Page:Portland, Oregon, its History and Builders volume 1.djvu/78

50 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 Alleghanies and knew something of the great possibilities of the Ohio valley. Jefferson knew of it only from pioneer reports and French newspapers, which he could read and translate for himself. But he was continually reading and thinking, and dreaming of the vast illimitable west, away west, west, west to the Pacific ocean. At that time while Washington was leading the Continental soldiers and straining every nerve to beat back the British arms, Jefferson was stirring up trouble for the British by inciting the Virginians 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 western 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 contingent of Indian allies. Clark was then in November, 1778, in Kentucky, as a pioneer Indian fighter, and hearing through one Frances Vigo, an Italian fur trader, that in the next spring Hamilton intended to attack their American 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 wholly on his own resources which were practically summed up in the individual person, George Rogers Clark and his brains, courage and energy. He had not heard from or received any aid from his friends and abettors in Virginia for a year; and there was but a scant supply of powder and lead in all the settlement 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 party 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 of Kaskaskia. Here his confident demeanor and captivating address captured 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 Kentuckians, half-bred French, Creoles and stragglers that looked anything else than a military force to attack a fort defended by trained soldiers amply supplied with cannon of that period, and full supplies of muskets and ammunition. On the 7th of February, 1779, Clark marched his little army out of old Kaskaskia, the whole village escorting and encouraging the men, and the good Jesuit priest Gibault, adding his blessing and absolution on all those brave men. It was in the depth of winter and icy cold, in addition to which a continued downpour of rain flooded the whole country and made an inland sea of the Wabash river, which they had to cross at one place with only a few canoes, most of the men wading in ice cold water up to their arm-pits and carrying their guns and powder horns over their heads. But they finally reached their goal. To such men, nothing was impossible. Clark reached Vincennes without informing the town or fort of his approach. He surrounded the town in the night and after a short, sharp and decisive attack the British general, Hamilton, surrendered. Clark paroled the men, but sent Hamilton under guard, to Virginia, where he was kept in jail at Richmond for two years. Taken altogether, this exploit of George Rogers Clark, was the most reckless, daring, dangerous and successful military expedition in the whole course of the revolutionary war, or of any war. And in its results, it accomplished more for