Fort Bliss Monitor

Corps of Discovery kept busy during first winter

Paul Efaw
Special to The Monitor

Lewis and Clark and the Corps of Discovery spent their first winter in a population center and the “central market place of the Northern Plains,” west of the present day Washburn, ND.

The selected location included “five Mandan and Hidatsa villages (that) attracted many Europeans and Indians alike. With a population of nearly 4,000, this was the largest concentration of Indians on the Missouri River,” according to Army historians.

“On Nov. 2 (1804), (William) Clark selected a site directly opposite the lowest of the five Indian villages and two miles away. The men set to work building a triangular-shaped structure they completed on Christmas Day 1804, naming it Fort Mandan in honor of their neighbors.” In an extremely cold winter, “the captains kept the men busy, both because there was lots of work to be done and because they were good officers who knew for a certainty that a bored soldier is a bored soldier heading for trouble,” author Stephen E. Ambrose wrote. “The Corps of Discovery ... was an infantry company of the U.S. Army. Meriwether Lewis and Clark had seen plenty of trouble at Wood River the previous winter, and, bad as the weather had been in Illinois, it was nothing compared with North Dakota. Yet at Fort Mandan there were no fights. No desertions. The worst infraction was relatively minor.”

“While it’s true there were no hostilities at Fort Mandan during that winter, members of the Corps out to retrieve meat were attacked and robbed by a Sioux party, according to Clark‘s journal,” historian Daniel B. Thorp said. Clark wrote, “ Lewis even led a party that tried to follow the Sioux but couldn’t catch them.”

(The encampment in Illinois occurred the winter before the actual expedition company was formed, and left St. Louis in the summer of 1804 for its trip into the American Northwest.)

“The expedition ate an enormous amount every day, and more every day as the winter came on and it got colder, dipping down below zero frequently. To get through the winter, the Americans were going to need large quantities of Indian corn, beans and squash, and they were going to have to find a regular supply of meat.”

On one two-day hunt guided by the Mandans they got 20 buffalo. Ambrose quoted Charles Mackenzie as writing, “Hunting and eating were the order of the day.” Mackenzie was a British trader who visited Fort Mandan that winter.

The Corps found anther way to replenish the food supply when they opened a blacksmith shop. “In December they erected a blacksmith shop that was soon doing a booming business sharpening and repairing axes, hoes, and other metal implements for their Indian owners, who paid for this service with corn,” according to Thorp.

They also made battle-axes and the “demand for them was great, and they were the only means by which we procure corn. In Clark’s view the weapon was ‘very inconvenient,’” but it provided an enterprising way to obtain food needed to feed the Corps of Discovery.

“While no hostilities broke out during their winter at Fort Mandan, Lewis did have to work hard at times to keep the peace among the tribes. The Mandan, wanting the benefits of trading with the white man all to themselves, had stirred up the Hidatsas with lies about the party’s intentions,” Kristen Lokemoen wrote in the Missouri travel magazine.

“Lewis tried to smooth things over, but the Hidatsa’s showed little interest. They had been given no presents and felt that the white men were arrogant. The Corps of Discovery took part in Indian … social events. Lewis and Clark also took time to speak with British and French-Canadian traders passing through in order to gain valuable intelligence. Based on this new information, the captains hired Toussaint Charbonneau, a French-Canadian fur trader, as an interpreter,” Army historians said. “They agreed that he could bring along his wife Sacagawea (and their newborn son, Jean Baptiste), since Lewis and Clark thought she would be useful as an interpreter when the expedition reached her tribe near the Rocky Mountains.”



www.bliss.army.mil	Published for the Fort Bliss/El Paso, Texas Community	January 20, 2005

<map name="boxmap-b4"> <area shape="rect" coords="0, 589, 120, 600" href="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm/privacy-policy.html?o=1" > <area coords="0,0,10000,10000" href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/redirect?tag=&creative=92501&camp=8117&link_code=dl1&path=subst/misc/amazon-cobrand-cc/v3/marketing-from-associates-step1.html/ref%3Db1_assoc_29" > </map>	Corps of Discovery kept busy during first winter Paul Efaw Special to The Monitor Lewis and Clark and the Corps of Discovery spent their first winter in a population center and the “central market place of the Northern Plains,” west of the present day Washburn, ND. The selected location included “five Mandan and Hidatsa villages (that) attracted many Europeans and Indians alike. With a population of nearly 4,000, this was the largest concentration of Indians on the Missouri River,” according to Army historians. “On Nov. 2 (1804), (William) Clark selected a site directly opposite the lowest of the five Indian villages and two miles away. The men set to work building a triangular-shaped structure they completed on Christmas Day 1804, naming it Fort Mandan in honor of their neighbors.” In an extremely cold winter, “the captains kept the men busy, both because there was lots of work to be done and because they were good officers who knew for a certainty that a bored soldier is a bored soldier heading for trouble,” author Stephen E. Ambrose wrote. “The Corps of Discovery ... was an infantry company of the U.S. Army. Meriwether Lewis and Clark had seen plenty of trouble at Wood River the previous winter, and, bad as the weather had been in Illinois, it was nothing compared with North Dakota. Yet at Fort Mandan there were no fights. No desertions. The worst infraction was relatively minor.” “While it’s true there were no hostilities at Fort Mandan during that winter, members of the Corps out to retrieve meat were attacked and robbed by a Sioux party, according to Clark‘s journal,” historian Daniel B. Thorp said. Clark wrote, “ Lewis even led a party that tried to follow the Sioux but couldn’t catch them.” (The encampment in Illinois occurred the winter before the actual expedition company was formed, and left St. Louis in the summer of 1804 for its trip into the American Northwest.) “The expedition ate an enormous amount every day, and more every day as the winter came on and it got colder, dipping down below zero frequently. To get through the winter, the Americans were going to need large quantities of Indian corn, beans and squash, and they were going to have to find a regular supply of meat.” On one two-day hunt guided by the Mandans they got 20 buffalo. Ambrose quoted Charles Mackenzie as writing, “Hunting and eating were the order of the day.” Mackenzie was a British trader who visited Fort Mandan that winter. The Corps found anther way to replenish the food supply when they opened a blacksmith shop. “In December they erected a blacksmith shop that was soon doing a booming business sharpening and repairing axes, hoes, and other metal implements for their Indian owners, who paid for this service with corn,” according to Thorp. They also made battle-axes and the “demand for them was great, and they were the only means by which we procure corn. In Clark’s view the weapon was ‘very inconvenient,’” but it provided an enterprising way to obtain food needed to feed the Corps of Discovery. “While no hostilities broke out during their winter at Fort Mandan, Lewis did have to work hard at times to keep the peace among the tribes. The Mandan, wanting the benefits of trading with the white man all to themselves, had stirred up the Hidatsas with lies about the party’s intentions,” Kristen Lokemoen wrote in the Missouri travel magazine. “Lewis tried to smooth things over, but the Hidatsa’s showed little interest. They had been given no presents and felt that the white men were arrogant. The Corps of Discovery took part in Indian … social events. Lewis and Clark also took time to speak with British and French-Canadian traders passing through in order to gain valuable intelligence. Based on this new information, the captains hired Toussaint Charbonneau, a French-Canadian fur trader, as an interpreter,” Army historians said. “They agreed that he could bring along his wife Sacagawea (and their newborn son, Jean Baptiste), since Lewis and Clark thought she would be useful as an interpreter when the expedition reached her tribe near the Rocky Mountains.”