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 PREFACE

HIS volume treats of five of the early campaigns in the portion of America known as the Mississippi Basin—Clark's campaigns against Kaskaskia and Vincennes in 1778 and 1779; and Harmar's, St. Clair's, and Wayne's campaigns against the northwestern Indians in 1790, 1791, and 1793–94.

Much as has been written concerning Clark's famous march through the "drowned lands of the Wabash," the important question of his route has been untouched, and the story from that standpoint untold. The history of the campaign is here made subservient to a study of the route and to an attempted identification of the various places, and a determination of their present-day names. Four volumes of the Draper Manuscripts in the library of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin give a vast deal of information on this subject. They are referred to by the library press-mark.