Chapter IX: The West, (2)

On returning to Kentucky Clark found the country more disturbed than ever. The Ohio Indians were invading it with larger parties; they lay in ambush about every fort,[1495] and murdered the luckless soldier of the garrison who ventured outside the stockade. Clark seriously pondered over this alarming state of affairs, and came to the conclusion that the strategic points for defending Kentucky were on the north side of the Ohio River. He had probably never heard of Scipio Africanus and of his policy of fighting the enemy in the enemy's country. Without disclosing his thoughts to any one, he sent, during the summer of 1777, two young hunters as spies to Kaskaskia and Vincennes, and, having received favorable reports, started in October[1496] for Williamsburg. There, on December 10th, he laid before Governor Henry his plan for the conquest of the Northwest territory from the British, whom he regarded as the instigators of the Indian raids upon Kentucky. He also consulted confidentially with George Mason, George Wythe, and Thomas Jefferson. They, with the governor, were enthusiastic for the execution of his scheme and took immediate steps to furnish him with ammunition and supplies.

Reduced from a plate in Philip Pittman's _Present State of the European Settlements on the Mississippi_ (London, 1770). KEY: A, The fort. B, The Jesuits. C, Formerly commanding officer's house. D, The church. The river is about 450 feet wide, which will afford a scale to the rest of the plan.—ED.]

The recent surrender of Burgoyne at Saratoga had inspired a new energy in the conduct of the war. The necessary legislation was obtained under the pretext that the supplies were for the defence of Kentucky. Twelve hundred pounds, in the depreciated currency of Virginia, was voted him for expenses in the enemy's country. In January, 1778, Clark received from Governor Henry the rank of colonel, and two sets of instructions: one, which was public, for the defence of Kentucky; and the other, which was secret, for an "attack on the British post at Kaskaskia." He was empowered to raise seven companies, of fifty men each, in any county of the commonwealth, to act as militia under his orders.[1497] He began recruiting, under his public orders, at Fort Pitt, but with little success, owing to quarrels between Virginia and Pennsylvania, and the opposition to the policy of sending soldiers, who were needed there, to defend Kentucky.[1498] After much tribulation he raised three companies, and took them down the river to Corn Island, at the Falls of the Ohio, opposite Louisville. Several companies that had been recruited elsewhere were promised him, but they did not arrive. Some of his men deserted, but enough Kentuckians joined him to make up four companies, or nearly two hundred men.[1499] Here he divulged the secret of their destination, and read to the men his confidential instructions. They willingly accepted the situation, and the next day the expedition started. As their boats shot the falls, the sun was in total eclipse, which fixes the date as June 24, 1778. He had just received from Fort Pitt the news of the treaty of alliance between France and the United States, which he could use to advantage with the French settlers at Kaskaskia. With two relays at the oars, he ran the boats day and night, and on the 28th landed on an island at the mouth of the Cherokee (Tennessee) River. Here a party of white hunters, who had been at Kaskaskia eight days before, was brought in, and they volunteered to accompany him. Nine miles below the island, and one mile above old Fort Massac, they ran into a small creek, concealed their boats, and without a cannon,[1500] a horse, or any means of transporting baggage or supplies, took up their march of more than a hundred miles across the prairies.[1501]

On the afternoon of July 4th they arrived within three miles of Kaskaskia, the river of that name lying between them and the town. There they remained concealed until dark, when they marched to a farm-house on the east bank of the river, about a mile north of the town, captured boats, crossed the river, and found that the people of the town, who a few days before had been under arms expecting an attack, were not aware of their approach. "I immediately", writes Clark, "divided my little army into two divisions: ordered one to surround the town; with the other I broke into the fort,[1502] secured the governor, Mr. Rocheblave, [and] in fifteen minutes had every street secured; sent runners through the town, ordering the people on pain of death to keep close to their houses, which they observed; and before daylight had the whole town disarmed."[1503]

Clark had been informed by the hunters who accompanied him that the French residents of Kaskaskia regarded the Kentuckians, whom they called _Big-Knives_, as more savage than Indians; and resolving to make use of this impression, he gave them a shock which would enable them later to appreciate his lenity. The troops, therefore, kept up during the night the most hideous noises; and the residents, believing they had indeed fallen into the hands of savages, gave themselves up as lost. In the morning Clark had for them another surprise. M. Gibault, the priest, with some aged citizens, came to him and begged that the people might once more assemble in their church, hold a service, and take leave of each other, which request was readily granted. When the service was over a deputation came and said the people would submit to the fate of war and the loss of their property, but asked that they might not be separated from their wives and children. "Do you mistake us for savages?" said Clark. "My countrymen disdain to make war upon women and children. It was to prevent the horrors of Indian butchery upon our wives and children that we have taken up arms and appear in this stronghold of British and Indian barbarity. Now please inform your fellow-citizens that they are at liberty to conduct themselves as usual without the least apprehension." They were told of the treaty of alliance with France, and that if he could have surety of their attachment to the American cause they could enjoy all the privileges of its government, and their property would be secure to them. The people were transported with joy, and took the oath of allegiance to the State of Virginia. They also raised a company of volunteers, who accompanied Major Bowman to Cahokia, a French settlement sixty miles north of Kaskaskia. That town readily gave its adhesion to the American cause. Clark also put himself in friendly relations with the Spanish commandant at St. Louis.[1504]

Clark next turned his attention to the British post of Vincennes. M. Gibault, the friendly priest, in view of what had taken place at Kaskaskia and Cahokia, thought that it was unnecessary to send troops to Vincennes. The post was in his spiritual jurisdiction, and he offered to undertake the mission himself, with several persons accompanying him. The result was the same as at Cahokia. The few British soldiers at the post could make no resistance to the popular sentiment, and withdrew to Detroit. Clark, having no troops to spare, allowed the residents, after taking the oath, to garrison and to be responsible for the safety of the fort, which he put in charge of one of his own officers, Captain Leonard Helm, who retained one of his own privates. M. Gibault returned to Kaskaskia about the 1st of August; and Clark, in less than one month after his arrival, was in possession of every British post in the Illinois country, without a battle or the loss of a life.[1505]

A problem now demanded solution which was of so difficult a nature that it would challenge the sagacity and resources of a veteran commander, and Clark was not a veteran. He was twenty-five years of age, and his only military experience had been as a ranger in Kentucky, and as a captain in the short and bloodless campaign of Lord Dunmore. How was he to hold this immense territory with less than two hundred three-months militiamen, whose term of enlistment had already expired, and with no hope of receiving recruits from Kentucky or Virginia? The British commander could send down a force which would outnumber his ten to one. The savage tribes which had ravaged Kentucky could by concerted action overwhelm his scanty force. The Virginia currency which he brought to pay for supplies he found would buy nothing in the Illinois country. It was fortunate for the nation and the Western States that George Rogers Clark was equal to the emergency, and that he had the self-reliance and sagacity to solve the problem successfully.

By his personal entreaties and promises to pay his men, about one hundred of them reënlisted. The others he sent home, with despatches, and with M. Rocheblave, the late commander at Kaskaskia, as a prisoner, to Governor Henry at Williamsburg.[1506] His four companies he soon filled up with resident French recruits, and pretended that he could get all the American soldiers he wanted at the Falls of the Ohio.

He next undertook the pacification and control of the Indian tribes. His sudden appearance in the Illinois country and rapid capture of the Western posts was the occasion of astonishment to the Western tribes; and their chiefs from a range of five hundred miles flocked to Cahokia to see the strange warrior of the "Big Knives." Clark met them there in council with a stern and haughty dignity. Soft speeches to Indians before they were under control he regarded as bad policy. He showed no fear in their presence, and no anxiety for their friendship. He laid before them a war-belt and a peace-belt, and told them to take their choice. If they did not want to have their own women and children killed, they must stop killing the women and children of the Americans. One chief after another rose and made submissive speeches. He refused to smoke the peace-pipe with any until he had heard from every tribe represented, and treaties were concluded. All the tribes gave in their allegiance to the American cause, and he had no further trouble with the Illinois Indians. The councils at Cahokia lasted five weeks, and their influence extended to all the nations around the great lakes. Captain Helm, under Clark's instructions, made similar treaties with the Wabash Indians.

The training and discipline of his little army now received his attention, and in order to conceal his weakness in numbers he allowed no parade except of the guards. About Christmas, 1778, he heard from his spies that Governor Hamilton was preparing to send an army into the Illinois country; and later, that Hamilton with eight hundred men had descended the Wabash and recaptured Vincennes.[1507] Early in January Hamilton sent a scouting party to Kaskaskia to waylay and capture Clark, and it came near succeeding while Clark was returning from a visit to Cahokia. This party was supposed to be an advanced guard of Hamilton's army, and every preparation was made to defend the town. On the 29th of January, 1779, Colonel François Vigo,[1508] a Spanish merchant of St. Louis, arrived from Vincennes, and reported that Hamilton had sent away his Indians and most of his troops, leaving only eighty in the garrison; and that he was intending to collect them in the spring, and with five hundred Southern Indians make a campaign against Kaskaskia.

Clark now conceived the project of capturing Vincennes with his small force before Hamilton could reassemble his troops, and its execution forms one of the most daring and brilliant expeditions in American warfare. On the 4th of February he sent off a large boat called "The Willing", mounting two four-pounders and six swivels, under command of Lieutenant John Rogers, who had forty-six men and orders to sail for the Wabash, and, ten leagues below Vincennes, await further orders. On the next day Clark crossed the Kaskaskia River with one hundred and seventy men, marched three miles, and encamped. On the 7th he began his painful march across the Illinois prairies, a distance as a bird flies of one hundred and forty miles, but as he marched, of more than two hundred. The winter was breaking up, the rivers were swollen, the prairies were covered with water and ice, and the mud was such as can only be found in that rich alluvial country. On the 13th they reached the banks of the Little Wabash. Before them lay a stretch of water three miles wide and from three to four feet deep. They made a canoe, and on the 15th ferried the ammunition across and took the men over the channel, marching them the remaining distance through the water. On the 16th their provisions ran short. Major Bowman's journal says: "17th, marched early; crossed several runs very deep; came to the Embarrass River; tried to cross; found it impossible; travelled till 8 o'clock in mud and water, but could find no place to encamp on. 18th, came in sight of the swollen banks of the Wabash; made rafts for four men to cross and go up to the town and steal boats; but they spend day and night in the water to no purpose, for there is not one foot of dry land to be found. 19th, Colonel Clark sent two men in the canoe down the river to meet the bateau 'The Willing,' with orders to come on day and night, that being our last hope, and we starving; no provisions of any sort now two days." On the 20th they found some canoes and killed a deer. On the 21st the little army plunged into the water and waded for more than a league,—Clark says "breast high", Bowman says "sometimes to the neck", the boats picking up such as were likely to drown. On the 22d, says Bowman, "Clark encourages his men, which gave them great spirits; marched on in the waters; those that were weak and famished went in the canoes; no provisions yet; Lord help us." On the 23d they crossed the Wabash, wading four miles through water breast-high. "We plunged into it with courage, Colonel Clark being first, taking care to have the boats take those that were weak and numbed with the cold." Having crossed, they captured an Indian canoe with some buffalo meat, tallow and corn, which were made into a broth and fed to the famishing men, who soon recovered their strength.[1509] No tidings had come from "The Willing", for she had not yet arrived.[1510]

The town was but a few miles distant, and was unaware of his approach. Clark resolved not to delay the attack until the boat had arrived with his artillery and ammunition, but to capture the fort immediately with the men and means he had. Before moving on the town he wrote a proclamation, addressed to the inhabitants, worded in his peculiar style, and advising all "friends of the king to instantly repair to the fort, join their _hair-buying_[1511] general, and fight like men. True friends of liberty may depend on being well treated; but they must keep out of the streets, for every one I find in arms on my arrival I shall treat as an enemy." The same evening he marched, took possession of the town, and threw up earthworks in front of the fort. The firing began immediately, and was kept up all night. His men lay in rifle-pits within thirty yards of the walls, the cannon of the fort being so mounted that they could not be trained upon them. Whenever port-holes of the fort were opened to fire, the besiegers poured in a volley of musket-balls, and severely wounded seven of the garrison. Two pieces of cannon were silenced in fifteen minutes. In the morning, Clark summoned Hamilton to surrender, stating that if he were obliged to storm the fort, Hamilton would receive the treatment due to a murderer. "Beware", he added, "of destroying stores of any kind, or any papers or letters that are in your possession; for, by heavens, if you do, there will be no mercy shown you."[1512] While these negotiations were pending, Clark's men took the first full meal they had had for eight days. The summons to surrender was refused, and the firing went on.

From a manuscript kindly furnished by Lyman C. Draper, Esq., of Madison, Wis., who owns a large number of Clark's papers. Cf. R. G. Thwaites on Draper, in the _Mag. Western Hist._, Jan., 1887. The above letter was addressed thus:—

]

Later in the day, Governor Hamilton asked for a truce of three days, and for a conference as to terms. Clark replied that he would consider no other terms than surrender at discretion; but that he, with Captain Helm, would meet "Mr. Hamilton at the church." At this time a party of Indians came in whom Hamilton had sent to the Ohio for scalps. Clark's men tomahawked them in front of the fort, and threw their bodies into the river.[1513] Clark's terms of capitulation were accepted; and at ten o'clock the next day (the 25th) the fort and its stores were delivered up, and the garrison of seventy-nine officers and men surrendered as prisoners of war.[1514] The only casualty to Clark's soldiers was one man slightly wounded.

Hearing that a convoy with provisions, clothing, and ammunition was on its way to Vincennes from Detroit, Clark sent fifty-three men in boats up the Wabash to intercept it.[1515] They met the convoy one hundred and twenty miles up the river, and captured it, with forty prisoners and despatches for Hamilton.[1516] The value of the goods captured was £10,000, and Clark's men, who had been suffering for clothing and supplies, were bountifully provided for. Clothing to the value of £800 was laid aside for the troops which Clark expected would soon join him in an expedition, which he was planning, for the capture of Detroit.[1517] This project had been on his mind ever since he came into the Illinois country, and all his energies were now directed to its execution. Not being able with his few troops to guard so many prisoners, he sent Governor Hamilton, his principal officers, and a few other persons who had made themselves especially obnoxious by being out with Indian parties, as prisoners of war to Virginia, and paroled the remainder.[1518]

Having met and established friendly relations with the chiefs of the neighboring tribes, he placed Captain Helm in charge of the civil affairs of Vincennes, Lieutenant Brashear in command of the fort with a garrison of forty men, and embarked, on March 20, 1779, for Kaskaskia, on board "The Willing" and seven other boats. They made the trip of three hundred and fifty miles without casualty, and on arriving at Kaskaskia, after an absence of seven weeks, were welcomed by Captain Robert George, who, with his company of forty-one men, had come up from New Orleans, and was in command of the post.

The military conquest of the Illinois country now being complete, a civil government was forthwith established. The Assembly of Virginia was prompt to act as soon as the capture of Kaskaskia was known. In October, 1778, the territory northwest of the Ohio was constituted a county of Virginia, and was named the county of Illinois.[1519] On December 12th, Colonel John Todd was appointed county lieutenant. The governor in his letter of instructions directed Colonel Todd to coöperate with Colonel Clark in his military operations, to have care for the happiness, increase, and prosperity of the county, and to see that justice was duly administered. Colonel Todd's appointment was especially pleasing to Colonel Clark, who said, in writing to George Mason: "The civil department in the Illinois had heretofore robbed me of too much of my time that ought to be spent in military reflection. I was now likely to be relieved by Colonel John Todd. I was anxious for his arrival and happy in his appointment, as the greatest intimacy and friendship had subsisted between us. I now saw myself rid of a piece of trouble that I had no delight in."[1520] Colonel Todd arrived in Kaskaskia in May, 1779. Courts of justice and militia companies were immediately organized in Kaskaskia, Cahokia, and Vincennes,[1521] and, from the lack of American citizens who were qualified, nearly all the official positions were filled by French residents.[1522] A complete civil government was organized and regularly administered in the Northwest territory until the treaty of peace with Great Britain in 1783. This local government became an important factor in the negotiations for that treaty, with reference to the question of boundaries.

Colonel Clark had promises of troops from Virginia and Kentucky for his Detroit expedition, and he was to meet them at Vincennes. Arriving there in July, 1779, he found only thirty from Kentucky of the three hundred promised him. There were no tidings of recruits from Virginia; and Major Bowman, his trusty companion in former campaigns, was fighting the Shawanese on the Ohio at a disadvantage.[1523] Clark, being very impatient, sent out officers to recruit in the settlements, and for this purpose went himself to the Falls of the Ohio. Here he received a letter from Jefferson, now the governor of Virginia, giving him new assurances of Virginia troops for the Detroit expedition, and stating that it was his intention to build a fort on the Mississippi, below the mouth of the Ohio, in order to strengthen the claim of the United States to the Mississippi as its western boundary. The duty of building this fort was later committed to and performed by Colonel Clark. The fort was completed in June, 1780, and was called Fort Jefferson.[1524]

At this time twelve hundred Indians and Canadians from Detroit, with artillery, under Captain Byrd, were coming silently down the Big Miami river to invade Kentucky and help carry out a scheme of conquest soon to be explained. They went up the Licking river, captured two stockades, which were defenceless against cannon, committed the customary British and Indian barbarities, and, although meeting with no opposition, retreated as rapidly as they came. In explanation of the sudden retreat it has been said that the British commander was shocked at the brutal conduct of his Indians, and would proceed no further.[1525] In view of the habitual practice of the British commanders at Detroit of paying the Indians for American scalps,[1526]—a practice Clark alludes to in the term "hair-buying general", which he applied to Governor Hamilton,—this explanation is charitable, but it seems hardly probable. It is more likely that Captain Byrd and his Indians heard the report that Colonel Clark had suddenly returned from his defence of St. Louis and the Illinois country against Sinclair's Indians, and was likely to make it a busy summer for the invaders in Kentucky. Clark with two companions proceeded to Harrodsburg to enlist troops. He there closed the land office, and soon had a thousand men with artillery at the mouth of the Licking, ready for an expedition across the Ohio. He moved rapidly upon Chilicothe and other Indian towns, which he destroyed, with their crops, and also a British trading-post where the Indians had been supplied with arms and ammunition.

Clark's favorite scheme of organizing an expedition for the capture of Detroit was delayed, and his spirit chafed under the disappointment. Jefferson was deeply interested in the project, and, Sept. 26, 1780, wrote an earnest letter to General Washington, urging him to furnish the means. "We have long meditated the attempt, under the direction of Colonel Clark, but the expense has obliged us to decline it. We could furnish the men, provisions, and every[thing] necessary, except powder, had we the money. When I speak of furnishing the men, I mean they should be militia, for such is the popularity of Colonel Clark, and the confidence of the Western people in him, that he could raise the requisite number at any time."[1527] On Dec. 15th he writes again, in more urgent terms, and says: "The regular force Colonel Clark already has, with a proper draft from the militia beyond the Alleghany, and that of three or four of our northern counties, will be adequate for the reduction of Fort Detroit, in the opinion of Colonel Clark.... I am the more urgent for an immediate order, because Colonel Clark awaits here your Excellency's answer by the express."[1528] Washington was also impressed with the military importance of Clark's expedition, and, Dec. 29th, instructed Colonel Brodhead, in command at Fort Pitt, to furnish Clark with the artillery and stores he required, and such a detachment of Brodhead's and Gibson's regiments as could be spared.[1529]

Colonel Brodhead did not acknowledge General Washington's instructions, which were placed in Colonel Clark's hands to deliver, until the 25th of February, and they did not reach him until the 21st.[1530] During this interval of nearly two months, Benedict Arnold, with fifteen hundred British troops, sailed up the James River, and was ravaging Virginia, which, from the absence of its Continental soldiers, was almost defenceless.[1531] In this emergency, Colonel Clark tendered his services to Baron Steuben in her defence, and with a small body of militia received the enemy in Indian and Western fashion. Jefferson, writing, Jan. 18, 1781, to the Virginia delegates in Congress, says: "Baron Steuben had not reached Hood's by eight or ten miles, when they [the enemy] arrived there. They landed their whole army in the night, Arnold attending in person. Captain Clark (of Kaskaskias) had been sent forward with two hundred and forty men by Baron Steuben; and, having properly disposed of them in ambuscade, gave them a deliberate fire, which killed seventeen on the spot and wounded thirteen."[1532]

Colonel Clark's outfit at Fort Pitt went on very slowly and with many embarrassments. Writing, with the rank of brigadier-general, to Washington, on the 26th of May, 1781, he says: "The invasion of Virginia put it out of the power of the governor to furnish me with the number of men proposed for the enterprise to the West."[1533] Colonel Brodhead did not feel that he could spare the troops at the fort which were promised. Clark's only hope was now in getting Continental troops. "But I have not yet lost sight of Detroit", he says, and wishes to set out on the expedition early in June. He was doomed to disappointment. The summer and autumn wore away, and the obstacles in his path increased. The troops he expected were employed elsewhere; the Western Indians again became hostile, and there was a general apprehension among the settlements of incursions upon them from Detroit by the British and their Indian allies. The opportunity of capturing Detroit had passed. General Irvine, in command at Fort Pitt, writing to Washington, Dec. 2, 1781, says: "I presume your Excellency has been informed by the governor of Virginia, or General Clark, of the failure of his expedition." He reports General Clark at the Rapids of the Ohio with only seven hundred and fifty men, and "the buffalo meat all rotten." "The general is apprehensive of a visit from Detroit, and is not without fears the settlement will be obliged to break up unless reinforcements soon arrive from Virginia."[1534]

At this point, George Rogers Clark, at the age of twenty-nine years, ceased to be a factor in Western history. His favorite scheme had failed under circumstances which he could not control. No command was offered him in the Continental army. With a feeling that he was neglected, that his eminent services were not appreciated, and with a sense of wrong that his private property had been sacrificed to pay public debts,[1535] his mind became depressed, and he fell into social habits which tended to increase his despondency. In November, 1782, he conducted a force of ten hundred and fifty men against the Indians on the Miami, took ten scalps and seven prisoners, burned their towns, destroyed their crops and the outfit of a British trading-post;[1536] but he displayed none of the brilliancy shown in his earlier campaigns. He was discharged from the service of Virginia July 2, 1783, with a letter of thanks for his services from the governor. The financial distress of the State was assigned as the motive for his discharge.[1537]

In March, 1782, the frontier settlers, without provocation and in cold blood, butchered nearly a hundred "Christian Indians" in the Moravian mission settlements on the Muskingum. These Indians, under the instruction of their teachers, had adopted the habits and pursuits of civilized life, and were non-resistant in their principles. Their villages, Schönbrun, Gnadenhütten, and Salem, were regularly laid out, with houses and chapels built of squared logs and having shingled roofs. They had farms yielding abundant crops, and schools where the children were educated. Visitors from Western tribes far and near came to look upon the strange sight, and verify the reports which had reached them of the happiness and prosperity of the "Christian Indians." The number of converts had increased so rapidly that good Father David Zeisberger and his assistant, John Heckewelder, the missionaries, believed that the whole Delaware tribe would soon come under their influence.[1538]

With the outbreak of the American Revolution the troubles of these gentle missionaries and their converts began. They were between two raging fires. Their peace principles forbade their engaging in the conflict or favoring either side, although their sympathies, which they could not express, were with the Americans. As a natural consequence of their neutrality, they fell under the suspicion and hatred of both parties. The British at Detroit were eager to secure all the Ohio tribes in their interest, and the missionaries made the Delawares pledge themselves to remain neutral. It was also suspected, and it was doubtless true, that the Moravians gave information to the Americans as to the movements of hostile tribes. The British, therefore, were of the opinion that the Moravian settlements were in secret alliance with the enemy, and they resolved to break up the settlements and remove the inhabitants to Sandusky.[1539] On the other hand, the settlers on the frontiers of Pennsylvania and Virginia hated the "Christian Indians", first, and chiefly, because they were Indians; and secondly, because they allowed the Wyandots to come among them, and had fed and hospitably treated other hostile tribes which had made raids on the white settlements. In the autumn of 1781 Colonel David Williamson raised a company of volunteers in western Pennsylvania to visit the Moravian towns and remove the inhabitants to Fort Pitt; but in the execution of the scheme he was anticipated by the British and their Indian allies, the Shawanese,[1540] Wyandots, and Hurons, who were there before him. On August 10, 1781, one Matthew Elliott, in the service of the governor of Detroit, and Half-King, a chief of the Hurons, appeared at Gnadenhütten with three hundred whites and Indians flying the British flag. Without offering personal violence, they urged the missionaries and converts to abandon the Muskingum country, and place themselves under the protection of the British at Sandusky, on the ground that they were in constant peril from the white settlers on the border. Having declined the offer of British protection, their fears were appealed to, their cattle were shot, and their houses ravaged by the Indians. Worn out by fear and persecution, on September 11th they turned their unwilling steps from the valley of the Muskingum towards Sandusky, under the charge of their uninvited escorts.[1541] Having reached their destination, the missionaries were sent to Detroit to answer before the governor to charges made against them, and were acquitted.[1542]

During the winter the captives at Sandusky suffered from want of proper shelter and food, and a party of a hundred went back to the deserted villages to gather corn which had been left standing in the fields. A report of their return reached the white settlements, and Colonel Williamson, without any civil or military authority, again picked up a company of volunteers and started for the Muskingum country. On his former expedition he brought back several Indians whom the British party had overlooked, and after the form of a trial at Fort Pitt they were released. The colonel was blamed by the people that he had not shot the Indians at sight. Arriving at the deserted towns, he found the "Christian Indians" harvesting their corn and suspecting no danger. He told them that he had come to remove them to Fort Pitt, and ordered them to a building, where they were confined. A vote was then taken by his men, whether the prisoners should be taken to Fort Pitt or put to death. Only eighteen voted to spare their lives. The captives were informed of their fate, and were told that, "inasmuch as they were Christians, they would be given one night to prepare for death in a Christian manner." In the morning they were tomahawked and butchered in the most shocking manner. "Thus", said Loskei, the Moravian bishop, "ninety-six persons magnified the name of the Lord by patiently meeting a cruel death."[1543]

* * * * *

Another expedition, known as the "Crawford Campaign", was forthwith organized, the purpose of which was to exterminate the Wyandots and the Moravian Delawares on the Sandusky, and to give no quarter to any Indian. Colonel Williamson was again the chief organizer, and probably the same men were enlisted who had disgraced themselves on the Muskingum. Colonel William Crawford,[1544] who had seen much service in the Continental army, was put in command, much against his wishes, and Williamson was second in rank. On May 25, 1782, four hundred well equipped and mounted backwoodsmen, breathing vengeance against the red men, started out from Mingo Bottom, on the Ohio, for the Sandusky country, a journey of one hundred and fifty miles. Nineteen days later a remnant of them returned to the same spot, a defeated and demoralized rabble, with a loss of seventy killed, wounded, and missing. The Indians knew their plans, and had time to summon the neighboring tribes and to procure British soldiers and artillery from Detroit. Two battles were fought, in which they were outnumbered and outgeneralled, and it was fortunate that any of them escaped. Stragglers came in daily, reporting the sufferings and cruel tortures they had undergone, but none of them could report the fate of Colonel Crawford. He was captured, and the barbarity of the Indian mind exhausted itself in the ingenuity of the tortures with which he was put to death.[1545]

On May 26, 1780, a raid was made on the Spanish post of St. Louis by a party of fifteen hundred Indians and a hundred and forty English and Canadian traders, fitted out by Lieutenant-Governor Sinclair, of Michilimacinac, and led by a Sioux chief named Wabasha. The affair lasted only a few hours, and no assault was made on the fortified enclosure; but a considerable number of persons found on their farms or intercepted outside of the palisades were shot or captured. A portion of the party crossed the Mississippi and made a similar raid on Cahokia. They all then left for their northern homes as rapidly as they came,—some by way of the Wisconsin and Fox rivers, and others by way of the Illinois River to Chicago, where Sinclair had two vessels awaiting them.

This affair has been the occasion of many conflicting statements[1546] as to the time it occurred, the number of persons killed and captured, and how it happened that so large a body of Indians in the British service came so far and did so little which was warlike. It has been often asserted, and as often denied, that George Rogers Clark, at the request of the Spanish commandant, was at St. Louis at the time of the incursion, or so near as to render efficient service. The purpose and character of this expedition, and the causes of its failure, are explained by contemporary documents[1547] recently published, which were not accessible to earlier writers. It was a part of a much larger scheme ordered, and perhaps devised, by the cabinet in London, to capture New Orleans and all the Spanish posts west of the Mississippi and the Illinois country.[1548]

On May 8, 1779, Spain declared war against Great Britain, and on July 8 authorized her American subjects to make war upon Natchez and other English posts on the east bank of the Mississippi.[1549] On June 17, Lord George Germain, secretary for the colonies, wrote to General Haldimand, informing him that Spain had declared war, and that hostilities were to begin at once; and he was ordered to attack New Orleans and reduce the Spanish posts on the Mississippi.[1550] These orders were issued in a circular letter sent to all the Western governors. Sinclair acknowledged the circular February 17, 1780, and informed the general that he had taken steps to engage the Sioux and other tribes west of the Mississippi for the expedition.[1551] De Peyster at Detroit wrote to Haldimand, March 8, that he had taken measures "to facilitate Sinclair's movements on the Mississippi, and be of use to Brigadier Campbell, if he has not already taken New Orleans. The Wabash Indians will amuse Clark at the Falls of the Ohio."[1552] The general scheme here touched upon was, that General Campbell, stationed at Pensacola, should, with a British fleet and army, come up the Mississippi to Natchez, and there meet the Indian expedition sent by Sinclair down the western bank of the river, which was under instructions to capture and destroy the Spanish posts on its way. The united forces were then to expel the Spaniards from all their settlements on the lower Mississippi. The scheme miscarried. Governor Galvez, of New Orleans, a person of great ability and energy, no sooner heard of the declaration of war against Great Britain than he raised a fleet and army to capture the British posts on the Mississippi; and in September, 1779, the forts at Manchac, Baton Rouge, and Natchez, with their garrisons, surrendered to him. He took also eight English vessels employed in transport service, and in carrying the supply of provisions to Pensacola.[1553] Galvez next turned his attention to Mobile, which he captured March 14, 1780; and then to Pensacola, which surrendered May 9, 1781. Brigadier Campbell, therefore, in May, 1780, was otherwise engaged than in executing the splendid scheme which had been assigned to him by the British cabinet and his superior officer, General Haldimand.[1554]

It does not appear that, at the time of the attack on St. Louis, Sinclair, or the party of Indians and traders engaged in the expedition, had heard of the successes of the Spaniards on the lower Mississippi, and of the collapse of the main scheme.[1555] Haldimand furnished Sinclair with the latter information in a letter written at Quebec, June 19th, twenty-four days after the fiasco at St. Louis, and supposing, apparently, that the expedition had not moved from Prairie du Chien. "I have received", he said, "your letters of the 15th and 17th of February, and much approve of the measures they advise me you have taken in the arrangement of the war parties intended to favor the operation of Brig. General Campbell, agreeably to the circular letter forwarded to you.... It is very unfortunate that the [Campbell] expedition should have been either abandoned or not undertaken so early as was intended, owing probably to the fleet having been dispersed, which, from what has happened upon the Mississippi, would appear has been the case. The intermediate attacks you have proposed the Indians should make will, however, answer a good end."[1556]

That Colonel George Rogers Clark was present on the opposite bank of the river at the time of the St. Louis attack, and was there by request of the Spanish commandant, Leyba, and for the defence of the Illinois country, can no longer be doubted.[1557] The proof is in a report of Col. John Montgomery, printed in the _Calendar of Virginia State Papers_ (iii. 443). Montgomery was one of Clark's four captains in his Kaskaskia campaign, and at the period of which he speaks was in command, under Clark, of the post of Kaskaskia. In his report he states: "In the spring of 1780 we [at Kaskaskia] were threatened with an invasion. Colonel Clark, being informed of it, hurried with a small body of troops from the Falls to the mouth of the Ohio, where he received other expresses from the Spanish commandant and myself, and luckily joined me at Cohos [Cahokia] in time enough to save the country from impending ruin, as the enemy appeared in great force within twenty-four hours after his arrival. Finding they were likely to be disappointed in their design, they retired after doing some mischief on the Spanish shore, which would have been prevented if unfortunately the high wind had not prevented the signals being heard." It is evident from this statement that the defence of his own territory was Clark's chief motive for being present on this occasion, and that the invitation of and friendship for the Spanish commandant at St. Louis were mere incidents in the transaction. "Prisoners and deserters from the enemy confirmed the report", says Montgomery, "that a body of a thousand English and Indian troops were on their march to the Kentucky country with a train of artillery;[1558] and the colonel, knowing the situation of that country, appeared to be alarmed, and resolved to get there previous to their arrival.... After giving me instructions, he left Cohos on the 4th of June, with a small escort, for the mouth of the Ohio, on his route to Kentucky." The orders he left with Col. Montgomery were to pursue the Indians retreating up the Illinois River and attack their towns about the time they were disbanding, and to proceed as far as Rock River. "I immediately", says Montgomery, "proceeded to the business I was ordered to do, and marched three hundred and fifty men to the lakeopen [?] on the Illinois River;[1559] and from thence to the Rock River, destroying the towns and crops, the enemy not daring to fight me."[1560]

How much the presence of Clark near the scene of action contributed to the demoralization of the Indian forces is not mentioned by any of the contemporary writers. It is known, however, that his name was a terror to the savage tribes; and Sinclair, in organizing his expedition, found this dread of Clark among the Sioux and other nations west of the Mississippi. He wrote to Captain Brehm, Haldimand's aide-de-camp, February 15, 1780, that there was nothing in Hamilton's disaster which ought to alarm the Sioux, and that "many of them never heard of it. The short-sighted harpies, which necessity has thrown into the service, dwell upon the stories they hear from fretful bands of Delawares, Mascoutins, and Kickapoos near where the event happened. Admit that the disaster has all the supposed consequent misfortunes, it is still more necessary for us to engage the Indians to take a part, which will at once declare their enmity to the party they are engaged to act against."[1561] "The party" Sinclair had in mind was evidently Clark himself; and with him the chief object of the expedition was to recapture the Illinois country.

The general scheme devised by Lord George Germain for the complete conquest of the West,—of bringing down a large party of northwestern Indians upon St. Louis and Ste. Geneviève; of sending an expedition from Detroit to invade Kentucky and keep Colonel Clark busy; of bringing up the Mississippi to Natchez, under General Campbell, a fleet and army, there to unite with the northern expeditions, and from thence to capture the Illinois country and all the Spanish settlements on the river—was an excellent one, and had every promise of success. St. Louis was in no condition to resist an assault, and rank cowardice marked the conduct of the governor and the few soldiers stationed at the post when the Indian raiders appeared.[1562] The Illinois country was very feebly garrisoned, and not a soldier or a shilling had ever been contributed by the Continental Congress for its conquest or defence. The scheme failed because of the promptness and exceptional activity of the Spaniards under Governor Galvez, and the watchfulness and energy of Colonel Clark. It was the last concerted effort of Great Britain to regain possession of the West; as the campaign of Clinton and Cornwallis, with its result one year later at Yorktown, was her expiring effort on the Atlantic coast.[1563] If the Western scheme had been successful, the country north of the Ohio River would have been a part of the province of Quebec, and might have remained Canadian territory to this day. In negotiating two and three years later the treaty of peace with Great Britain under such conditions, it is difficult to conceive what boundaries the United States could have secured. Spain therefore rendered an invaluable service to the United States by enabling George Rogers Clark to hold with his Virginia troops the country he had conquered from the British, until the treaty of peace confirmed to the nation the Mississippi River as its western boundary.

Notwithstanding this important service, there was nothing friendly and disinterested, at this time, in the relations of Spain to the United States. She was looking solely to her own interests, and refused to acknowledge the independence of the United States, or enter into a treaty of alliance except on the most degrading conditions. She must be allowed the exclusive right to navigate the Mississippi, the undisturbed possession of the Floridas and of the east bank of the Mississippi, which she had captured from the British. Spain asserted that the United States had no territorial rights west of the Alleghanies, and that their western boundaries were defined by the royal proclamation of October 7, 1763.[1564] The captures of Manchac, Baton Rouge, Natchez, and Mobile had awakened her military zeal, and nothing less than the possession of the entire Mississippi Valley would then satisfy her territorial ambition. French diplomacy favored some of these extraordinary claims of Spain.[1565]

For the purpose of strengthening the Spanish claim to territory east of the Mississippi, the governor of St. Louis, Don Francisco Cruvat, sent out on the 2d of January, 1781, an expedition to capture St. Joseph, an English fort situated near the present site of Niles, Michigan. Although two hundred and twenty leagues distant, this was the nearest post to St. Louis which raised the British flag. The expedition was in command of Captain Eugenio Pourré, and comprised sixty-five militiamen (of whom thirty were Spaniards) and sixty Indians. The journey, made in the depth of winter across a trackless country, each man on foot carrying his provisions and equipments, was a daring exploit, and it was successful in accomplishing its immediate purpose. They took the fort in the name of his most Catholic Majesty, made prisoners of the few English soldiers found in it, divided the provisions and stores among their own Indians and those living near, and returned to St. Louis early in March, with the English flag, which Captain Pourré delivered with due ceremony to Governor Cruvat.[1566] The treaty of peace, which it is not the purpose of this chapter to discuss, brought this and other shallow pretensions on the part of the Spaniards to territorial rights east of the Mississippi River to an end.[1567]

THE CLOSING SCENES OF THE WAR.

BY THE EDITOR.

THE campaign of Yorktown over, Rochambeau made his headquarters at Williamsburg (Parton's _Jefferson_, ch. 29), while Washington, having dispatched two thousand men south under St. Clair (instructions in Sparks's _Washington_, viii. 198) to reinforce Greene, moved with the rest of the army, by land and water, to the neighborhood of the Hudson (Sparks's _Washington_, viii. 199, 200; Irving's _Washington_, iv. ch. 29, 30; Kapp's _Steuben_, ch. 23; Lossing's _Field-Book_, ii. ch. 5). Washington at once acted in conjunction with Congress to prevent the country lapsing into a neglect of the war establishment through over-confidence in the effects of the capture of Cornwallis. In April, 1782, Washington left Philadelphia and joined the army, establishing his headquarters at Newburgh, in a house which is still standing. (Views of it are in _Mag. of Amer. Hist._, 1883, p. 357 (taken in 1834); Irving's _Washington_, quarto ed., iv. 434; W. H. Bartlett's _Hist. of U. S._; with a paper by C. D. Deshler on "A Glimpse of Seventy-Six", in _Harper's Mag._, xlix. 231; with Lossing's "Romance of the Hudson", in _Ibid._, liii. p. 32; also in his _Field-Book_, ii. 99, his _Hudson_, 199, and his _Mary and Martha Washington_, 215; Gay's _Pop. Hist. of U. S._, iv. 84.)

There are several special accounts of this latest camp of the army. (Cf. Asa Bird Gardiner on "The Last Cantonment of the Main Continental Army" _Mag. Amer. Hist._, 1883, vol. x. 355), which is accompanied by a plan of the camp near New Windsor. Simeon De Witt's maps of the locality and the camp are in the N. Y. Hist. Soc. library. De Witt was the geographer of the American army, succeeding Erskine, who had died in 1780. Various orderly-books of this time are in the American Antiquarian Society library. Other papers on the camp are in _Mag. Amer. Hist._, Jan., 1884, p. 81; by J. T. Headley in _Harper's Mag._, lxiv. 651, and _Galaxy_, xxii. 7. Cf. also Ruttenber's _Newburgh_ (1859) and the account of the first annual meeting of the Hist. Soc. of Newburgh Bay and the Highlands, Feb. 22, 1884,—Newburgh, 1884.

Washington and Congress were soon perplexed with the case of Capt. Joshua Huddy, and with a project of retaliation for that officer's execution. Huddy, an officer of the New Jersey line, commanded a block-house at Tom's River, New Jersey, and was there captured with his men by a band of refugee loyalists (W. S. Stryker's _Capture of the Block-House at Tom's River_). Huddy was taken by Capt. Richard Lippincott, a New Jersey loyalist, to Sandy Hook, where he was hanged on the pretence that he had been engaged in causing the death of Philip White, a Tory, who had been killed while endeavoring to escape from his guard. Congress ordered retaliation, and a young British officer, then a prisoner, Capt. Charles Asgill, was drawn by lot to suffer death unless Clinton should surrender Lippincott. Clinton condemned the action of Lippincott, who was, however, acquitted on trial, on the ground that his action was in accordance with instructions from the board of Associated Loyalists (Jones's _N. Y. during the Rev._, vol. ii. note xxix. p. 481). The execution of Asgill was postponed by Washington in the hope of some compensating arrangement, and at the instance of Lady Asgill, the young man's mother, the French monarch interceded with such effect that Congress, in November, 1782, ordered Washington to set Asgill at liberty. (References: Sparks's _Washington_, i. 378; viii. 262, 265, 301-310, 336, 361; ix. 197; _Sparks MSS._, vols. lxxii., xlviii., lviii.; Niles's _Principles and Acts_ 1876 ed.), p. 509; _Remembrancer_, xiv. 144, 155; xv. 127, 191; _Political Mag._, iii. 468, 472; Jones's _N. Y. during the Rev._, ii. 232, 483, and Johnston's _Observations on Jones, 77_; Thomas Paine's _American Crisis, and a Letter to Sir Guy Carleton on the Murder of Captain Huddy, and the Intended Retaliation on Captain Asgill, of the Guards_ (London, 1788); _Memoir of Gen. Samuel Graham, edited by his son, Col. J. J Graham_ (Edinburgh, privately printed, 1862,—extract in _Hist. Mag._, ix. 329). Washington caused all the papers on the subject to be printed in the _Columbian Mag._, Jan. and Feb., 1787. This young officer of twenty died as Gen. Sir Charles Asgill in July, 1823. Cf. _Diplomatic Corresp._, xi. 105, 128, 140; Irving's _Washington_, iv. ch. 29; Sparks's _Corresp. of the Rev._, iii.; Heath's _Memoirs_, 335; Sparks's _Franklin_, ix. 376; Hamilton's _Republic_, ii. 282. The English view is given in Adolphus's _England_, iii. ch. 46.

Early in May the news from England made it evident that the war was approaching an end, and the promised release from further campaigning left the public mind in a better condition to comprehend how weak a stay Congress had proved itself, and how insufficient was the power lodged in that body to compel the States to do any and all acts necessary for the common good. The natural distrust which was created of the form of government, whose success in carrying on the war had been largely fortuitous, was still more increased by the difficulties yet to be encountered in disbanding an army, in satisfying its well-earned demands, and in organizing a stable control for the future (Bancroft, final revision, vi. 59, etc.) It was not, then, surprising that notions of counteraction should in any minds take the form of a monarchical solution of the problem, and this sentiment found expression in a letter, written by Col. Nicola, of the army, to Washington, in which it was somewhat adroitly suggested that Washington should consent to be the head of a royal government. Washington met the suggestion with an indignant and stern reply, and we hear nothing more of the subject (Sparks, viii. 300, etc.; Irving, iv. 370).