Perhaps some people aren’t meant for ordinary life.
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The 1783 Treaty of Paris ended the Revolutionary War between Great Britain and her American colonies. When Britain signed the treaty, she ceded her claim to what was called the Old Northwest Territory, an area that included the present-day states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, and a part of Minnesota.
This concession was largely due to the efforts of one man, George Rogers Clark.
In January 1779, Clark commanded a force of militiamen at Kaskaskia, a small town near the Mississippi River in what is now southern Illinois. The Revolutionary War was in progress, and the Continental Army could spare no money or men for western adventures, so Clark’s force was made up of local volunteers and funded in part by money Clark himself borrowed.
At the time, the British held a fortification on the present-day site of Vincennes, Indiana, named Fort Sackville. This fort was the strategic key to controlling much of the territory to the northwest, and Clark planned to take it. He was undaunted by the fact that it was 180 miles from Kaskaskia. He wrote to Patrick Henry, then governor of Virginia, “Who knows what fortune will do for us? Great things have been effected by a few men well conducted.”
Clark began his campaign on February 5, 1779, leading a force of 170 men out of Kaskaskia. As was normal at that time, military travel was on foot, and it rained frequently, forcing the men to march through flooded fields. Rations were issued for the journey, but food ran low during the eighteen days of marching, and sometimes the men went without. At night, they slept on the wet ground.
After eight days, on February 13th, the party reached the vicinity of the Wabash River, but the river and its tributaries had spilled over their banks and flooded the surrounding bottom land. Clark’s goal, Fort Sackville, was on the far side of this water, nine miles away. The men spent the night, as one of Clark’s officers described in his diary, on a “small spot of ground” in “drizzly and dark weather.”
It took them eight more days to cross the flooded river, using canoes they built on the spot to carry their supplies. When the river channels were otherwise impassable, the men rode in the canoes, but more often they waded through water that was February-cold.
An officer described the situation in his diary:
“Set off to cross the plain … about four miles long all covered with water breast high. Here we expected some of our brave men must certainly perish, having frozen in the night, and so long fasting. Having no other resource but wading this plain, or rather lake, of waters, we plunged into it with courage … We thought to get to town that night, so plunged into the water, sometimes to the neck, for more than one league when we stopped on the next hill, … there being no dry land on any side for many leagues. Rain all this day; no provisions.”
Sixteen days after leaving Kaskaskia, on February 21st, Clark wrote in his own diary, “[We] came to a copse of timber called the Warrior’s Island. We were now in full view of the fort and town, not a shrub between us … Every man now feasted his eyes and forgot he had suffered anything.”
The British flag flew over the fort — a pair of two-story wooden buildings, a rectangular parade ground, and four smaller buildings, all protected by a wooden palisade.
The next day, the company crossed the remaining water and reached the land occupied by the fort. Clark wrote that many of his men “would reach the shore, and fall with their bodies half in the water.” Nevertheless, under his leadership they rallied and attacked.
The British had assumed no one could, or would, do what Clark and his men were doing, and they only learned they were under attack when Clark’s soldiers opened fire. Looking out from their fort, they saw what appeared to be a substantial force of attackers, because Clark had issued extra flags to his troops and maneuvered them to give the impression of an army of five hundred men.
Accurate long-rifle fire from the experienced woodsmen in Clark’s force dispatched the gunners manning the fort’s cannon. He then ordered his men to begin tunneling toward the fort from the nearby river bank. The British commander knew this would lead to explosives under the fort’s walls, and he called for negotiations.
Clark insisted on unconditional surrender, and he emphasized his demand by executing five allies of the British. These were Native American warriors who, in Clark’s view, were guilty of killing innocent settlers during raids. At 10:00 AM on Thursday, February 25, 1779, the British surrendered.
It turned out that when the British abandoned the fort, they also abandoned their claim to the Old Northwest Territory, a concession that nearly doubled the size of the original thirteen colonies. The victory earned Clark public acclaim and the title, “Conqueror of the Old Northwest.”
At the time of his victory, George Rogers Clark was not yet thirty. He found no comparable challenge in his future. Within ten years he was forced out of the military, accused of being drunk on duty.
For much of the rest of his life, he struggled to no good effect. He took part in two ill-advised, and failed, conspiracies that sought to free the Mississippi River from Spanish control, even as his younger brother gained fame as the Clark of the Lewis and Clark expedition.
Never fully reimbursed for the military expenses he incurred in the campaign against Fort Sackville, he suffered in poverty and had to hide from creditors. He lived his final years in obscurity, needing the care of family members just to survive.
It is the story of a man confused about what to do with his life, and unable to do it well.
And yet …
When George Rogers Clark stood with his men on a water-logged bit of land, exhausted after more than two weeks of marching, wading, and freezing, with the British-held fort in view, he knew what to do.
“Whispered to those near me to do as I did, immediately put some water in my hand, poured on powder, blackened my face, gave a warwhoop and marched into the water, without saying a word. The party gazed and fell in, one after another, without saying a word.”
Perhaps some people aren’t meant for ordinary life.
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You can visit the site of Fort Sackville and George Rogers Clark’s exploit. It is in Vincennes, Indiana, on the grounds of the George Rogers Clark Memorial, a National Historic Park. The park is next to the Lincoln Memorial Bridge where Route 50 once crossed the Wabash River, before it was rerouted to a bypass around Vincennes.
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The painting at the top of the page is an illustration of George Rogers Clark’s march to Vincennes in the American Revolutionary War, 1779. The original was painted by Frederick Coffay Yohn (1875–1933). It appeared as an illustration in the book “The Hero of Vincennes: The Story of George Rogers Clark,” by Lowell Thomas, 1929. It is in the public domain.
The photo of George Rogers Clark National Historic Park at the bottom of the page is by the author.
