CHAPTER XI.
CLARK'S OPERATIONS IN THE WEST.
It has been seen that the army under Gen. McIntosh, instead
of checking or overawing the savages, did little more
than stimulate them to further acts of histility. Affairs now
became alarming in the West. Bodies of fierce warriors
prowled around the infant settlements of Virginia and Kentucky,
and all saw the necessity of striking a vigorous blow
against the savages and their white allies. Congress adhered
to the policy of pushing an army against Detroit, but a master-mind
in the West saw where a more effective blow could be
given. George Rogers Clark, the "Hannibal of the
West," had satisfied himself by personal observation, and
through the agency of spies, that the British posts in Illinois
could easily be taken, and at once laid open his whole scheme
to Patrick Henry, then Governor of Virginia. His great
mind readily comprehended all of Clark's proposed movements,
and entering fully into the spirit, issued two sets of
instructions, one open, authorizing him to enlist seven companies
to go to Kentucky, subject to his orders, and the other
private: the success of the enterprise depending entirely
upon the secrecy of the movement. None but the Virginia
authorities and a few personal friends knew the real destination
of the troops.
Proceeding to Pittsburg without delay, Col. Clark attempted
to enlist as many men as possible, while at the same
time Major Smith was engaged for a like purpose in the southwestern
part of Virginia. With three companies, a few
private adventurers, and twelve hundred pounds in the depreciated
currency of the country, Col. Clarke descended the
Ohio to the Falls, and fortified Corn Island opposite, where
Louisville now stands. Concealing his boats, he marched
directly out toward Kaskaskia, which, after a fatiguing journey
of many days, part of the time subsisting upon roots,
the intrepid leader and his little party reached in safety.
Arriving before Kaskaskia in the night, they entered it,
unseen and unheard, and took possession of the town and fort,
without opposition. Relying on the thick and wide extended
forests which interposed between them and the American settlements,
the inhabitants had been lulled to repose by fancied
security, and were unconscious of danger until it had become
too late to be avoided. Not a single individual escaped, to
spread the alarm in the adjacent settlements.
But there still remained other towns, higher up the Mississippi,
which, if unconquered, would afford shelter to the
savages and furnish them the means of annoyance and of
ravage. Against these Colonel Clarke immediately directed
operations. Mounting a detachment of men, on horses found
at Kaskaskia, and sending them forward, three other towns
were reduced with equal success. The obnoxious governor at
Kaskaskia was sent to Virginia, with the written instructions
which he had received from Quebec, Detroit and Mackinaw
for exciting the Indians to war, and remunerating them for the
blood which they might shed.
Although the country within which Colonel Clark had
so successfully carried on operations, was considered to be
within the limits of Virginia; yet as it was occupied by savages
and those who were but little, if any, less hostile than
they; and being so remote from her settlements, Virginia had
as yet exercised no act of jurisdiction over it. But as it now
belonged to her, by conquest as well as charter, the General
Assembly created it into a distinct county, to be called Illinois;
a temporary government was likewise established in it,
and a regiment of infantry and a troop of cavalry, ordered to
be enlisted for its defence, and placed under the command of
its intrepid and enterprising conqueror.
News of the success of Clark in capturing the British posts
in Illinois having reached Governor Hamilton at Detroit, he
determined to re-take them, also to conquer Kentucky, Western
Virginia, &c., and repel the rebels from the west. With
this view, at the head of a large body of well-disciplined
troops, he made his appearance in front of the garrison at Vincennes,
which had also surrendered to Clark's orders, and then
under the command of Captain Helm. The fort being in a
miserable condition for defence, surrendered to Hamilton, but
upon such terms as were highly honorable to the Virginia
commandant. Clark was, of course, immediately apprized of
these movements, and in the midst of winter this remarkable
man started for fort St. Vincent, determined, as he expressed
it, "That he would have Hamilton, or Hamilton should
have him." After great labor and exposure, marching often
through ice and water waist-deep, the gallant little army appeared
in front of the fort, and demanded an immediate and
unconditional surrender. The British governor, unwilling to
risk an attack, gave up possession, and allowed himself to
become a prisoner of war in the hands of Clark. The capture
of Hamilton, and the destruction of British power in the
valley of the Wabash, and indeed in the whole west, south of
Detroit, was one of the most important achievements during
the war. As already intimated, great arrangements had been
made by Hamilton for the successful prosecution of a campaign
against all the white settlements in the west. The
southern, western and northern
[78]
Indians had joined him, and
had Clark failed to defeat Hamilton, who can doubt but that
the entire west, from the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, would
have been swept over by the allied forces of British and
Indians. But for this gallant body of imperfectly clothed and
half starved Virginians, the project of Great Britain, so long
one of the darling objects of her ambition, might have been
carried out, and the whole current of our history changed.
