. it runs out in Sundry places and Some places cooler than others. Several of us drank of the water, it has a little sulp[h]ur taste and verry clear. these Springs are very beautiful to See, and we think them to be as good to bathe in &c. as any other ever yet found in the United States. (Whitehouse, 1805-09-13)
Three additions stand out. First, the temperature judgment — “considerable above blood heat” — is a specific physiological observation Ordway does not offer. Second, the gustatory note that the water “has a little sulp[h]ur taste and verry clear” is sensory testimony absent from the sergeant’s account. Third, and most striking, is the comparative claim that the springs are “as good to bathe in &c. as any other ever yet found in the United States,” a piece of evaluative commentary that situates the Bitterroot springs within a broader American geography of mineral waters. This is Whitehouse thinking, not Whitehouse copying.
A similar pattern appears on 11 September 1805, regarding a tree painted by Native peoples and hung with a bear skin. Ordway describes the artifact factually: “passed a large tree on which the natives had a number of Immages drawn on it with paint, a part of a white bear skin hung on Sd tree” (Ordway, 1805-09-11). Whitehouse reproduces the description but adds an interpretive gloss: “a tree on which was a nomber of Shapes drawn on it with paint by the natives. a white bear Skin hung on the Same tree. we Suppose this to be a place of worship among them” (Whitehouse, 1805-09-11). The phrase “we Suppose this to be a place of worship” is Whitehouse’s own ethnographic hypothesis, not present in Ordway. Whether the supposition is correct is less important than what it reveals about Whitehouse’s habit of mind: he is willing to interpret, where Ordway tends to inventory.
The same impulse surfaces on 2 May 1805. Both narrators record the discovery of red cloth at an abandoned Indian camp. Ordway: pieces of red cloth “that attested they left them as a Sacrifice as that is their form of wo[rship]” (Ordway, 1805-05-02). Whitehouse repeats this but extends it: “a Sacrifice to their maker as that is their form of worship, as they have Some knowledge of the Supreme being, and anything above their comprihention they call big medicine” (Whitehouse, 1805-05-02). The closing observation about “big medicine” — a piece of vernacular ethnography that would later become a commonplace of frontier writing — is Whitehouse’s contribution, not Ordway’s.
The Personal Voice: Hardship Reported in the First Person
Perhaps the most arresting divergences come when Whitehouse departs from Ordway to record his own bodily experience. The 1 May 1805 entry offers the most dramatic example. Ordway notes simply that “the sd cannoe lay on the opposite Side all night” (Ordway, 1805-05-01). Whitehouse, who happened to be in that canoe, transforms the bare fact into vivid testimony:
I and one more was in the cannoe and ware obledged to lay out all night without any blanket. it being verry cold I Suffered verry much… the man who was with me kill’d a Deer. (Whitehouse, 1805-05-01)
Here Whitehouse breaks into the first person — “I Suffered verry much” — in a way Ordway’s sergeant-level perspective never permits. The episode reminds the reader that Whitehouse’s journal, however textually dependent on Ordway’s, is the record of a different man with a different vantage point. Ordway sees the canoe from shore; Whitehouse is in it.
Other examples accumulate. On 12 September 1805, where Ordway gives a brief account of crossing rough country, Whitehouse extends the day into the night: “night came on and we had to go through the thickets of pine and over logs &c. untill about 10 oClock at in the evening before we could git any water” (Whitehouse, 1805-09-12). The detail of the late-night water search is absent from Ordway. On 4 September 1805, Whitehouse adds an unflinching ethnographic note: “our Indian guide and the young Indian who accompanied him Eat the paunch and all the Small guts of the Deer” (Whitehouse, 1805-09-04). Ordway’s entry for the same day mentions descending the mountain and passing through balsam fir but contains nothing of the guide’s meal.
On 14 September 1805, both men describe a fish weir, but Whitehouse alone offers a comparative judgment: “the Natives had a place made across in form of our wires [weirs] in 2 places, and worked in with willows verry injeanously, for the current [was] verry rapid” (Whitehouse, 1805-09-14). The aesthetic-technical appraisal — “verry injeanously” — is Whitehouse’s own. Ordway’s parallel passage for that date, as preserved in the surviving fragment, focuses on geography rather than craftsmanship.
Where Ordway Has More: The Sergeant’s Institutional Eye
Copying does not run only one direction in terms of richness. Ordway frequently records material that Whitehouse omits — typically institutional, military, or logistical detail that befits a sergeant’s responsibilities. On 5 September 1805, Ordway records the council with the Flathead band in considerable specificity: “our officers made four chiefs… gave them meddles 2 flags Some other Small presents and told them our business and that we were friends to all the red people” (Ordway, 1805-09-05). Whitehouse’s version covers the same event but emphasizes the linguistic difficulty: “all that we Say has to go through 6 languages before it gits to them and it is hard to make them understand all what we Say” (Whitehouse, 1805-09-05). The six-language relay — through English, French, Hidatsa, Shoshone, and onward — is one of the most quoted ethnolinguistic facts of the expedition, and Whitehouse, not Ordway, preserves it in this pair. Yet Ordway preserves the diplomatic protocol with greater administrative precision.
The 15 September 1805 entries reveal another asymmetry. Ordway’s account of the punishing crossing of the Bitterroot ridge is geographically detailed: horses falling “backwards and roled 20 or 30 feet among the rocks,” the halt to drink “a little portable Soup,” the calculation that the mountain was “abo[ut] 10 miles from the foot to the top” (Ordway, 1805-09-15). Whitehouse’s surviving fragment for the same date picks up later in the day, recording the killing of a colt for food — “the men in jeneral So hungry that we killed a fine Colt which eat verry well” — and noting hail and thunder (Whitehouse, 1805-09-15). The two accounts are complementary rather than redundant: read together they reconstruct a fuller day than either alone.
What the Pattern Suggests About Composition
The cumulative evidence supports a specific hypothesis about Whitehouse’s working method. He almost certainly had access to Ordway’s journal, or to Ordway himself dictating or summarizing the day’s events, and he used that account as a structural template. The shared sequencing of events, the near-identical opening clauses, and the carrying over of blanks-for-mileage all point to direct textual borrowing. But Whitehouse was not a passive copyist. He systematically inserted his own observations: temperatures and tastes, ethnographic guesses, personal suffering, and aesthetic judgments. He sometimes omits Ordway’s institutional detail, perhaps because it was less salient to a private than to a sergeant.
The 2 September 1805 entries on the “dismal Swamp” show the limits of this collaboration. Ordway names the place — “we call this place dismal Swamp” (Ordway, 1805-09-02) — but Whitehouse does not record the name. Either Whitehouse was working from a version of Ordway’s text that did not yet include the naming, or he chose to omit it. The illegible line in Whitehouse’s manuscript noted by the editor (“[One line in MS. illegible.]”) is a reminder that the textual relationship is partly obscured by physical damage and OCR limitations in the surviving transcripts. Any reconstruction of the copying pattern must remain provisional in the face of such gaps.
Implications for Reading the Enlisted Journals
The Ordway-Whitehouse relationship matters for how historians use these sources. Treating Whitehouse as an independent witness to events Ordway also describes risks double-counting; treating him as a mere copy risks discarding genuine first-hand testimony. The paired entries argue for a middle position. When Whitehouse and Ordway agree in language and sequence — as on the canoe incident of 12 August or the salmon purchase of 31 August — Whitehouse’s account is best read as confirmation rather than corroboration. When Whitehouse adds material absent from Ordway — the sulphur taste of the hot springs, the supposition about the painted tree as a place of worship, the night in the canoe without a blanket, the six-language translation chain, the guide eating the deer’s entrails — that material has the weight of an independent observation and deserves to be cited as such.
The pattern also illuminates the social texture of journal-keeping in the Corps. Lewis and Clark required or encouraged multiple men to keep records, and the enlisted journals appear to have circulated, at least informally. Whitehouse’s reliance on Ordway suggests a hierarchy in which a private with literary ambitions could lean on a sergeant’s already-completed entry as a starting point, then add what his own day had given him that the sergeant’s had not. The result is a textual ecology more cooperative — and more layered — than the image of solitary frontier diarists would suggest.
What Whitehouse adds to Ordway is, finally, a different kind of attention: to the body, to the senses, to the meaning of what was seen. Where Ordway inventories, Whitehouse interprets. Where Ordway records that a canoe lay on the far shore, Whitehouse remembers the cold. The copying is real, but so is the residue of independent witness that copying cannot account for. Reading the two journals together, with the seams visible, yields a richer record than either alone — and a clearer view of how the expedition’s enlisted men collaborated in the labor of writing their journey down.
