The Conquest Completed
Lieutenant-Governor Hamilton had many faults, but sloth was not one of
them; and when he heard what had happened he promptly decided to regain
the posts and take the upstart Kentucky conqueror captive. Emissaries
were sent to the Wabash country to stir up the Indians, and for weeks
the Detroit settlement resounded with preparations for the expedition.
Boats were built or repaired, guns were cleaned, ammunition was
collected in boxes, provisions were put up in kegs or bags, baubles for
the Indians were made or purchased. Cattle and wheels, together with a
six-pounder, were sent ahead to be in readiness for use at various
stages of the journey.
Further weeks were consumed in awaiting reenforcements which never came;
and in early October, when the wild geese were scudding southward before
the first snow flurries of the coming winter, the commandant started for
the reconquest with a motley force of thirty-six British regulars,
forty-five local volunteers, seventy-nine local militia, and sixty
Indians. Reënforcements were gathered on the road, so that when
Vincennes was reached the little army numbered about five hundred. From
Detroit the party dropped easily down the river to Lake Erie, where it
narrowly escaped destruction in a blinding snowstorm. By good
management, however, it was brought safely to the Maumee, up whose
sluggish waters the bateaux were laboriously poled. A portage of nine
miles gave access to the Wabash. Here the water was very shallow, and
only by building occasional dikes to produce a current did the party
find it possible to complete the journey. As conferences with the
Indians further delayed them, it was not until a few days before
Christmas that the invaders reached their goal.
The capture of Vincennes proved easy enough. The surrender, none the
less, was made in good military style. There were two iron
three-pounders in the wretched little fort, and one of these was loaded
to the muzzle and placed in the open gate. As Hamilton and his men
advanced, so runs a not very well authenticated story, Lieutenant Helm
stood by the gun with a lighted taper and called sternly upon the
invaders to halt. The British leader demanded the surrender of the
garrison. Helm parleyed and asked for terms. Hamilton finally conceded
the honors of war, and Helm magnanimously accepted. Hamilton thereupon
drew up his forces in a double line, the British on one side and the
Indians on the other; and the garrison--one officer and one
soldier--solemnly marched out between them! After the "conquerors" had
regained their equanimity, the cross of St. George was once more run up
on the fort. A body of French militia returned to British allegiance
with quite as much facility as it had shown in accepting American
sovereignty under the eloquence of Father Gibault; and the French
inhabitants, gathered again in the church, with perfectly straight faces
acknowledged that they had "sinned against God and man" by taking sides
with the rebels, and promised to be loyal thereafter to George III.
Had the British forces immediately pushed on, this same scene might have
been repeated at Kaskaskia and Cahokia. Clark's position there was far
from strong. Upon the expiration of their term of enlistment most of his
men had gone back to Kentucky or Virginia, and their places had been
taken mainly by creoles, whose steadfastness was doubtful. Furthermore,
the Indians were restless, and it was only by much vigilance and bravado
that they were kept in a respectful mood. All this was well known to
Hamilton, who now proposed to follow up the recapture of the Mississippi
posts by the obliteration of all traces of American authority west of
the Alleghanies.
The difficulties and dangers of a midwinter campaign in the flooded
Illinois country were not to be lightly regarded, and weeks of
contending with icy blasts and drenching rains lent a seat by an open
fire unusual attractiveness. Hence the completion of the campaign was
postponed until spring--a decision which proved the salvation of the
American cause in the West. As means of subsistence were slender, most
of the Detroit militia were sent home, and the Indians were allowed to
scatter to their distant wigwams. The force kept at the post numbered
only about eighty or ninety whites, with a few Indians.
Clark now had at Kaskaskia a band of slightly over a hundred men. He
understood Hamilton's army to number five or six hundred. The outlook
was dubious, until François Vigo, a friendly Spanish trader of St.
Louis, escaping captivity at Vincennes, came to Kaskaskia with the
information that Hamilton had sent away most of his troops; and this
welcome news gave the doughty Kentuckian a brilliant idea. He would
defend his post by attacking the invaders while they were yet at
Vincennes, and before they were ready to resume operations. "The case is
desperate," he wrote to Governor Henry, "but, sir, we must either quit
the country or attack Mr. Hamilton." He had probably never heard of
Scipio Africanus but, like that indomitable Roman, he proposed to carry
the war straight into the enemy's country. "There were undoubtedly
appalling difficulties," says Mr. Roosevelt, "in the way of a midwinter
march and attack; and the fact that Clark attempted and performed the
feat which Hamilton dared not try, marks just the difference between a
man of genius and a good, brave, ordinary commander."
Preparations were pushed with all speed. A large, flat-bottomed boat,
the Willing, was fitted out with four guns and was sent down the
Mississippi with forty men to ascend the Ohio and the Wabash to a place
of rendezvous not far from the coveted post. By early February the
depleted companies were recruited to their full strength; and after the
enterprise had been solemnly blessed by Father Gibault, Clark and his
forces, numbering one hundred and thirty men, pushed out upon the
desolate, wind-swept prairie.
The distance to be covered was about two hundred and thirty miles. Under
favorable circumstances, the trip could have been made in five or six
days and with little hardship. The rainy season, however, was now at its
height, and the country was one vast quagmire, overrun by swollen
streams which could be crossed only at great risk. Ten days of wearisome
marching brought the expedition to the forks of the Little Wabash. The
entire region between the two channels was under water, and for a little
time it looked as if the whole enterprise would have to be given up.
There were no boats; provisions were running low; game was scarce; and
fires could not be built for cooking.
But Clark could not be turned back by such difficulties. He plunged
ahead of his men, struck up songs and cheers to keep them in spirit,
played the buffoon, went wherever danger was greatest, and by an almost
unmatched display of bravery, tact, and firmness, won the redoubled
admiration of his suffering followers and held them together. Murmurs
arose among the creoles, but the Americans showed no signs of faltering.
For more than a week the party floundered through the freezing water,
picked its way from one outcropping bit of earth to another, and seldom
found opportunity to eat or sleep. Rifles and powder-horns had to be
borne by the hour above the soldiers' heads to keep them dry.
Finally, on the 23d of February, a supreme effort carried the troops
across the Horseshoe Plain, breast-deep in water, and out upon high
ground two miles from Vincennes. By this time many of the men were so
weakened that they could drag themselves along only with assistance. But
buffalo meat and corn were confiscated from the canoes of some passing
squaws, and soon the troops were refreshed and in good spirits. The
battle with the enemy ahead seemed as nothing when compared with the
struggle with the elements which they had successfully waged. No exploit
of the kind in American history surpasses this, unless it be Benedict
Arnold's winter march through the wilderness of Maine in 1775 to attack
Quebec.
Two or three creole hunters were now taken captive, and from them Clark
learned that no one in Vincennes knew of his approach. They reported,
however, that, although the habitants were tired of the "Hair-Buyer's"
presence and would gladly return to American allegiance, some two
hundred Indians had just arrived at the fort. The Willing had not been
heard from. But an immediate attack seemed the proper course; and the
young colonel planned and carried it out with the curious mixture of
bravery and braggadocio of which he was a past master.
First he drew up a lordly letter, addressed to the inhabitants of the
town, and dispatched it by one of his creole prisoners. "Gentlemen," it
ran, "being now within two miles of your village with my army ... and
not being willing to surprise you, I take this step to request such of
you as are true citizens, and willing to enjoy the liberty I bring you,
to remain still in your houses. And those, if any there be, that are
friends to the King, will instantly repair to the fort and join the
Hair-Buyer General and fight like men." Having thus given due warning,
he led his "army" forward, marching and counter-marching his meager
forces among the trees and hills to give an appearance of great numbers,
while he and his captains helped keep up the illusion by galloping
wildly here and there on horses they had confiscated, as if ordering a
vast array. At nightfall the men advanced upon the stockade and opened
fire from two directions.
Not until a sergeant reeled from his chair with a bullet in his breast
did the garrison realize that it was really under attack. The habitants
had kept their secret well. There was a beating of drums and a hurrying
to arms, and throughout the night a hot fusillade was kept up. By firing
from behind houses and trees, and from rifle pits that were dug before
the attack began, the Americans virtually escaped loss; while Hamilton's
gunners were picked off as fast as they appeared at the portholes of the
fort. Clark's ammunition ran low, but the habitants furnished a fresh
supply and at the same time a hot breakfast for the men. In a few hours
the cannon were silenced, and parleys were opened. Hamilton insisted
that he and his garrison were "not disposed to be awed into an action
unworthy of British subjects," but they were plainly frightened, and
Clark finally sent the commandant back to the fort from a conference in
the old French church with the concession of one hour's time in which to
decide what he would do. To help him make up his mind, the American
leader caused half a dozen Indians who had just returned from the
forests with white men's scalps dangling at their belts to be tomahawked
and thrown into the river within plain view of the garrison.
Surrender promptly followed. Hamilton and twenty-five of his men were
sent off as captives to Virginia, where the commandant languished in
prison until, in 1780, he was paroled at the suggestion of Washington.
On taking an oath of neutrality, the remaining British sympathizers were
set at liberty. For a second time the American flag floated over Indiana
soil, not again to be lowered.
Immediately after the capitulation of Hamilton, a scouting-party
captured a relief expedition which was on its way from Detroit and
placed in Clark's hands ten thousand pounds' worth of supplies for
distribution as prize-money among his deserving men. The commander's cup
of satisfaction was filled to the brim when the Willing appeared with a
long-awaited messenger from Governor Henry who brought to the soldiers
the thanks of the Legislature of Virginia for the capture of Kaskaskia
and also the promise of more substantial reward.
The whole of the Illinois and Indiana country was now in American hands.
Tenure, however, was precarious so long as Detroit remained a British
stronghold, and Clark now broadened his plans to embrace the capture of
that strategic place. Leaving Vincennes in charge of a garrison of forty
men, he returned to Kaskaskia with the Willing and set about organizing
a new expedition. Kentucky pledged three hundred men, and Virginia
promised to help. But when, in midsummer, the commander returned to
Vincennes to consolidate and organize his forces, he found the numbers
to be quite insufficient. From Kentucky there came only thirty men.
Disappointment followed disappointment; he was ordered to build a fort
at the mouth of the Ohio--a project of which he had himself approved;
and when at last he had under his command a force that might have been
adequate for the Detroit expedition, he was obliged to use it in meeting
a fresh incursion of savages which had been stirred up by the new
British commandant on the Lakes. But Thomas Jefferson, who in 1779
succeeded Henry as Governor of Virginia, was deeply interested in the
Detroit project, and at his suggestion Washington gave Clark an order on
the commandant of Fort Pitt for guns, supplies, and such troops as could
be spared. On January 22, 1781, Jefferson appointed Clark
"brigadier-general of the forces to be embodied on an expedition
westward of the Ohio." Again Clark was doomed to disappointment. One
obstacle after another interposed. Yet as late as May, 1781, the
expectant conqueror wrote to Washington that he had "not yet lost sight
of Detroit." Suitable opportunity for the expedition never came, and
when peace was declared the northern stronghold was still in British
hands.
Clark's later days were clouded. Although Virginia gave him six thousand
acres of land in southern Indiana and presented him with a sword, peace
left him without employment, and he was never able to adjust himself to
the changed situation. For many years he lived alone in a little cabin
on the banks of the Ohio, spending his time hunting, fishing, and
brooding over the failure of Congress to reward him in more substantial
manner for his services. He was land-poor, lonely, and embittered. In
1818 he died a paralyzed and helpless cripple. His resting place is in
Cave Hill Cemetery, Louisville; the finest statue of him stands in
Monument Circle, Indianapolis--"an athletic figure, scarcely past youth,
tall and sinewy, with a drawn sword, in an attitude of energetic
encouragement, as if getting his army through the drowned lands of the
Wabash." ¹
¹ Hosmer, Short History of the Mississippi Valley, p. 94.
The capture of Vincennes determined the fate of the Northwest. Frontier
warfare nevertheless went steadily on. In 1779 Spain entered the contest
as an ally of France, and it became the object of the British commanders
on the Lakes not only to recover the posts lost to the Americans but to
seize St. Louis and other Spanish strongholds on the west bank of the
Mississippi. In 1780 Lieutenant-Governor Patrick Sinclair, a bustling,
garrulous old soldier stationed at Michilimackinac, sent a force of some
nine hundred traders, servants, and Indians down the Mississippi to
capture both the American and Spanish settlements. An attack on St.
Louis failed, as did likewise a series of efforts against Cahokia and
Kaskaskia, and the survivors were glad to reach their northern
headquarters again, with nothing to show for their pains except a dozen
prisoners.
Not to be outdone, the Spanish commandant at St. Louis sent an
expedition to capture British posts in the Lake country. An arduous
winter march brought the avengers and their Indian allies to Fort St.
Joseph, a mile or two west of the present city of Niles, Michigan. It
would be ungracious to say that this post was selected for attack
because it was without a garrison. At all events, the place was duly
seized, the Spanish standard was set up, and possession of "the fort and
its dependencies" was taken in the name of his Majesty Don Carlos III.
No effort was made to hold the settlement permanently, and the British
from Detroit promptly retook it. Probably the sole intention had been to
add somewhat to the strength of the Spanish position at the forthcoming
negotiations for peace.
The war in the West ended, as it began, in a carnival of butchery.
Treacherous attacks, massacres, burnings, and pillagings were everyday
occurrences, and white men were hardly less at fault than red. Indeed
the most discreditable of all the recorded episodes of the time was a
heartless massacre by Americans of a large band of Indians that had been
Christianized by Moravian missionaries and brought together in a
peaceful community on the Muskingum. This slaughter of the innocents at
Gnadenhütten ("the Tents of Grace") reveals the frontiersman at his
worst. But it was dearly paid for. From the Lakes to the Gulf redskins
rose for vengeance. Villages were wiped out, and murderous bands swept
far into Virginia and Pennsylvania, evading fortified posts in order to
fall with irresistible fury on unsuspecting traders and settlers.
In midsummer, 1782, news of the cessation of hostilities between Great
Britain and her former seaboard colonies reached the back country, and
the commandant at Detroit made an honest effort to stop all offensive
operations. A messenger failed, however, to reach a certain Captain
Caldwell, operating in the Ohio country, in time to prevent him from
attacking a Kentucky settlement and bringing on the deadly Battle of
Blue Licks, in which the Americans were defeated with a loss of
seventy-one men. George Rogers Clark forthwith led a retaliatory
expedition against the Miami towns, taking prisoners, recapturing
whites, and destroying British trading establishments; and with this
final flare-up the Revolution came to an end in the Northwest.
The soldier had won the back country for the new nation. Could the
diplomat hold it? As early as March 19, 1779,--just three weeks after
Clark's capture of Vincennes,--the Continental Congress formally laid
claim to the whole of the Northwest; and a few months later John Adams
was instructed to negotiate for peace on the understanding that the
country's northern and western boundaries were to be the line of the
Great Lakes and the Mississippi. When, in 1781, Franklin, Jefferson,
Jay, and Laurens were appointed to assist Adams in the negotiation, the
new Congress of the Confederation stated that the earlier instructions
on boundaries represented its "desires and expectations."
It might have been supposed that if Great Britain could be brought to
accept these terms there would be no further difficulty. But obstacles
arose from other directions. France had entered the war for her own
reasons, and looked with decidedly more satisfaction on the defeat of
Great Britain than on the prospect of a new and powerful nation in the
Western Hemisphere. Furthermore, she was in close alliance with Spain;
and Spain had no sympathy whatever with the American cause as such. At
all events, she did not want the United States for a neighbor on the
Mississippi.
The American commissioners were under instructions to make no peace
without consulting France. But when, in the spring of 1782, Jay came
upon the scene of the negotiations at Paris, he demurred. He had been
for some time in Spain, and he carried to Paris not only a keen contempt
for the Spanish people and Spanish politics, but a strong suspicion that
Spain was using her influence to keep the United States from getting the
territory between the Lakes and the Ohio. France soon fell under similar
suspicion, for she was under obligations, as everyone knew, to satisfy
Spain; and little time elapsed before the penetrating American diplomat
was semiofficially assured that his suspicions in both directions were
well founded.
The mainspring of Spanish policy was the desire to make the Gulf of
Mexico a closed sea, under exclusive Spanish control. This plan would be
frustrated if the Americans acquired an outlet on the Gulf; furthermore,
it would be jeopardized if they retained control on the upper
Mississippi. Hence, the States must be kept back from the great river;
safety dictated that they be confined to the region east of the
Appalachians.
An ingenious plan was thereupon developed. Spain was to resume
possession of the Floridas, insuring thereby the coveted unbroken coast
line on the Gulf. The vast area between the Mississippi and the
Appalachians and south of the Ohio was to be an Indian territory, half
under Spanish and half under American "protection." The entire region
north of the Ohio was to be kept by Great Britain, or, at the most,
divided--on lines to be determined--between Great Britain and the United
States. From Rayneval, confidential secretary of the French foreign
minister Vergennes, Jay learned that the French Government proposed to
give this scheme its support.
Had such terms as these been forced on the new nation, the hundreds of
Virginian and Pennsylvanian pioneers who had given up their lives in the
planting of American civilization in the back country would have turned
in their graves. But Jay had no notion of allowing the scheme to
succeed. He sent an emissary to England to counteract the Spanish and
French influence. He converted Adams to his way of thinking, and even
raised doubts in Franklin's mind. Finally he induced his colleagues to
cast their instructions to the winds and negotiate a treaty with the
mother country independently.
This simplified matters immensely. Great Britain was a beaten nation,
and from the beginning her commissioners played a losing game. There was
much haggling over the loyalists, the fisheries, debts; but the
boundaries were quickly drawn. Great Britain preferred to see the
disputed western country in American hands rather than to leave a chance
for it to fall under the control of one of her European rivals.
Accordingly, the Treaty of Paris drew the interior boundary of the new
nation through the Great Lakes and connecting waters to the Lake of the
Woods; from the most northwestern point of the Lake of the Woods due
west to the Mississippi (an impossible line); down the Mississippi to
latitude 31°; thence east, by that parallel and by the line which is now
the northern boundary of Florida, to the ocean. Three nations, instead
of two, again shared the North American Continent: Great Britain kept
the territory north of the Lakes; Spain ruled the Floridas and
everything west of the Mississippi; the United States held the
remainder--an area of more than 825,000 square miles, with a population
of three and one half millions.