Page:Pacific Monthly volumes 9 and 10.djvu/151



THE GEORGE ROGERS CLARK EXPEDITION

101

the great war governor. Thomas Jef- ferson also approved of them. Henry gave Clark a commission, furnished him with what money he could command, and gave him the benefit of the govern- or's influence in raising his troops. It was exacted from Clark, however, as a condition to this assistance, that his troops should be raised on the frontiers and that Eastern Virginia should not be weakened in its struggles with the British by the enlistment of a force from among her citizens to operate upon the distant frontier.

Clark repaired to Fort Pitt, where, with infinite difficulty, he raised about one hundred and fifty men. These were supplemented by a handful of ad- ditional men raised in the valley of the Holston in southwestern Virginia. Ac- companied by a few settlers with their families, he started down the Ohio with these troops, in May, 1778. No one in the company except Clark knew the purpose of the expedition. The troops had been enlisted to go to the relief of Kentucky, and Governor Henry's commission authorized Clark to raise troops for this purpose. Henry had, however, written a private letter which authorized Clark to use the detachment to attack the Illinois country. At the falls of the Ohio,, the present site of the city of Louisville, Clark halted. The settlers who accompanied him made their home on an island in the river opposite what is now Louisville, and a few months later moved to the main land. This expedition, therefore, resulted in the founding of the Ken- tucky metropolis.

Clark now made known to his fol- lowers the purpose of the expedition and a few of the faint-hearted turned backward. But the overwhelming ma- jority enthusiastically entered into the plans of their great commander. The previous year Clark had sent a couple of hunters into the Illinois country as spies and they brought back word that the bulk of the French population liv- ing in that country took but little in- terest in the Revolutionary War and were somewhat afraid of the back- woodsmen. Clark's plan was to avail himself of this fear, surprise the settle- nients and secure possession of the

country before news ot the expedition could be sent to Hamilton at Detroit. Accordingly, on the 24th of June, he started down the Ohio from what is now Louisville with about one hundred and fifty men. It would be hard to find in history a case where such great re- sults were achieved by the valor and resolution of so small a body of men. Napoleon the Great in conversation with Lafayette once spoke disparaging- ly of the American Revolution, refer- ring to the small bodies of troops who were engaged in its principal battles. Lafayette replied, *'Sire, it was the grandest of struggles won by skir- mishes of outposts and sentinels." The remark was certainly applicable to this epoch-making expedition on the fron- tier.

With his handful of undisciplined backwoodsmen, Clark proposed to win and hold for his country a region as large and as rich as most European kingdoms, defended by a force far larg- er than his own, intrenched in forts and abundantly provided with all the munitions of war. His own force was destitute of many military necessities, and he was to operate hundreds of miles from his base of supplies with the trackless wilderness stretching be- tween.

While at the falls of the Ohio, Clark had received a letter from Fort Pitt advising him of the alliance between France and the United States. He had previously known of the surrender of Burgoyne and he had made the best possible use of this knowledge to in- spirit and encourage the patriots on the frontier. Clark halted at a small island in the Ohio off the mouth of the Tennessee, where he met a little party of American hunters who had re- cently been in the Illinois country and were therefore able to render him invaluable assistance by their familiar- ity with the settlements and with the way thither. They were glad to join the expedition.

There were three principal 'British posts in the Illinois country, at Kas- kaskia, Cahokia and Vincennes. Each was defended by a fort garrisoned by a force outnumbering Clark's. Clark learned from the hunters tl^rt the fort igi ize y ^