USA > Mississippi > The westward movement : the colonies and the republic west of the Alleghanies, 1763-1798 with full cartographical illustrations from contemporary sources > Part 12
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51
Late in March, Iland was distressed at new developments. Alexander MeKee, Simon Girty, Matthew Elliot, and others, had for some time been exciting suspicion at Fort Pitt, where they lingered, and at last they disappeared. There was little doubt they had gone over to Hamilton, and would try on their way to Detroit to turn the friendly Delawares against the Americans. They did this, though Heckewelder, the Mo- ravian, was sent on their tracks to prevent it. This emissary found that the renegades had passed to the Scioto, and were doing further mischief among the Shawnees. It was early summer (June) when Girty and his companions reached De- troit, and found Hamilton in the midst of councils held with the Indians. On July 3, on presenting a battle-axe to a chief, the governor said, " I pray the Master of Life to give you success," and with such prayers he was sending out parties to intercept the boats ascending the Ohio with supplies for Fort Pitt.
129
HAMILTON ALERT.
Thus occupied, Hamilton might well have thought he was on the whole the master of the situation, when, on August 1, 1778, he received the news of the capture by Clark of Kaskaskia. He did not at once comprehend the character of the conquest. He supposed that the captors were a party from the flotilla commanded by Willing, whom he describes as coming " of one of the best families in Philadelphia, but of infamous character and debauched morals." He further suspected that the Span- iards had as much to do with the incursion as Willing had. He looked upon the Wabash tribes now as his main depend- ence in resisting further raids, and sent Celoron among them with a belt. In a letter which he wrote to Germain he pite- ously complains that there was not now a British fort or garri- son between the lakes and the Gulf. Haldimand. before he could have got intelligence from Hamilton, was already conn- seling him to use the tribes of the Wabash, and fill the Ohio valley with rangers, so as to keep communication with Stuart and the Cherokees. This plan was the gist of the British policy, and Haldimand, as soon as he learned how matters had gone with Rocheblave, was urging Hamilton to active endeav- ors ; but he never quite approved permanent posts so far remote from the lakes.
As soon as more detailed news reached Hamilton about the real actors in the capture of Kaskaskia and Vincennes, he lost no time in planning a recapture. He was still somewhat dis- trustful of the French about his post, and felt that all traders were rebels at heart, and so he watched them warily. It was necessary that Stuart in the south should know his purpose, and he sent a verbal statement to him by a messenger, who was to seek that Indian agent by way of the Chickasaw country.
Hamilton at this time was dreaming of some large measures. He informed Haldimand that the forks of the Ohio should be seized and fortified, as well as those of the Mississippi at the mouth of the Ohio. The occupation of Vincennes he looked upon as but a first step to these plans. On September 28, 1778, he wrote to Haldimand that "the Spaniards are feeble and hated by the French ; the French are fickle and have no man of capacity to lead them ; the rebels are enterprising and brave, but want resources : and the Indians can obtain their resources but from the English, if we aet without loss of time."
130
GEORGE ROGERS CLARK.
It was important to Hamilton's plans that De Peyster, at Mackinac, should cooperate with him, and that the rebels should not be allowed to obtain a foothold on the lakes in that direc- tion. The commander at Detroit had sent off messages to Mackinac on September 16, asking De Peyster to send his Indians down the Illinois River by the Chicago portage.
Arent Schuyler de Peyster, of a New York family, a some- what rattle-brained person, given to writing illiterate letters, but in some ways an enterprising and prudent commander, had been in charge at Mackinac since 1774. There had grown up about that post a considerable trade, and a portion of it in the direc- tion of the Mississippi employed a fleet of sixty canoes. Lately, and in ignorance of Clark's success at Kaskaskia, De Peyster had allowed one Charles Gratiot to go down to the Illinois country for trade, where he found the rebels ready purchasers of his wares. De Peyster learned of the true state of affairs at Kaskaskia only a few days before Hamilton had dispatched his message to him, and on September 21, 1778, he wrote to Hal- dimand : " The rebels are so firmly fixed in Illinois that I fear if they are not routed by some means, the whole Mississippi trade is knocked up."
De Peyster, though he had feared an attack at Mackinac, met Hamilton's demand by dispatching Langlade and Gautier, with a band of Indians, towards St. Joseph, to create a diver- , sion in Hamilton's favor. Their instructions were dated Octo- ber 26. At that time Hamilton, well posted on the doings of Clark through an Ottawa chief, had already left Detroit. Be- fore he started, he drew up his force on the common, read the articles of war, exacted a renewed oath from the French, and got Père Potier, "a man of respectable character and venerable figure," to give the Catholics a blessing.
On October 7, the invading force, consisting of about one hundred and seventy-five whites, regulars and volunteers, and three hundred and fifty Indians, left Detroit by the river. The flotilla, on its passage to the mouth of the Maumee, experienced such stormy weather that Hamilton in his anxiety suffered " more than can be expressed." That river was then ascended to the rapids, and above these obstructions they pushed on in boats, lightening them when it was necessary to pass the rifts. On October 24, 1778, they reached the nine-mile portage, and
131
VINCENNES RETAKEN.
carrying over this, they shot rapidly down the Wabash on a freshet which Hamilton had created by cutting the beaver dams.
The force was within three miles of Vincennes when Lieu- tenant Helm, still in command at that post, first obtained defi- nite tidings of the approach, though he had been disturbed by rumors some days earlier.
Helm's men, who had been about seventy in number, began to desert under apprehension. We have a letter, which at this time he wrote to Clark, and which Hamilton later forwarded. In this he says he has only twenty-one men left. He continued inditing the letter till the enemy were within three hundred yards, and eloses it with expressing a doubt if he had four men upon whom he could depend. Major Hay, representing Hamil- ton, had appeared in the place the day before (December 16), giving warning of the danger of resistance to the townspeople. On the 17th, Helm was summoned to surrender, and did so, - the usual story of his marching out with one man may perhaps be questioned. Two days later, the British oath was admin- istered to the residents, numbering not far from six hundred souls, of whom a third were capable of bearing arms. The com- munity doubtless included at other seasons some hunters and traders, who were absent at this time.
Almost the first act of Hamilton was to dispatch messengers to Stuart to propose a meeting of their respective forces in the spring on the Cherokee (Tennessee) River, whence, assisted by the southern Indians, the united detachments could harry the rebel frontiers. Hamilton also notified the Spanish commander on the Mississippi that while he and Stuart struck the Alle- ghany frontier, a force from Mackinac would sweep the rebels out of the Illinois country, and warned him that if he expected immunity from attack, he must not harbor the Americans.
In this defiant spirit Hamilton began to fortify himself, keep- ing only eighty or ninety men with him, beside some French volunteers. He sent his militia back to Detroit and scattered his Indians. In the spring, he counted on their rejoining him with other reinforcements.
The next year, 1779, opened with both parties anxious over the situation in the Ohio basin. The British, flanking it at Detroit, had by Hamilton's success pushed in a wedge at Vin-
132
GEORGE ROGERS CLARK.
cennes. The communications of this latter post were through a friendly country, but its situation was exposed, with such a vigilant foe as Clark observing it. Kaskaskia in American hands had tolerably secure communications with New Orleans, and it was neighboring to Spanish sympathizers. But the British enjoyed far greater facilities of relief by the lakes than could be given to Clark by the Mississippi.
Between the Wabash and the Alleghany there was a wide extent of country, inhabited in the main by those friendly to the British, though a portion of the Delawares still stood by the Americans, and there were symptoms of hesitancy on the part of the Wyandots. The advanced posts of the revolutionists in this direction were at Fort Laurens and at Point Pleasant, both in almost chronic alarm from the prowling savages.
The general suspense was to be broken by a fortunate move- ment from Kaskaskia. Clark had for some time been busy in gaining over the neighboring tribes, and in sealing his friend- ship with the Spaniards and French. His success in these endeavors had not led him to anticipate the daring ineursion of Hamilton, which released the American hold on Vincennes. Clark's confidence in his immunity from danger appears in his letters to Governor Henry and to the Virginia delegates in Con- gress, whom he had addressed in November, 1778. Henry and Jefferson no doubt saw the great importance of sustaining Clark, for his success could but tell upon the ultimate negotiations for peace, and his continued hold on the Illinois country would work a practical annulment of the pretensions of the Quebee Bill. The Virginia Assembly proved itself ready to give Clark's men such encouragement as would come from a promise of bounty lands, and later (November 23) its records bore an entry of the formal thanks which they voted to the leader himself. To cause him to be unhampered by civie duties, the new county of Illinois had been set up. But a belief in the wisdom of this western campaign was not universal, and there were those who questioned the propriety of Henry's divergence from the single purpose of protecting the Kentucky and Tennessee settlements.
Clark, however, was to silence opposition by a brilliant stroke. While Hamilton at Vincennes was preparing his plans for the spring, Clark was devising a sudden move upon the en- emy on the Wabash: A corporal and six men, deserting from
133
CLARK'S ADVANCE.
Hamilton in January, 1779, had brought Clark the confirma- tion of rumors, if not indeed the first news of Helin's surrender. Already Hamilton's Indian scouting parties were hovering about Kaskaskia, and one of them, under an Ottawa chief, barely missed Clark one day, when he was returning to Kaskaskia from Cahokia .. But more comprehensive toils were threaten- ing him and the American cause without his knowing it.
Hamilton's couriers had already come to a plan with the southern Indians for four separate movements. Kaskaskia was to be attacked for one. The Shawnees were to be assisted in an onslaught on Fort Laurens for another. A third was to com- bine the Wabash Indians in a promiscuous swoop. A fourth was to station other savages at the mouth of the Cherokee River to intercept any flotilla of supplies and men passing either way. To these several bands Hamilton was to supply British officers and a horde of Ottawas, Hurons, and Chippewas.
While Clark was brooding on his own projects and Hamilton was developing his plans, each in ignorance of the other's con- dition, Vigo had left Kaskaskia on December 18, 1778, before news of Hamilton's success had reached that place, in order to carry supplies to Helm. One of Hamilton's scouting parties captured him on the 24th, and he was carried into Vincennes as a prisoner.
Hamilton suspected that Vigo's professions of trade were a cover for other purposes, and kept him under arrest. Father Gibault interceded, and Vigo was set free on a promise that he would do nothing at Kaskaskia on his way back detri- mental to the king's interest. Vigo avoided Kaskaskia, and went to St. Louis instead. It was not long before Clark knew from a source not difficult to divine that Hamilton had but eighty men with him. It was necessary for Clark to move quickly, and Vigo's readiness to back the American credit helped Clark to get his supplies for the march. Vigo himself came to Kaskaskia on January 29, 1779. A galley, carrying small guns and munitions, was dispatched on February 4, under the command of John Rogers, down the Mississippi and up the Ohio and Wabash to a point ten leagues below Vincennes, where it was to await the arrival of Clark with a force which was to march overland. The leader, with a band of one hundred and seventy - some accounts say two hundred - adventurous
134
GEORGE ROGERS CLARK.
spirits, American and French, began a day or two later his painful march of about one hundred and seventy-five miles. Ile had one hundred and twenty miles to go, in an inclement season, finding his way in parts through drowned lands, broken with ice. There were swollen rivers to cross, now by wading and now by ferrying. Supplies grew seant, and it was almost impossible to keep powder dry. If there is no exaggeration in Clark's narrative, there were times when he despaired of life; but " the finest stallion there is in the country," come of a New Mexican stock, bore the commander through, and his men fol- lowed him with dauntless pluck.
His course was at first northwest, and he probably struck the St. Louis trail near the modern town of Salem, following a trail which fifty years ago was still visible ; and after this his track lay nearly east. On February 23, the weary and famished men, kept up by the inspiration of their leader, ap- proached the town. The Wabash was flowing by it, through a broad three leagues of submerged country, making a picture of desolation. Clark sent in a scout to the French inhabitants, and his message was kept from the garrison. Lying concealed till after dark, and taking as guides five men, whom he had captured, he rapidly entered the town. A scouting party, which Hamilton had sent out three hours before, fortunately missed them. Clark told off a part of his force to occupy the town, while a band of riflemen approached the fort, - Sackville, as it was called, - and, throwing up some earthworks, established themselves within range. During the night, after the moon went down, the party which Hamilton had sent out got safely in. By daylight the assailants' trenches were near enough to annoy the garrison with the dropping fire of their rifles, for which the townspeople had made good Clark's damaged powder. They had also given the hungry troops the only good meal they had had for a week.
There was pretty soon a passing and repassing of flags, Helm, now on parole, bringing Hamilton's messages. Clark replied in a note which Haldimand, in sending it later to Clin- ton, called " curious for its impertinence of style." In a personal interview, the two commanders indulged in mutual crimination, and Hamilton was charged with a barbarous spirit. Clark was stubborn for an unconditional surrender,
135
VINCENNES GARRISONED.
and Hamilton manœuvred for some modification, but all to no purpose. Before the day was gone, the fort was surrendered, with nearly eighty officers and men. There had been little bloodshed, and Clark had only one man slightly wounded.
Three days later, on the 27th, the " Willing," as Rogers's galley was called, arrived. She had buffeted longer than was expected with the strong currents of the Wabash. She added forty-eight men to Clark's little army, with some small guns and swivels. Very soon Clark sent Helm and a detachment up the river, which succeeded in capturing a train, under an escort of forty men, which was bringing supplies and dispatches for Hamilton, The party returned to Vincennes on February 27. On March 8, Hamilton and such prisoners as were not paroled, accompanied by a guard, were started on their way to Virginia. It was a long journey, and at least two thirds of the route they made on foot. They reached Richmond in May, and brought the first news of Clark's success, his earlier dis- patches having been intercepted. Hamilton remained in con- finement at Williamsburg till October, 1780, when he was sent on parole to New York. Later, on July 6, 1781, he made a report to Haldimand, which is our main source for the study of these campaigns for the British side.
Two days after Hamilton had started, Clark wrote (March 10) to Harrison, the speaker of the Virginia Assembly, thank- ing him for the vote of thanks which that body had passed, and expressing his great satisfaction at the prospect of rein- forcements. " This stroke will nearly put an end to the Indian war," he said, and he expressed the expectation of finishing it in two months, if amply supported by a new detachment. “ I hope to do something clever if they arrive," he added, referring to his project of a march on Detroit. He did not attempt to disguise his purpose in a note which he addressed a few days later (March 16) to the commander at that post, to which he had sent others of his prisoners, who had taken an oath of neutrality. "My compliments to the gentlemen of the garri- son," he says ; " if they are building works, it will save us the trouble."
Clark, in this buoyant mood, leaving in Vincennes a garrison of some forty men, under Helm, took seventy or cighty others, and on March 20 embarked in the " Willing," accompanied by
136
GEORGE ROGERS CLARK.
five other armed boats. His purpose was to make ready in Kas- kaskia for further movements in the spring. Arrived there, he prepared, on April 29, duplicate dispatches to Henry and Jef- ferson, deseribing his campaign, and these have come down to us. His earlier letters had been taken, as has been said, from his messenger near the Ohio falls, where a party of Hurons had waylaid their bearer.
But movements were already in progress south of the Ohio destined to eause disappointment to Clark. Cameron, now working in the British interests among the southern Indians, supposed that Hamilton was seenre in Vincennes. He bad already planned an inroad of Chickamaugas and other Chero- kees on the Carolina border, to distract attention from Hamil- ton's contemplated raid over the Ohio. When James Robert- son, the pioneer of the Cumberland region, heard of it, he sent warnings to the Watauga people. That hardy colony immedi- ately sprang to the task which was implied. A considerable body of riflemen, under Evan Shelby, were, by April 10, on their way down the Clinch. A part of this force was a regi- ment which made up the five hundred men intended for Clark and his Detroit campaign. Their diversion to a new field was never atoned for.
Shelby's onset was rapid. He destroyed a large deposit of eorn among the Chiekamangas, which had been gathered for Hamilton's intended invasion. He burned the towns of that ferocious tribe, and lost not a life amid all his acts of devasta- tion. All immediate danger to the Kentucky settlements was now at an end.
During the respite a new immigration set in by the Ohio and the Wilderness Road, and to the number of eight or ten thousand souls a year, if statements of this kind are not in exeess of truth. The Virginia surveyors, to help the influx, laid ont a new road over the Cumberland Mountains towards " the open country of Kentucky," so as "to give passage to packhorses."
While this snecess of Shelby checked the southern Indians and dashed the hopes which the British had based on their ad- vantage in Georgia, there was among the royalists in the north
197
HALDIMAND ANXIOUS.
great anxiety lest Clark's prestige and the use of Fort Laurens as a base for a new advance from Fort Pitt should together put in great hazard their signal position at Detroit. If lost, however, the blow would not be irreparable, for the Ottawa River route would still afford an easy communication with Lake Huron and the western tribes.
De Peyster at Mackinac did not hear of Hamilton's capture till about the time of Shelby's raid. Langlade and Gautier had just reached Milwaukee, or as some say St. Joseph, when the unwelcome tidings seattered their Indians. De Peyster's position was an embarrassing one, for his intentions to succor Vincennes had been utterly foiled. He felt constrained to pro- teet his own post as well as he could, and to animate the Sioux against the French, in retaliation for their encouragement of the Americans.
Haldimand, at his remote headquarters, remained for some time in dread lest Clark would send a force against Mackinac. The British commanding general, in New York, was sending word west in February, 1779, before it was known that Vin- cennes was in danger, that one hundred and thirty carpenters and two hundred wood-cutters had been sent by the rebels over the mountains to open a way, and that every saddler in Phila- delphia was hard at work making pack-saddles. We know that in May one hundred and fifty boat-builders were at work near Fort Pitt.
Lernoult, at Detroit, received word of Hamilton's capture on March 26, 1779. An interpreter, having escaped from Vin- cennes in the confusion, had carried the tidings. Lernoult felt apprehensive, at once, of the safety of the train which Clark had captured, and saw how the route by the Maumee was thrown open to the Americans. He promptly sent to Haldimand for aid. While troops were on the way thither from Niagara, and before they arrived, Clark, just about being relieved by Todd of the eivil government, had made up his mind (April 29) that his available force was insufficient to advance, and so expressed himself to the governor of Virginia.
To add to Haldimand's anxiety, he was also uncertain about the fate of the Vineennes convoy, and knew how its supplies would aid Clark, if he had captured it. He was also painfully conscious how difficult it had become to satisfy the Indians
138
GEORGE ROGERS CLARK.
with the supplies and gratuities which Hamilton, in his confi- dence, had promised them. Farther than this, he was at his wits' end to know who among the French, and almost under his hand, was corresponding with the rebels, for a letter of Lafay- ette and D'Estaing's proclamation to his countrymen, which had been issued at Boston, October 28, 1778, were insidiously cir- culating among them, creating not a little responsive excitement, not only among the old Canadians, but among the Indians. If this sympathy should invite raids from over the border, Haldi- mand had scarce a thousand men to guard a multitude of points, and of these he had learned to place small confidence upon the German regiments.
Sending his aid, Captain Brehm (May 25), to Detroit to insure better information in that direction, tidings after a while reached Haldimand from the Seioto and Muskingum valleys, which showed that the war was again starting with the spring.
Colonel John Bowman, in May, had crossed the Ohio near the month of the Lieking, with nearly three hundred Kentucky volunteers. He made a sudden dash upon a Shawnee town near the modern Chillicothe. Having burned the houses and secured some plunder, he returned. He had dealt a blow which disinclined the savages of the north to follow English leaders in a projected movement into Kentucky. So another concerted movement of the British was checked, for Cornwallis, after Lincoln's surrender at Charleston (May 12), had counted on sending a band of Tories to lead the aroused Creeks and Chero- kees upon the frontiers of Tennessee, while the northern In- dians came down on the other side.
Meanwhile, the American plans on the upper Ohio were not more successful. All through the spring of 1779,- scalping parties of Wyandots and Mingoes had been prowling about the exposed fort on the Tusearawas, and ambushing convoys from Fort Pitt. Twice in the winter the savages attacked the fort, and Gibson being warned by Zeisberger, the enemy were forced to retire through the stubbornness of the almost starved garri- son, for MeIntosh had failed to get in supplies by way of the Muskingum. The most strenuous effort of the enemy had been made in February, 1779, after Girty had intercepted some of
139
SULLIVAN'S CAMPAIGN.
Gibson's letters. Captain Bird, of the King's Regiment, accom- panied by Simon Girty and a few soldiers, now led a horde of savages. Starting up from a concealment near by, they surprised a party which Gibson had sent ont, and gave the first notice of an investment of the fort. For nearly a month the blockade continued, and a few days after the enemy disap- peared, McIntosh arrived with relief, and found the garrison living on rawhides and roots. On the general's return to Fort Pitt, he was soon relieved of the command of the department by his second in command, Colonel Brodhead, whom Washington had selected on March 5, 1779. The new commander assumed charge of the department with small confidence in the condi- tions which McIntosh's course had imposed, and with still less content with the huckstering element about Fort Pitt. "The cursed spirit of monopoly is too prevalent," he wrote (May 26), "and greatly injures the soldiers." At the end of May, he heard that Fort Laurens was again threatened, and was to be attacked " when the strawberries are ripe." He succeeded at once in throwing supplies into that fort, now garrisoned by a body of seventy-five men, though the country which the convoy traversed was swarming with Indians. But in August it was thought prudent to abandon the post.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.