USA > Mississippi > A history of the Mississippi valley, from its discovery to the end of foreign domination. The narrative of the founding of an empire, shorn of current myth, and enlivened by the thrilling adventures of discoverers, pioneers, frontiersmen, Indian fighters, and homemakers > Part 19
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Then dividing the force, a half of the men were sent to form a cordon around the village, so that no one could escape, while Clark led the remainder silently to a covered gateway on the river side of the fort. Fortunately, no sentinel was on guard, and unopposed, Clark led his force within the walls.
The officials of the post were giving a ball to the inhabitants of the place, that night. A great hall was lighted by many candles, and with torches, here and there, and within were gathered a merry host of cre- oles, dancing with a glee that was delightful.
Walking to the door of the hall, Clark stopped and "leaned silently with folded arms against the doorpost,
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looking at the dancers. An Indian lying on the floor of the entry, gazed intently on the stranger's face, as the light from the torches within flickered across it, and suddenly sprang to his feet, uttering the unearthly war whoop.
"Instantly the dancing ceased; the women screamed while the men ran towards the door. But Clark, stand- ing unmoved, and with unchanged face, grimly bade them continue their dancing, but to remember that they now danced under Virginia and not Great Britain!" (Roosevelt. )
And thereafter they never did dance under Great Britain, in that town. For the Americans secured the garrison, including the commander, as Clark gazed on the dancers, and the flag that replaced the British was never lowered. It is plain that Clark understood the French character well when he appeared alone at the door of the ballroom. He could have done nothing else that would have impressed them so deeply.
All night the backwoods Americans patrolled the dark streets of the town in ominous silence, while the French shivered with fear in their unlighted homes to which they were sent as soon as Clark saw that they would dance no more. The tales of bloody deeds done by merciless backwoodsmen from Kentucky, of which they had heard enough, were remembered in detail. When morning came, the French inhabitants were in a state of mind whereupon a deputation, headed by the priest, (Father Pierre Gibault), waited on Clark to beg for their lives. They said they were "willing to be slaves to save their families."
At that Clark, who had cultivated their fears by
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night, told the trembling suppliants that the Americans had come to set them free, not to slaughter or enslave them; and that any who wished to take the oath of allegiance to the United States would thereby become American citizens, with all American privileges, while all who preferred to leave might depart in peace.
Hardly crediting his own senses, Father Gibault asked whether the Catholic Church could be opened. Clark replied that the American government had noth- ing whatever to do with any religion, save only to protect every man in his right to worship God accord- ing to the dictates of his own conscience.
The conquest of Kaskaskia was completed by that assurance. The deputation returned "with noisy joy" to the church, where they sang Te Deum, and the peo- ple made haste to swear allegiance to the new flag. Only Rocheblave remained obdurate. He replied with insulting language to an invitation to dine with Clark, and his slaves were sold for £500, (which was dis- tributed as prize money among the soldiers), after which he was sent to Virginia as a prisoner. When there he broke his parole and escaped. Cahokia, the nearby French settlement, was conquered, on the same terms, by merely sending an account of what had been done at Kaskaskia, and Father Gibault volunteered to go to Vincennes and bring it under the flag, a mis- sion in which he succeeded perfectly.
At once Clark enlisted a considerable body of French youth as militia and spent much time in drilling them and his own men; but a new danger impended in the arrival of a host of red men who came to Caho- kia to learn what had happened, and Clark met them
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there. They were all from the Great Lakes-Chippe- was, Pottawattomies, Sacs and Foxes-and there was an insolence in the bearing of a part of them, (known as the Meadow Indians), that might well have alarmed any commander having no more rifles behind him than Clark had.
But Clark was exactly fitted to handle these wild men without bloodshed. The first open aggression came on the third night, when a party forced them- selves into the house where Clark had his headquarters. But Clark had suspected treachery, and had a force in waiting that promptly captured and ironed the red men.
The warriors begged for release, saying they were merely trying to see if the French were really friendly to the Americans, but Clark listened with indifference, even when some chief men of other tribes came to beg favor for the prisoners. To make a still deeper impression, Clark "assembled a number of Gen- tlemen and Ladies, and danced nearly the whole night."
The next day, after some negotiations with the other Indians about the future relations of the various tribes to the "Long Knives," the fettered Indians were brought before the Council. There Clark told them that everybody thought they ought to die for making an attack upon him during the sacred time of council, and that he had fully determined to kill them, but he had learned they were old women and not men, and for their treachery were considered too mean to be killed by a Big Knife. He had therefore decided to take away their masculine garments, clothe them in the appropriate garb of squaws, and then, since women
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could not hunt, he would give them a plentiful supply of food and send them home.
The punishment thus awarded them was worse than death to these Indians, and when the irons were taken from them a chief came forward with a belt of wampum and a pipe of peace; but Clark refused to listen to his words, saying that he would not treat with squaws. This impressed the guilty Indians so deeply that after a few minutes consultation, it was decided to offer two of their number as a sacrifice to clear away the disgrace they had brought upon themselves. Two youths volunteered to die for the rest, and walking to the center of the council, they sat down, covered their heads with their blankets, and silently awaited the stroke of the tomahawk.
The triumph of the Long Knives was now com- pleted. Going to these youths Clark raised them up, and told them he was glad to find that two men and chiefs were to be found among those he had supposed to be squaws only. He was therefore able to treat with the others through them.
A peace that probably bound all who were present at the council, (though, as usual, not their fellow tribesmen), was concluded, and the name of Clark attained a fame through the Northwest that was better for the preservation of peace than the presence of many soldiers.
The most trying part of Clark's work, however, was yet to be done. Vincennes had surrendered at the request of Father Gibault, and Captain Leonard Helm had been sent there to take command. The news of all the changes wrought in the Illinois country by Clark's
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COL. GEORGE CROGHAN.
Son of Maj. William Croghan of the Revolution. His mother a sister of Gen. George Rogers Clark. Received a medal from Congress for distinguished services.
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invasion reached Detroit while Colonel Hamilton was meditating an expedition to the forks of the Ohio, and he at once turned his energies to Vincennes instead.
Colonel Hamilton himself took command of a force with which, on October 7, 1778, he left Detroit. It included thirty-six British regulars under two lieuten- ants, forty-five French volunteers under Captain La- motte, and militiamen that brought his white force up to 179. The Indians at first numbered sixty-nine, but they were afterwards increased to 500.
Crossing Lake Erie to the Maumee River, Hamil- ton poled up that stream past the site of the present city of Toledo to the carrying place, nine miles long, that crossed the height of land where Fort Wayne, Indiana, now stands. The portages ended in what the French called a flae-or swampy lake, made by a beaver dam across Le Petite Riviere-a tributary of the Wa- bash that had little water in it below the beaver dam. The Indians and whites alike had preserved the beavers living in this flae. By opening the dam a suffi- cient amount of water was released to carry Hamilton's flotilla down to the deep water of the Wabash; and when the expedition was gone the beavers promptly repaired the dam, and filled the lake again, ready for use of the next expedition.
At this time Capt. Helm, commanding at Vincennes, had but one American in the fort, a private soldier named Moses Henry. He had to depend on the French militia entirely. He had a scouting party of the French up the Wabash, at the time, but Hamilton captured the party, and on December 17, the overwhelming British force entered Vincennes. The poor little Frenchmen
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promptly went over to the invaders, and Helm was obliged to surrender. Nevertheless he did it in good frontier style. Placing "a loaded cannon at the open gate" of the fort, as Hamilton advanced, Capt. Helm stood by the gun with a lighted match, and" com- manded the British to halt. Hamilton demanded the surrender of the garrison. Helm refused and asked for terms. Hamilton replied that they should have the honors of war, and the terms were accepted. The comical aspect of the garrison, consisting of one officer and one soldier, marching out of the fort between lines of disgusted Indians on one side and British soldiers on the other, is happily illustrated in Gay's History of the United States, (Winsor).
When Hamilton reached Vincennes, Clark had about 100 Americans with whom to hold the Illinois country against this hair-buying invader, who now had a force of more than 600. Had Hamilton been half as courageous and resource- ful as Clark, the British flag would have been flying from every post in the region very quickly. But the fact is Hamilton had been obliged to drive his boats through ice, during his descent of the Wabash, and the winter rains and winds of the region had seemed to search the marrow of his bones. A seat by an open fireplace was much more to his liking that an expedition to Kaskaskia. Kaskaskia could wait till the orioles came to weave hanging nests on the tips of the white elm branches. He sent most of his Indians to their wigwams, and most of his militia to Detroit, without even trying to do so much as cut off Clark's communications with Kentucky. He re-
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tained for a garrison thirty-four British regulars, forty Detroit Frenchmen, and twelve white associates of the Indians-men fit to send on expeditions for scalping women and children. In fact, while Hamilton neg- lected to place a force where Clark's communication with the American settlements would be cut off, he repeatedly sent out bands of Indians in charge of these white men to raid, with fire and scalping knife, such lone home-makers as could be found at work in the wilderness, unsuspicious of danger. In nothing that Col. Hamilton did during the American Revolution is his character more accurately portrayed than in his preferring scalp-hunting raids to a war-like attack on Clark's line of communications.
And in nothing that Clark ever did was his charac- ter as an American frontiersman set forth better than in his work after Hamilton came to Vincennes. For while Hamilton sat down to plan the uprising of every Indian tribe from the Great Lakes to the Gulf, Clark planned to attack Hamilton.
Clark saw that he was in great danger at Kaskaskia, and to defend his post he determined to attack the in- vaders while they were yet at Vincennes. He did this in spite of his reasonable belief that the British force far outnumbered his, and in spite of a perilous lack of ammunition.
A big row boat was built and armed with two four-pounder cannon and two one-pounders-swivels -and manned with forty men. She was named the Willing. Her he sent around by the Ohio to serve as a ferry and a gunboat in the attack. Then he called for volunteers among the Frenchmen, and the boldness
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of the plan so roused the enthusiasm of the French `girls that scarcely a French young man dared refuse to enlist, and on February 7, 1779, he marched from Kaskaskia at the head of 170 men.
In the annals of American warfare there are no accounts of such another expedition as this. The weather had turned warm, the snow and ice had melted, and nearly the whole route, 240 miles long, was flooded.
Clark himself might face a journey like that with composure. With his iron will its hardships might be turned to pleasure, but the appalling task was to make the hardships seem pleasures to his men, of whom many had been induced to enlist by a passing excite- ment. Yet here and elsewhere the man was equal to the occasion. He led the way. He kept many hunters out to bring in game, and he had the game served in banquets. At night they kindled huge fires and feasted and danced and sang songs.
At the end of the week they reached the Little Wabash and found the country flooded three feet deep far beyond the channel. But a boat was made by hollow- ing out a big log, and some men were ferried across to a place beyond the channel where they could be land- ed in water not more than waist deep. There they built a scaffold on which the baggage was loaded as the pi- rogue brought it over, and finally the pack horses came swimming across. Three days was consumed in cross- ing. The horses were repacked as they stood belly deep beside the scaffold, and then away the command all splashed through water and mud, waist high most of the time. They had found nothing worse than mud
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for beds, hitherto, but on February 17, when Embar- ras river was reached, they had to huddle on the top of a low hillside that did not afford room for them to make camp.
To increase their misery, the game had abandoned the overflowed land, and moreover they were so near Vincennes that the firing of a gun was likely to give warning to the British.
In fact at sunrise on the 18th, they heard the morn- ing gun in Vincennes. The men began making pi- rogues, that day, and for two days they worked on the low ridge of ground. But in the meantime they had no food, and the spirits of the French volunteers sank until they begged Clark to return. However, be- fore the night of the 20th, five Frenchmen from Vin- cennes were captured, and they gave the cheering news that no alarm had been raised in the town. The same day, a hunter, taking chances, killed a deer that gave every body a bit of meat, (the last food they had on the march), and in the morning the force was ferried across the river, leaving the horses behind.
Having landed on a low mound they set forward, (Clark leading), and marched for three miles through water that was up to their chins, part of the time, while a drummer boy "did good service by making the men laugh with his pranks and his jokes." Then they camped on a low ridge for the night-a most wretched night; though a worse was to come.
The next morning there was work for the boats, for the men were giving out under their prolonged hardships. The exhausted were put in the boats and then Clark, having painted his face Indian fashion,
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gave the war whoop and led the way once more, while some of the bolder men began to sing a favorite song to cheer the others.
But neither war whoops nor songs could strengthen the famished men, and when at night they came to a ridge six miles from Vincennes many were so weak that they fell to the ground.
To add to the misery of the starving host, the weather turned cold and ice formed a half inch thick over all the overflowed meadows around them.
Strange to say, however, no man died, and when daylight came they marched on once more. A prairie four miles wide that was now an ice-covered lake, waist deep, lay before them, but the strong broke the ice for the others, and the boats were paddled to and fro swiftly, to pick up those who fell by the way. A guard of twenty-five men, with orders to put any one to death who might try to desert, brought up the rear. And so they struggled on until an island was reached in the midst of a forest two miles from Vincennes. On the way across, a canoe which some squaws were pad- dling toward the town, was taken, and in it they found a quarter of a buffalo, some buffalo fat, and some corn -enough to make a good soup for all.
This swallowed, the forces overhauled their rifles and what with the sup of broth, and the prospect of a fight, the little band became as enthusiastic, once more, as it had been at the start. Some scouts sent out brought in a youth from Vincennes, who said that 200 Indians had just arrived; the British force was now very much larger than that of Clark. But instead of growing disheartened, Clark became the bolder. He
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had hoped, theretofore, to surprise the garrison, butnow he determined not only to approach openly, but to re- lease this prisoner with a letter to the people an- nouncing his coming. The friends of the Americans were told to remain in their houses, while others were urged to go into the fort with the "hair-buyer General," and "fight like men."
Resting his men by their fires till sundown, Clark marched from the forest into a prairie in which were a number of low hills and ridges. The prairie was with- in plain view of the settlement, but by waiting until night was at hand, Clark concealed his force. Ham- ilton had seen the camp fires of the previous night, and he had sent out a scouting party, but the country was impassable to such men as they were, and they reported that it was impassable for everybody. Hamilton did not so much as know that the Americans were at hand when Clark marched from the woods.
But in the meantime the confident words of the let- ter sent to the French inhabitants had turned them to support the Americans, while the letter and extraordin- ary boldness of Clark's raid had turned the hearts of the Indians to water, and they fled; save only a few who determined to join Clark.
At 7 o'clock on the night of March 23, 1779, Clark entered Vincennes and was welcomed by the creoles, who first of all gave him a much needed supply of powder and lead. Fifty men were immediately posted as guards, and then the remainder approached the fort and opened fire.
Clark in his memoirs says that knowing Capt. Helm's habits well, and knowing, too, the building in
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which Helm as a prisoner resided, the attacking force was ordered to shoot into the stick and mud chimney of that house in such fashion as to knock a shower of dirt and soot down the chimney. The men did this with glee, and the result was that the tumbling dirt fell into and spoiled a brew of fine toddy which Capt. Helm was preparing as usual for the evening. This story seems incredible and "childish" to one modern writer of repute, but the truth is, it was just what the frontiersmen would have done under the circumstances. I have known the woodsmen of the Maumee swamps to do just such tricks in the days before the civil war. Horse play during a siege may be childish but it is com- mon enough, and not without good effects on the men.
As soon as daylight permitted, the fire of the back- woodsmen was directed at the loop holes. There were several small cannon and swivels in the upper stories of the block houses on the corners of the forts-enough to knock the village to splinters, in fact-but the Brit- ish could not serve them. The British regulars had courage enough, but the volunteers weakened as they saw man after man shot dead in trying to serve the guns. Here, as usual, the ability to shoot straight was on the American side, and was the chief factor in the fight.
To Clark's demand for surrender Hamilton re- plied early in the morning by requesting a truce of three days. Clark, of course, refused this, but he took ad- vantage of the interval made by the request to give his men an ample meal-the first they had eaten in six days.
In the afternoon finding that he was losing men
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INDIAN SCALP DANCE.
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steadily, while inflicting no apparent damage on the Americans, Hamilton sent word that he would arrange for capitulation, and then he came out and met Clark in the church to discuss the matter. He had terms for surrender already written, but Clark refused them, and in the course of the discussion accused Hamilton of raiding the settlements in order to kill women and children, and said that one reason for rejecting the of- fered terms was to enable the American frontiersmen to take the fort by storm, and lawfully avenge the in- fernal work of the British partisans. To this charge Hamilton said he was not to blame for carrying out the orders of his superiors-a statement that was whol- ly untrue, since he had urged his superiors to adopt the raiding policy.
Curiously enough while the two officers talked, a party of Indians who had been on a successful raid against the home-makers, came boldly into town, know- ing nothing of the presence of the Americans, and they waved aloft the trophies of their success as they ap- proached. The frontiersmen at once fell upon them, killed two, wounded three and took six alive. The six were then led to a spot on the bank of the river where they were in plain view of the garrison, and were there tomahawked and thrown into the stream. Although this was done while Hamilton and Clark were in the church, Hamilton afterwards when safe at home, deliberately wrote that Clark wielded the toma- hawk that killed these marauders.
Eventually, Clark agreed to accept the surrender of the fort on condition that the garrison should become prisoners of war. Then seventy-nine white men
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marched out. Of these Clark was obliged to parole all but Hamilton and twenty-seven others, who were sent to Virginia. In Virginia, Hamilton was kept in close confinement, for a long time, because of his "eager zest," as Roosevelt calls it, in the "unmention- able atrocities" of the Indians and Tories whom he sent against the home makers. But, at the request of Wash- ington, who was ever anxious that even such prisoners as Hamilton should be treated mildly, he was released and exchanged.
The British power had been forever overthrown in the Illinois country. A force that was coming from Detroit with large quantities of supplies and Indian goods, was captured, and the plunder shared among the men of the expedition. A plan for uniting the northern and southern Indians in an effort to annihilate the Americans in the Ohio watershed, on which Ham- ilton had pondered all winter, was ended.
Clark returned to the Falls of the Ohio, and Vir- ginia eventually gave him and his men 150,000 acres of land on the north side of the falls. The Virginia legislature also thanked him and sent him a sword.
Work that gave to the United States a territory in every way great enough for a nation in itself was accomplished, although it had not been carried out as fully as Clark planned it. For Clark purposed going to Detroit, and would have succeeded in doing so had men and means been given him. One feature, however, of what he did do remains to be described, and it has been left for the end of the chapter in order to empha- size the difference betwen the heroes and the politi- cians of the American Revolution.
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05 -7bes4J. J01
1-
COL. FRANCIS VIGO.
A firm friend of Gen. George Rogers Clark, and who loaned Clark £12,000 for the conduct of his notable expedition.
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The £ 1,200 with which George Rogers Clark started for the Illinois country was necessarily ex- hausted before he had arrived. In his extremity, he borrowed tens of thousands of dollars in coin, at one time and another, of Francois Vigo, a St. Louis trader. A part of this was repaid to Vigo by drafts on Oliver Pollock, the patriotic American merchant of New Orleans, but "when Vigo died at Terre Haute, in 1836, neglected and childless, something like $20,000 (coin) which he had paid to Clark remained unsettled." His heirs strove without success to get this money, until 1872, when Congress referred the matter to the Court of Claims, and the Court decided in favor of the heirs. Then Congress appealed the case, though in vain, and in 1876 the country paid $50,000 to the speculators who had bought out the heirs, (Winsor). And Oliver Pollock, whose patriotism brought him to poverty, was treated in the same shameful manner.
Let the people-the pessimists who think that our legislators in "the old days" were models of honor and virtue-consider well this further fact. In spite of the magnificent service he rendered his country, Clark was unable to obtain a commission in the Continental Army. Congress refused to grant him one. But James Wilkinson, the infamous traitor, having the skill to handle the politicians, became the head of the Ameri- can army.
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