Page:Centennial History of Oregon 1811-1912, Volume 1.djvu/261



No! as well the tall and pillared Allegheiiies fall — as well Ohio's giant lide roll backward on its mighty track.

"For freedom's liattle onee liegliu, Be(|iieathed from bleeding sire to son, is ever won."

The idea of a great western movement to hold an empire of rieli land for the teeming millions of men that were to come after them, was the idea of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. These two men did not always agree. And at least one of them was a little jealous of Washington's great name and fame. But on the western movement they did agree. Of all the great leaders of the rebellion against the British king, Washington only had been west of the AUeghenies and knew something of the great possibilities of the Oliio valley. Jefferson knew of it only from pioneer reports and French newspapers which he could read and translate for himself. But he was con- tinually reading and thinking, and dreaming of the vast illimitable west, away west, west, west to the Paeitio ocean. At that time, while Washington was lead- ing the Continental soldiers and straining every nerve to beat back the Brit- ish arms, Jeft'erson was stirring up trouble for the British by inciting the Vir- ginians to support George Rogers Clark in his plans against the British in the Ohio valley. In driving the French out of Canada, the British had come into possession of old Vincennes on the Wabash and other fur trading stations and French forts south of the great lakes. The British general, Hamilton (known in W^estern Indian war literature as the '"hair buyer," from his alleged practice of buying the scalps of murdered pioneers from the Indians), was in possession of the fort at Vincennes with a garrison of eighty British soldiers and a con- tingent of Indian allies. Clark was then, November, 1778, in Kentieky, as a pioneer Indian fighter, and hearing through one Francis Vigo, an Italian fur trader, that in the next spring Hamilton intended to attack the Ameri- can settlers in Kentucky, he (Clark) resolved to forestall his foe and set to work enlisting a force of men to march upon Vincennes during the winter, and surprise and capture Hamilton and his whole outfit. To carry out this dare- devil exploit, Clark had to rely wliolly on his own resources, which were prac- tically summed up in the individual person of George Rogers Clark, and his brains, courage and energy. He had not heard from or received any aid from his friends and abettors in Vii-ginia for a year ; and there was but a scant sup- ply of powder and lead in all the settlements in Kentucky for any purpose. But with Clark, to resolve was to act; and so he set to work enlisting men and building boats and soon had a little army on its way down the Ohio with their trusty rifles. Leaving a part of his force to patrol the river and look out for an attack in his rear, he marched the rest of his men overland to the old French fort at Kaskaskia, Illinois. Here his polite demeanor and address cap- tured the French and half-breeds, and especially the Creole girls, and all united to secure additional recruits to his banner — the banner of George Rogers Clark, for there was not at that time, a single American flag in all America, west of the Alleghany mountains. After a few days rest, and by these means, Clark had gathered together a motley band of one hundred and seventy Ken-