As Clark on his return descended the Ohio, he brooded over the conquest of the land to the north of the river. In the summer of 1777 he sent two young hunters to reconnoitre the French villages in Illinois and on the Wabash.

In the latter part of 1777 Clark took leave of the woodsmen of Kentucky and departed for the East. To a few at Williamsburg, of whom no one showed more persistent zeal than George Mason and Thomas Jefferson, he proposed a secret expedition to the Illinois. Patrick Henry, the governor, made the plan his own; and, at his instance, the house of delegates, by a vote of which "few knew the intent," empowered him to aid "any expedition against their western enemies." On the second of January 1778, Clark received from the governor and council a supply of money, liberty to levy troops in any county of Virginia, and written and verbal instructions, clothing him with large discretionary authority to attack the British dominion on the Illinois and the Wabash. Hastening to the frontier, he established recruiting parties from the head of the Ohio to the Holston. At Redstone-old-fort, with the cordial aid of Hand, its commander, he collected boats, light artillery, and ammunition. It was probably there that he met with Captain William Harrod and his company. There, too, he was overtaken by Captain Leonard Helm of Fauquier, and by Captain Joseph Bowman of Frederic, each with less than half a company. These and the adventurers of his own enlistment, together only one hundred and fifty men, but all of a hardy race, self-relying, and trusting in one another, he was now to lead near a thousand miles from their former homes against a people who exceeded them in number and were aided by merciless tribes of savage allies. At Fort Kanawha, in May, they were reinforced by Captain O'Hara and his company. On the day of an eclipse of the sun they glided over the falls of the Ohio, below which they were "joined by a few Kentuckians" under John Montgomery. On the twenty-sixth of June, Clark and his companions, Virginians in the service of Virginia, set off from the falls, and, with oars double-manned, proceeded night and day on their ever-memorable enterprise. From Detroit, Hamilton, the lieutenant-governor, sent

*MS. memorandum of L. C. Draper.

*

abroad along the American frontier parties of savages, whose reckless cruelty won his applause; and he schemed attempts against the "rebel forts on the Ohio," relying on the red men of the prairies and the white men of Vincennes. The reports sent to Germain made him believe that the inhabitants of that settlement, though "a poor people who thought themselves cast off from his majesty's protection, were firm in their allegiance to defend it against all enemies," and that hundreds in Pittsburg remained at heart attached to the crown.

On the invasion of Canada in 1775, Carleton, to strengthen the posts of Detroit and Niagara, had withdrawn the small British garrison from Kaskaskia, and the government was left in the hands of Rocheblave, a Frenchman, who had neither troops nor money. "I wish," he wrote in February 1778, "the nation might come to know one of its best possessions, and consent to give it some encouragement; and he entreated Germain that a lieutenant-governor might be despatched with a company of soldiers to reside in Illinois.

Apprised of the condition of Kaskaskia by a band of hunters, Clark ran his boats into a creek a mile above Fort Massac, reposed there but for a night, and struck across the hills to the great prairie. On the treeless plain his party, "in all about one hundred and eighty," could be seen for miles around by nations of Indians, able to fall on them with three times their number; yet they were in the highest spirits; and "he felt as never again in his life a flow of rage," an intensity of will, a zeal for action. Approaching Kaskaskia on the fourth of July 1778, in the darkness of evening he surprised the town, and without bloodshed seized Rocheblave, the commandant. The inhabitants gladly bound themselves to fealty to the United States. A detachment under Bowman was despatched to Kahokia, and received its submission. The people, of French origin and few in number, were averse to the dominion of the English; and this disaffection was confirmed by the American alliance with the land of their ancestors.

In a long conference, Gibault, a Catholic priest, dissuaded Clark from moving against Vincennes. His own offer of mediation being accepted, he, with a small party, repaired to the post; and its people, having listened to his explanation

of the state of affairs, went into the church and took the oath of allegiance to the United States. The transition from the condition of subjects of a king to that of integral members of a free state made them new men. Planning the acquisition of the whole north-west, they sent to the Indians on the Wabash five. belts: a white one for the French; a red one for the Spaniards; a blue one for America; and for the Indian tribes a green one as an offer of peace, and one of the color of blood if they preferred war, with this message: "The king of France is come to life. We desire you to leave a very wide path for us to pass through your country to Detroit, for we are many in number and we might chance to hurt some of your young people with our swords."

To dispossess the Americans of the Illinois country and Vincennes, on the seventh of October Lieutenant-Governor Hamilton left Detroit, with regulars and volunteers, and three hundred and fifty warriors picked by their chiefs out of thirteen different nations. On the seventeenth of December he took possession of Fort Vincennes without opposition; and the inhabitants of the town returned to their subjection to the British king. After this exploit he contented himself for the winter with sending out parties; but he announced to the Spanish governor his purpose early in the spring to recover Illinois; and, confident of receiving reinforcements, he threatened that, if the Spanish officers should afford an asylum to rebels in arms against their lawful sovereign, he would invade their territory and seize the fugitives.

Hamilton was methodical in his use of Indians. He gave standing rewards for scalps, but offered none for prisoners. His continuous parties, of Indian and white volunteers, spared neither men nor women nor children. In the coming year he promised that as early as possible all the different nations, from the Chickasas and Cherokees to the Hurons and Five Nations, should join in the expeditions against Virginia; while the lake Indians from Mackinaw, in conjunction with white men, agreed to destroy the few rebels in Illinois. He sent out detachments to watch Kaskaskia and the falls of the Ohio, and to intercept any boats that might venture up that river with supplies for the rebels. He never doubted his ability to reduce all Virginia west of the mountains.

In 1779, danger hovered from every quarter over Clark and his party in Illinois. He had not received a single line from the governor of Virginia for near twelve months; his force was too small to stand a siege; his position too remote for assistance. By his orders, Bowman of Kentucky joined him, after evacuating the fort at Kahokia, and preparations were made for the defence of Kaskaskia. Just then Francis Vigo, by birth an Italian of Piedmont, a trader of St. Louis, arrived from Vincennes and gave information that Hamilton had weakened himself by sending out hordes of Indians; that he had not more than eighty soldiers in garrison, nor more than three pieces of cannon and some swivels mounted; but that he intended to collect in spring a sufficient number of men to clear the west of the Americans before the fall.

With a courage as desperate as his situation, Clark resolved to attack Hamilton before he could call in his Indians. On the fourth of February he despatched a small galley, mounting two four-pounders and four swivels, and carrying a company of men and military stores under Captain John Rogers, with orders to ascend the Wabash, take a station a few miles below Vincennes, suffer nothing to pass, and await further instructions. Of the young men of Illinois, thirty volunteered to be the companions of Clark; the rest he imbodied to garrison Kaskaskia and guard the different towns. On the seventh of February he began his march across the country with one hundred and thirty men. The inclemency of the season, high water, and "the drowned lands" of the Wabash river, which they were forced to pass through, threatened them with ruin.

At this time Hamilton was planning murderous expeditions. He wrote: "Next year there will be the greatest number of savages on the frontier that has ever been known, as the Six Nations have sent belts around to encourage their allies, who have made a general alliance."

On the twenty-third, just at evening, Clark and his companions reached dry land, and, making no delay, with a white flag flying, they entered Vincennes at the lower end of the vil lage. The town surrendered without resistance, and assisted in the siege of the fort, which was immediately invested. The

moon was new, and in the darkness Clark threw up an intrenchment within rifle-shot of the fort. Under this protection the riflemen silenced two pieces of cannon, and, before the close of the twenty-fourth, Hamilton and his garrison surrendered as prisoners of war.

A large supply of goods for the British force was on its way from Detroit. Sixty men, despatched by Clark in boats well mounted with swivels, surprised the convoy forty leagues up the river, and made a prize of the whole, taking forty prisoners. The joy of the men of the North-west was completed by the return of their messenger from Virginia, bringing from the house of assembly its votes of October and November 1778 establishing the county of Illinois, and "thanking Colonel Clark and the brave officers and men under his command for their extraordinary resolution and perseverance, and for the important services which they had thereby rendered their country."

Since the time of that vote they had undertaken a far more hazardous enterprise, and had obtained permanent "possession of all the important posts and settlements on the Illinois and Wabash, rescued the inhabitants from British dominion, and established civil government" in its republican form.

The conspiracy of the Indians embraced those of the South. Early in the year 1779, Cherokees and warriors from every hostile tribe south of the Ohio, to the number of a thousand, assembled at Chickamauga. To restrain their ravages, which had extended from Georgia to Pennsylvania, the governments of North Carolina and Virginia appointed Evan Shelby to command about a thousand men, called into service chiefly from the settlers beyond the mountains. To these were added a regiment of twelve-months men that had been enlisted for the reinforcement of Clark in Illinois. Their supplies and means of transportation were due to the unwearied and unselfish exertions of Isaac Shelby. In the middle of April, embarking in pirogues and canoes at the mouth of Big Creek, they descended the river so rapidly as to surprise the savages, who fled to the hills and forests. They were pursued, and some of their warriors fell; their towns were burnt, their fields laid waste, and their cattle driven away.