USA > Texas > Border fights & fighters; stories of the pioneers between the Alleghenies and the Mississippi and in the Texan republic > Part 14
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" It may be proper to remark, that the attack was not made from a hammock, but in a thinly wooded country; the Indians being concealed by palmetto and grass, which has since been burned.
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" The two companies were Captain Fraser's of the 3rd Artillery, and Captain Gardiner's of the 2nd Ar- tillery. The officers were Major Dade of the 4th Infantry, Captains Fraser and Gardiner, Second Lieut. Bassinger, Brevet Second Lieutenants R. Henderson, Mudge and Keais, of the Artillery, and Dr. J. S. Gatlin.
" I have the honor to be, with the highest respect, your obedient servant,
" E. A. HITCHCOCK, " Captain Ist Infantry, Act. In. General.
" Major General E. P. GAINES,
" Commanding Western Department, Fort King, Flor- ida."
The bones of the officers and soldiers were afterward exhumed and reinterred at St. Augustine with appropriate ceremonies and a monument erected over them. There is also another monument to Dade at West Point, of which, by the way, he was not a graduate. It bears this significant inscription :
" TO COMMEMORATE THE BATTLE OF THE 28TH OF DECEMBER, BETWEEN A DETACHMENT OF 108 U.
S. TROOPS AND THE SEMINOLE INDIANS, OF FLORIDA, IN WHICH ALL THE DETACH- MENT SAVE THREE FELL WITHOUT AN ATTEMPT TO RETREAT."
. In this connection, one phrase of Captain Hitchcock's report is worthy of note. The men had been shot at their posts! The bodies were found drawn up in the lines as
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they had fought. In the face of that appalling disaster, bereft of their officers, confronted by a sure and awful death, they had gallantly maintained the heroic traditions of the American Army, dying on the battle ground in their appointed stations. Honor to them!
PART V THE NORTH WEST TERRITORY I George Rogers Clark and the Great North West
GEORGE ROGERS CLARK AND THE GREAT NORTH WEST
I. The Origin of a Great Idea
T HE first white man who penetrated the heart of the territory bounded by the Ohio, the great Lakes and the Mississippi, was that re- doubtable explorer and heroic soul, Robert Cavelier, Sieur de la Salle. In 1669-70 he traversed what is now Indiana and explored the country along the beautiful Ohio as far as the Mississippi, claiming the whole vast re- gion for France. For nearly one hundred years there- after the white flag of that sunny land fluttered from the staffs of small forts, which were erected from time to time at strategic points commanding the river highways, in accordance with the military genius of the French sol- diery. These strategic points became centres of trade, agriculture, and commerce in the succeeding centuries.
In 1727 the Sieur de Vincennes established a military post on the Ouabache (Wabash), where the town of the same name now stands in southern Indiana. In 1735 a few families settled there, and their number was slowly augmented during the century. The fort, although nearer the province of Quebec, was in the territory of the district of Illinois, of the province of Louisiana. The headquarters of the district were at Kaskaskia, situated where the river of the same name empties into the Mis-
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sissippi, and the capital of the province was New Or- leans.
In 1736 the gallant commander and founder of Vin- cennes was killed, bravely fighting, by the English and Indians in a war against the Natchez, and the Chickasaws, when d'Artaguiette met with overwhelming defeat. Says Charlevoix, " Vincennes ceased not until his last breath to exhort the men to behave worthy of their relig- ion and their country." D'Artaguiette and fifteen of his companions were captured and burned at the stake. Louis St. Ange de Bellerive was appointed to the govern- orship of the little Indiana town in 1736, and remained in charge until 1764; in this long tour of duty proving in- deed a father to his people.
Perhaps nowhere on the continent has humanity dwelt in such peaceful simplicity as in the little settlement at Vincennes. Even the Indians lived in amicable relations with the colonists in the main. Cut off from intercourse with the rest of the world, it passed them by unheeding and unheeded, the fleeting years leaving the people un- changed. In hunting and fishing, in agriculture of the most primitive kind, with implements which might have been used two thousand years before; in trading down the river to New Orleans; in feasting, in frolic, with all the gayety of their French nationality, the uneventful days glided by.
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Except at Kaskaskia there was not a school in the whole vast territory, although incredible as it may seem, there was a billiard table in the settlement on the Wabash ! The little education the inhabitants received was imparted by the faithful and devoted missionaries who dwelt among them.
In 1763, on the completion of the Seven Years' War,
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the whole country from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico on the hither side of the Mississippi fell into the hands of England by treaty, although, owing to the fearful outbreak of savage passion, engendered and stimulated by Pontiac, except Tecumseh the ablest Indian who ever lived, the English were not able to take immediate pos- session of it. Kaskaskia and Fort Chartres, the principal military post, were turned over to them in 1765, and the post at Vincennes sometime later. On the western side of the river France ceded her claims to the territory to Spain.
The conquest made little difference to the inhabitants. They had not been greatly concerned in the war which had resulted in the transfer of their allegiance and they were not greatly concerned with another more important event which happened later on. They lived on just as they had done before-perhaps a little less cheerfully, a little less happily, under the Union Jack than under the Fleur-de-lis, but there was not much difference.
Meanwhile all of the vast territory west of the Alle- gheny Mountains which had hitherto proved a barrier to the settlements having their origin on the seaboard, was attracting the attention of such bold, adventurous spirits as Boone, Robertson, and Sevier. Among other empire builders who surveyed it with eager, if not prophetic vision, was George Rogers Clark.
Like many of the pioneers he was a native of the great state of Virginia, where he was born on the 19th of No- vember, 1752. The west was settled by men from the south of Mason and Dixon's line, except in the case of Pennsylvania. Without belonging to the landed gentry, the Clark family was respectable, and he himself received such education as the western part of the Old Dominion
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afforded. Like George Washington and many young men of the day, he became a surveyor, in which vocation he displayed great proficiency. But at best his acquire- ments were limited. His spelling was simply awful, al- though his diction and his chirography were somewhat better. However, spelling was thought somewhat lightly of by many gentlemen who had enjoyed more advantages than this young Virginian.
He was a strongly built, heavy set man, with broad brow and keen blue eyes, with a dash of red in his hair from a Scottish ancestress, which corresponded with the fight- ing qualities of the man. He was a young man of suffi- cient consideration in the community to receive a commis- sion as captain in Lord Dunmore's war, a school which .. graduated many officers into the more serious conflict which followed hard upon it. Clark was one of Dun- more's staff, apparently, and therefore did not participate in the famous battle of Point Pleasant on the Kanawha. After the war he went to Kentucky, which he had before visited on a surveying expedition. Subsequently he be- came one of the most prominent of the pioneers in that famous territory.
The Revolution found the Clark family intense and zealous patriots. The two oldest brothers immediately enlisted in the Continental line and served with credit- the elder one with distinction-during the whole of the war. George Rogers, the third, was not less ardent in his patriotism than the other two, and he displayed his qualities on a more splendid field. The remaining broth- er, too young for the Revolution, showed his qualities in the famous Lewis and Clark expedition across the conti- nent in 1804-6.
When the war began, the Indians, stimulated thereto
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by the British, inaugurated a series of ruthless forays, not only into the " dark and bloody ground " of Kentucky, but everywhere on the borders. The few frontier settle- ments in Kentucky, with which we are at present con- cerned, were at once put on the defensive and forced to fight for their lives. With the forethought of state build- ers, desirous of organizing a civil government of some sort in the trans-Allegheny region, and of representing their defenceless condition to Virginia, which they rightly considered their mother territory, they called a conven- tion at Clark's instance, at Harrodsburg in 1775. He was delayed in reaching the convention when it opened, and found, when he did arrive, that he and one other had been elected to the Virginia legislature from Kentucky, which at that time had no legal existence and therefore no right to send delegates to the assembly. However, he made the long arduous journey across the mountains to Williamsburg only to learn that the legislature had ad- journed before his arrival.
He and his companion at once made representations to the Governor, the redoubtable Patrick Henry, concern- ing the situation beyond the Mississippi, asking for five hundred pounds of powder to defend themselves against the savages, and suggesting also that some steps be taken for the establishment of civil government in this wild and lawless expanse of territory. There was in existence at the time a Transylvania Company, so called, of which Colonels Henderson and Campbell were chief promoters, which claimed the right of eminent domain over Ken- tucky, and the Virginia government felt some hesitation about assuming any rights over this country.
The authorities were perfectly willing to lend five hun- dred pounds of powder to their neighbors in Kentucky
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on the guarantee of Clark himself, but Clark was shrewd enough not to fall into a trap of this kind. He rejected their proffer and wrote them a brilliant letter in which he said that a country that was not worth defending was not worth claiming. This sharp intimation that he would endeavor to get help elsewhere brought the commission- ers to terms. Clark got the powder. It was his first suc- cess. Not only did he get it after the order had been given-and the two things were not synonymous, then; it was hard to get powder in those revolutionary days, since it was in so great demand-but he actually succeed- ed in getting it safely into the hands of the people. This in spite of savage attacks and perils of a journey wellnigh unsurmountable. He also succeeded, through his repre- sentations, in having Kentucky formed into a county of Virginia, and brought under the operation of the civil law of that state, a service of inestimable value.
Meanwhile the British, in pursuance of their well-de- vised plan, continued to launch the savages on the backs of the Americans in the fond hope that they would thus be enabled to work their will with the harassed revolution- ists on the seaboard. Major Stuart and chiefs McGilli- vray and Oconostota raised the Creeks and Cherokees on one hand, while Lieutenant-Governor William Hamilton, of Detroit, who seems to have been one of the chief vil- lains in the plot, incited the Indians in the northwest to the war-path with great success. Campbell, Shelby, Se- vier and Robertson held them in check to the southwest; God raised up another leader to cover the frontier to the northward.
It was hard living in Kentucky in those days, and the one man there who saw something else to do than fight recklessly and desperately when the savages came, the
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one man who divined how these forays might be stopped and who realized that in the stopping of them great bene- fits would accrue not merely to Kentucky, but to the United Colonies as well, was George Rogers Clark.
He realized that the old French posts of Detroit, Kas- kaskia, and Vincennes were the points from which the Indians secured the necessary supplies to carry on the war, as well as the stimulation which enabled them to sweep the borders. Securing information concerning their strength and weakness from two spies whom he sent out, he conceived the magnificent design of capturing these points, holding them, and thus establishing for the United States a claim to the great territory of the north- west.
Neither he nor anyone else dreamed for a moment of the great, populous and wealthy states which were en- shrined potentially within that wilderness. No one could imagine that upon the barren shore of one of the lonely lakes tossing its fresh waters in the sunlight should presently rise the second city of the Union and one of the great cities of the world. How could he, or any one, anticipate the future growth of the struggling colonies? The boldest imagination could not compre- hend the possibility, much less the realization, of that great deluge of men, which, starting from the shores lapped by the ocean-tide, should break over the moun- tain-crest hitherto considered a natural boundary, and flood the wilderness until it reached the banks of the far- away Mississippi. And as for the empire beyond it over which the same tide rolls and still sweeps on, that was be- yond the most extravagant dream, even. Yet with in- stinctive prophetic vision something of this Titanic con- ception of national destiny seems to have come to this young man.
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II. The First Success
In 1777 he went back to Virginia and laid his daring project before Patrick Henry. The stupendousness of the idea impressed the sagacious old governor; he caused a council to be called to consider the suggestion of the borderer, a council composed of himself, Thomas Jeffer- son, George Mason, and George Wythe. To these men, Clark, not much more than a boy, just twenty-five years old in fact, expounded his plan. They realized at once what there was in it. Not merely the protection of the settlements south of the Ohio in Kentucky, not merely a check to Indian aggression, but the extension of the bor- ders of the United States to the Mississippi, the control of that vast territory between the mountains and the river. Room to grow, room to grow for thousands of years, they may have thought, instead of barely for a century. At any rate they approved the plan.
Few more momentous councils have ever been held, although even now it is scarcely noticed in history. Clark was naturally selected to lead the expedition. He was given twelve hundred pounds in depreciated Virginia cur- rency, a commission as a colonel, an order for ammuni- tion at Fort Pitt, and authority to raise seven hundred and fifty men for three months' service where he could. Then they sent him out with their blessing and their good- will. Such were the inadequate means provided for this gigantic achievement.
The plan was kept strictly secret by Clark and the four men who had determined upon it. His public instruc- tions from Patrick Henry ordered him to proceed to Kentucky and take measures for the defence of the col-
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onists with such troops as he could enlist. A private letter, however, authorized him to take and hold Kaskas- kia, Vincennes, and the whole northwest territory.
Many difficulties beset the enlistment of his soldiers, but he finally succeeded in assembling several hundred men on Corn Island, at the Falls of the Ohio, opposite where is now the great city of Louisville. The thickly wooded island has since been stripped of its trees, and washed away by the rapid current. Many of his troops deserted from time to time, especially when they learned the real purpose for which they had been embodied, and he found himself left at last with about one hundred and fifty men; and the time was approaching for them to start upon their projected expedition.
He had chosen to camp upon this island because, on account of its isolation by the rapid falls, he could pre- vent further desertion. It was a good place, too, in which to drill and train the men in accordance with his limited experience. What he lacked in military training and technical knowledge he made up in zeal and innate capacity to command, and he soon got his little army under excellent control.
A number of families which had followed him down the river settled on the island around a block-house which he built for their protection. Then he set forth to ac- complish his comprehensive purpose. He left his camp on the island on the 24th of June, 1778, and embarked his men, divided into four companies, in bateaux, rowing back up the river until he could gain the channel through the rapids, much more dangerous then than now, through which they made an exciting passage.
The departure of the expedition was dramatic in the extreme. As the boats were whirled down the mighty
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river by the swift current, though it was early in the morning, the land was enshrouded in almost total dark- ness from an eclipse of the sun; a bad omen thought some of the party, but Clark was no believer in omens. For four days they swung down the river, reaching at last an abandoned French post called Fort Massac. It had been built by the garrison of Fort DuQuesne fleeing from the advance of Forbes in 1759 .*
There they were met by a party of hunters who had recently come from Kaskaskia, the capital and principal town of the province. They reported it to be lightly garrisoned and negligently guarded. Learning of the destination of the expedition, they asked Clark's permis- sion to join his party, for which one of them offered to act as guide. The offer was gladly accepted, and although the guide temporarily lost his way and was in imminent danger of death at the hands of the indignant and suspi- cious Americans, he proved his loyalty and gave them good service in the end. For six days the party marched westward over the prairie. They had no wagons or pack-horses, and no baggage except what each man car- ried himself, consequently their progress was unusually rapid.
On the evening of the 4th of July they reached the east bank of the Kaskaskia River, opposite the town, undiscovered. Marching up the bank in the night they found a farm-house. They put the inmates under guard, seized the boats belonging to them, crossed the river, and marched down toward the town. The commander of the place was M. de Rocheblave, a Frenchman. The garri- son was made up of Creole militia. De Rocheblave had implored to have British regular troops sent him, but none
* See my book Colonial Fights and Fighters. The Struggle for the Valley of the Ohio.
HOWARD CILES,
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" Clark, with tragic intensity, bade them go on with the dance."
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had appeared. It was not thought possible that the post would be attacked by the Americans, and the King had use for his soldiers elsewhere. On that evening no one dreamed that the Kentucky pioneers were at hand.
One dramatic account of the capture of the place says that Clark surrounded the town, disposing the greater portion of his troops so that none could escape from it, and with the rest marched silently toward the fort. The story goes that the officers were enjoying a dance at the time in one of the large rooms, and that Clark, admitted to the fort through the postern by one of his prisoners, left his men outside the barracks and then walked boldly into the room. No one happening to notice his entrance he stood quietly by the door, with an inborn love of the dramatic, folding his arms and looking grimly upon the scene of gayety.
Presently an Indian caught sight of him and recognized an enemy, perhaps because of the buff and blue he wore, and rent the air with a terrific war-whoop. The women shrieked, the music stopped, and Clark, with tragic in- tensity, bade them go on with the dance, but to remem- ber that now they were to dance in honor of Virginia and of the United States, instead of Great Britain! I take it that they were in no humor for further merriment. Whether the story be true or no, and some good authori- ties give it credence, the fact remains that the fort was surprised and captured without the loss of a man on either side.
Clark was most anxious to get hold of the papers of the commander. One naïve historian says that Madame de Rocheblave succeeded in concealing them in her bed- chamber, and that rather than violate the sanctity of her apartment and thus affront her modesty, the American officers suffered her to do what she would with them.
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" Better," writes the gallant old chronicler, " better, yes, a thousand times better, were it so than that the ancient fame of the sons of Virginia should have been tarnished by insult to a female."
It is a pity to spoil a pretty story, but the papers, at least an important portion of them, were forthcoming, however they were secured. The British relations with the savages were revealed in them; the English guilt was clear.
By this time the inhabitants of the town were in a great state of terror, and Clark purposely fostered it. He or- dered them to repair to their houses and stay there under pain of death, and they passed a night of anguished fore- boding. In the morning, permission being given, they came to him begging him to spare the lives of their wives and children, offering themselves as slaves in that contingency, to the American chief of the " Big Knives," as they called the Kentuckians. What was their joy and relief when Clark proclaimed that their lives would be spared, their property respected, and that all should en- joy freedom. While they were enthusiastic with this news, he invited their allegiance to the American cause, which it was not difficult to secure, in view of the great tidings which he brought them of the capture of Bur- goyne and the American alliance with France.
Thereafter the French and Americans were indeed brethren. Their mourning was turned into joy and they made haste to hoist the stars and stripes which, for the first time, July 5th, 1778, floated near the waters of the Mississippi. Cahokia received the Americans in the same ardent way, and the conquest of the northwest, so far as they were concerned, was complete. In October, 1778, Virginia inaugurated the first civil government in the
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northwest by establishing the County of Illinois, compre- hending all the new territory beyond the Ohio, with Colonel John Todd as Governor, and Clark as supreme and independent military commander.
There yet remained of the British posts to be dealt with, Vincennes and Detroit, before the conquest of the country could be called complete, the former being of more present importance because nearer. Among the inhabitants of Kaskaskia was a certain Roman priest named Father Gibault, whom Clark, with finer regard for euphony than spelling, referred to in his letters as " Mr. Jeboth." This devoted French missionary agreed to go to Vincennes, which was at that time without a garrison, to secure the allegiance of the populace to the new gov- ernment and new flag. He faithfully fulfilled his com- mission, and the French residents willingly assented to the change of government, and hoisted the American flag over the fort, which they subsequently delivered to Cap- tain Leonard Helm, who was appointed commandant and Indian agent at the post by Clark.
Meanwhile Clark administered the military affairs of the province of Illinois with great vigor, by his resolution and tact compelling the Indians to bury the hatchet and make peace, which obtained for a considerable period. For the first time in years Kentucky and the borders of Virginia were comparatively free from war-parties. The settlers could lay aside the rifle and ply the axe and speed the plough in safety.
Clark's methods of dealing with the Indians were al- ways fine. He knew that kindness and gentleness would be taken by them as indications of weakness. Therefore he was boldness itself toward them. Years afterward, while making a treaty with several hostile tribes, he over-
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awed them and compelled them to make peace in the following way :
Some three hundred hostile Indians in full war-paint met him in council at Fort Washington. Clark had sev- enty men in the stockade. The Shawnees were arrogant, boastful and full of fight. They came into the council- house with a war-belt and a peace-belt. Throwing them both on the table they told Clark to take his choice. He swept them both to the floor with his cane, rose to his feet, stamped contemptuously upon them, and sternly telling the Indians to make peace instantly or he would wipe them off the face of the earth, ordered them to leave the hall. They fled his presence, debated all night, swal- lowed the insult, and buried the hatchet.
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