ammunition. Gunpowder and cannon-balls were hard to get and easy to get
rid of, being fired away with the utmost generosity whenever the armies
came together, and sought for with the utmost solicitude when the armies
were apart. The patriots made what they could and bought what they
could, and on one occasion sent as far as New Orleans, on the lower
Mississippi, to buy some ammunition which the Spaniards were willing to
sell.
But it was one thing to buy this much needed material and another thing
to get it where it was needed. In those days it was a long journey to
New Orleans and back. Yet the only way to obtain the ammunition was to
send for it, and a valiant man, named Colonel David Rogers, a native of
Virginia or Maryland, was chosen to go and bring it. His expedition was
so full of adventure, and ended in such a tragic way, that it seems well
worth telling about.
It was from the Old Red Stone Fort on the Monongahela River, one of the
two streams that make up the Ohio, that the expedition was to start, and
here Colonel Rogers found the boats and men waiting for him at the end
of his ride across the hill country. There were forty men in the party,
and embarking with these, Rogers soon floated down past Fort Pitt and
entered the Ohio, prepared for a journey of some thousands of miles in
length.
It was in the summer of the year 1778 that these bold men set out on a
perilous journey from which few of them were to return. But what might
come troubled them little. The weather was pleasant, the trees along the
stream were charming in their summer foliage, and their hearts were full
of hope and joy as they floated and rowed down the "Beautiful River," as
it had been named by the Indians and the French.
They needed, indeed, to be alert and watchful, for they knew well that
hundreds of hostile savages dwelt in the forest depths on both sides of
the stream, eager for blood and scalps. But the rough frontiersmen had
little fear of the Indians, with the water beneath them and their good
rifles beside them, and they sang their border songs and chatted in
jovial tones as they went steadily onward, eating and sleeping in the
boats, for it was nowhere safe to land. In this way they reached the
mouth of the Ohio in safety and turned their prows into the broader
current of the Mississippi.
The first important stopping-point of the expedition was at the spot
made historic by De Soto and Marquette, at the mouth of the Arkansas
River, or the Ozark, as it was then called. Here stood a Spanish fort,
near the locality where La Salle, a century earlier, had spent a
pleasant week with the friendly Arkansas Indians. Colonel Rogers had
been told about this fort, and advised to stop there and confer with its
commander. As he came near them, he notified the Spaniards of his
approach by a salvo of rifle shots, firing thirteen guns in honor of the
fighting colonies and as a salute to the lords of the stream. The
Spanish officer in command replied with three cannon shots, the woods
echoing back their report.
Colonel Rogers now landed and marched at the head of his men to the
fort, over them floating the Stars and Stripes, a new-born standard yet
to become glorious, and to wave in honor all along that stream on whose
banks it was then for the first time displayed. As they came near the
fort they were met by the Spanish commandant, Captain Devilie, with his
troops drawn up behind him, and the flag of Spain waving as if in salute
to the new banner of the United States. The Spaniard met Rogers with
dignified courtesy, both of them making low bows and exchanging words of
friendly greeting. Devilie invited his guest into the fort, and, by way
of entertaining the Americans, put his men through a series of parade
movements near the fort. The two officers looked on from the walls,
Devilie in his showy Spanish uniform and Rogers gay with his gold-laced
hat and silver-hilted sword.
These performances at an end, Colonel Rogers told his host the purpose
of his expedition, and was informed by him that the war-material which
he was seeking was no longer at New Orleans, but had been removed to a
fort farther up the river, near the locality where the city of St. Louis
now stands. If the colonel had been advised of this sooner he might have
saved himself a long journey. But there was the possibility that the
officer at the St. Louis fort would refuse to surrender the ammunition
without orders from his superiors. Besides this, he had been directed to
go to New Orleans. So, on the whole, he thought it best to obey orders
strictly, and to obtain from the Spanish governor an order to the
commandant of the fort to deliver the goods. There was one difficulty in
the way. The English had a hold on the river at a place called Natchez,
where, as Captain Devilie told the colonel, they had built a fort. They
might fire on him in passing and sink his boats, or force him to land
and hold him prisoner. To escape this peril Colonel Rogers left the bulk
of his men at the Spanish fort, taking only a single canoe and a
half-dozen men with him. It was his purpose to try and slip past the
Natchez fort in the night, and this was successfully done, the canoe
gliding past unseen and conveying the small party safely to New Orleans.
Our readers no doubt remember how, a century before this time, the
Chevalier La Salle floated down the great river and claimed all the
country surrounding it for the king of France. Later on French settlers
came there, and in 1718 they laid out the town of New Orleans, which
soon became the capital of the province. The settlements here did not
grow very fast, and it does not seem that France valued them highly, for
in 1763, after the British had taken Canada from the French, all the
land west of the Mississippi River was given up by France to Spain. This
was to pay that country for the loss of Florida, which was given over to
England. That is how the Spaniards came to own New Orleans, and to have
forts along the river where French forts had once been.
Colonel Rogers found the Spanish governor at New Orleans as obliging as
Captain Devilie had been. He got an order for the ammunition without
trouble, and had nothing before him but to go back up-stream again. But
that was not so easy to do. The river ran so swiftly that he soon found
it would be no light matter to row his canoe up against the strong
current. There was also the English fort at Natchez to pass, which might
be very dangerous when going slowly up-stream. So he concluded to let
the boat go and travel by land through the forest. This also was a hard
task in a land of dense cane-brakes and matted woodland, and the small
party had a toilsome time of it in pushing through the woods. At length,
however, the Spanish fort on the Ozark was reached, and the men of the
expedition were reunited. Bidding farewell to Captain Devilie, they took
to their boats again and rowed up-stream past the mouth of the Ohio
until Fort St. Louis was reached. The colonel was received here with the
same courtesy as below, and on presenting his order was given the
ammunition without question. It was carefully stowed in the boats,
good-by was said to the officer who had hospitably entertained them, the
oars were brought into play again, and the expedition started homeward.
So far all had gone well. The journey had been slow and weeks had
lengthened into months, but no misadventure had happened, and their
hearts were full of hope as the deeply laden craft were rowed into the
Ohio and began the toilsome ascent of that stream. It was now the month
of October. There was an autumn snap in the air, but this only fitted
them the better for their work, and all around them was beautiful as
they moved onward with song and jest, joyful in the hope of soon
reaching their homes again. They did not know the fate that awaited them
in those dark Ohio woodlands.
The boats made their way upward to a point in the river near where the
city of Cincinnati was to be founded a few years later. As they passed
this locality they saw a small party of Indians in a canoe crossing the
river not far ahead of them. These were the first of the Ohio Indians
they had seen, and the sight of them roused the frontier blood of the
hardy boatmen. Too many cabins on the border had been burned and their
inmates mercilessly slain for a frontiersman to see an Indian without a
burning inclination to kill him. The colonel was in the same spirit with
his men, and the boats were at once turned towards shore in pursuit of
the savages. At the point they had reached the Licking River empties
into the Ohio. Rowing into its mouth the men landed and, led by the
colonel, climbed up the bank to look for the foe.
They found far more than they had counted on. The canoe-load of savages
was but a decoy to lure them ashore, and as they ascended the river-bank
a hot fire was opened on them by a large body of Indians hidden in the
undergrowth. A trap had been laid for them and they had fallen into it.
The sudden and deadly volley threw the party into confusion, though
after a minute they returned the fire and rushed upon the ambushed foe,
Colonel Rogers at their head. Following him with cheers and yells, the
men were soon engaged in a fierce hand-to-hand conflict, the sound of
blows, shots, and war-cries filling the air, as the whites and red men
fought obstinately for victory. But the Indians far outnumbered their
opponents, and when at length the brave Rogers was seen to stagger and
fall all hope left his followers. It was impossible to regain the boats
which they had imprudently left, and they broke and fled into the
forest, pursued by their savage foes.
Many days later the survivors of the bloody contest, thirteen in all,
came straggling wearily into a white settlement on the Kanawha River in
Virginia. Of the remainder of their party and their gallant leader
nothing was ever heard again. One of the men reported that he had stayed
with the wounded colonel during the night after the battle, where he
"remained in the woods, in extreme pain and utterly past recovery." In
the morning he was obliged to leave him to save his own life, and that
was the last known on earth of Colonel Rogers.
As for the ammunition for which he had been sent, and which he had been
decoyed by an Indian trick into abandoning, it fell into the hands of
the savages, and was probably used in the later war in the service of
those against whom it was intended to be employed. Such is the fortune
of war.
_HOW COLONEL CLARK WON THE NORTHWEST._
On the evening of the 4th of July, 1778, a merry dance was taking place
at the small settlement of Kaskaskia, in that far western region
afterward known as Illinois. It must not be imagined that this was a
celebration of the American Independence day, for the people of
Kaskaskia knew little and cared less about American independence. It was
only by chance that this day was chosen for the dance, but it had its
significance for all that, for the first step was to be taken there that
day in adding the great Northwest to the United States. The man by whom
this was to be done was a brave Kentuckian named George Rogers Clark. He
came of a daring family, for he was a brother of Captain William Clark,
who, years afterward, was engaged with Captain Lewis in the famous Lewis
and Clark expedition across the vast unknown wilderness between the
Mississippi River and the Pacific Ocean.
Kaskaskia was one of the settlements made by the French between the
Great Lakes and the Mississippi. After the loss of Canada this country
passed to England, and there were English garrisons placed in some of
the forts. But Kaskaskia was thought so far away and so safe that it was
left in charge of a French officer and French soldiers. A gay and
light-hearted people they were, as the French are apt to be; and, as
they found time hang heavy on their hands at that frontier stronghold,
they had invited the people of the place, on the evening in question, to
a ball at the fort.
All this is by way of introduction; now let us see what took place at
the fort on that pleasant summer night. All the girls of the village
were there and many of the men, and most of the soldiers were on the
floor as well. They were dancing away at a jovial rate to the lively
music of a fiddle, played by a man who sat on a chair at the side. Near
him on the floor lay an Indian, looking on with lazy eyes at the
dancers. The room was lighted by torches thrust into the cracks of the
wall, and the whole party were in the best of spirits.
The Indian was not the only looker-on. In the midst of the fun a tall
young man stepped into the room and stood leaning against the side of
the door, with his eyes fixed on the dancers. He was dressed in the garb
of the backwoods, but it was easy to be seen that he was not a
Frenchman,--if any of the gay throng had taken the trouble to look at
him.
All at once there was a startling interruption. The Indian sprang to his
feet and his shrill war-whoop rang loudly through the room. His keen
eyes had rested on the stranger and seen at a glance that there was
something wrong. The new-comer was evidently an American, and that
meant something there.
His yell of alarm broke up the dance in an instant. The women, who had
just been laughing and talking, screamed with fright. All, men and women
alike, huddled together in alarm. Some of the men ran for their guns,
but the stranger did not move. From his place by the door he simply
said, in a quiet way, "Don't be scared. Go on with your dance. But
remember that you are dancing under Virginia and not under England."
[Illustration: VIEW IN THE NORTHWESTERN MOUNTAINS.]
As he was speaking, a crowd of men dressed like himself slipped into the
room. They were all armed, and in a minute they spread through the fort,
laying hands on the guns of the soldiers. The fort had been taken
without a blow or a shot.
Rocheblave, the French commandant, was in bed while these events were
taking place, not dreaming that an American was within five hundred
miles. He learned better when the new-comers took him prisoner and began
to search for his papers. The reason they did not find many of these was
on account of their American respect for ladies. The papers were in
Madame Rocheblave's room, which the Americans were too polite to enter,
not knowing that she was shoving them as fast as she could into the
fire, so that there was soon only a heap of ashes. A few were found
outside, enough to show what the Americans wanted to make sure of,--that
the English were doing their best to stir up the Indians against the
settlers. To end this part of our story, we may say that the Americans
got possession of Kaskaskia and its fort, and Rocheblave was sent off,
with his papers, to Virginia. Probably his wide-awake wife went with
him.
Now let us go back a bit and see how all this came to pass. Colonel
Clark was a native of Virginia, but he had gone to Kentucky in his early
manhood, being very fond of life in the woods. Here he became a friend
of Daniel Boone, and no doubt often joined him in hunting excursions;
but his business was that of a surveyor, at which he found plenty to do
in this new country.
Meanwhile, the war for independence came on, and as it proceeded Clark
saw plainly that the English at the forts in the West were stirring up
the Indians to attack the American settlements and kill the settlers. It
is believed that they paid them for this dreadful work and supplied them
with arms and ammunition. All this Clark was sure of and he determined
to try and stop it. So he made his way back to the East and had a talk
with Patrick Henry, who was then governor of Virginia. He asked the
governor to let him have a force to attack the English forts in the
West. He thought he could capture them, and in this way put an end to
the Indian raids.
Patrick Henry was highly pleased with Clark's plan. He gave him orders
to "proceed to the defence of Kentucky," which was done to keep his real
purpose a secret. He was also supplied with a large sum of money and
told to enlist four companies of men, of whom he was to be the colonel.
These he recruited among the hunters and pioneers of the frontier, who
were the kind of men he wanted, and in the spring of 1778 he set out on
his daring expedition.
With a force of about one hundred and fifty men Colonel Clark floated
down the Ohio River in boats, landing at length about fifty miles above
the river's mouth and setting off through the woods towards Kaskaskia.
It was a difficult journey, and they had many hardships. Their food ran
out on the way and they had to live on roots to keep from starvation.
But at length one night they came near enough to hear the fiddle and the
dancing. How they stopped the dance you have read.
Thus ends the first part of our story. It was easy enough to end, as has
been seen. But there was a second part which was not so easy. You must
know that the British had other strongholds in that country. One of them
was Detroit, on the Detroit River, near Lake Erie. This was their
starting-point. Far to the south, on the Wabash River, in what is now
the State of Indiana, was another fort called Vincennes, which lay about
one hundred and fifty miles to the east of Fort Kaskaskia. This was an
old French fort also, and it was held by the French for the British as
Kaskaskia had been. Colonel Clark wanted this fort too, and got it
without much trouble. He had not men enough to take it by force, so he
sent a French priest there, who told the people that their best friends
were the Americans, not the British. It was not hard to make them
believe this, for the French people had never liked the British. So they
hauled down the British ensign and hauled up the Stars and Stripes, and
Vincennes became an American fort.
After that Colonel Clark went back to Kentucky, proud to think that he
had won the great Northwest Territory for the United States with so
little trouble. But he might have known that the British would not let
themselves be driven out of the country in this easy manner, and before
the winter was over he heard news that was not much to his liking.
Colonel Hamilton, the English commander at Detroit, had marched down to
Vincennes and taken the fort back again. It was also said that he
intended to capture Kaskaskia, and then march south and try and win
Kentucky for the English. This Hamilton was the man who was said to have
hired the Indians to murder the American settlers, and Clark was much
disturbed by the news. He must be quick to act, or all that he had won
would be lost.
He had a terrible task before him. The winter was near its end and the
Wabash had risen and overflowed its banks on all sides. For hundreds of
square miles the country was under water, and Vincennes was in the
centre of a great shallow lake. It was freezing water, too, for this was
no longer the warm spring time, as it had been in the march to
Kaskaskia, but dull and drear February. Yet the brave colonel knew that
he must act quickly if he was to act at all. Hamilton had only eighty
men; he could raise twice that many. He had no money to pay them, but a
merchant in St. Louis offered to lend him all he needed. There was the
water to cross, but the hardy Kentucky hunters were used to wet and
cold. So Colonel Clark hastily collected his men and set out for
Vincennes.
A sturdy set of men they were who followed him, dressed in
hunting-shirts and carrying their long and tried rifles. On their heads
were fur caps, ornamented with deer or raccoon tails. They believed in
Colonel Clark, and that is a great deal in warlike affairs. As they
trudged onward there came days of cold, hard rain, so that every night
they had to build great fires to warm themselves and dry their clothes.
Thus they went on, day after day, through the woods and prairies,
carrying their packs of provisions and supplies on their backs, and
shooting game to add to their food supply.
This was holiday work to what lay before them. After a week of this kind
of travel they came to a new kind. The "drowned lands" of the Wabash lay
before them. Everywhere nothing but water was to be seen. The winter
rains had so flooded the streams that a great part of the country was
overflowed. And there was no way to reach the fort except by crossing
those waters, for they spread round it on all sides. They must plunge in
and wade through or give up and go back.
We may be sure that there were faint hearts among them when they felt
the cold water and knew that there were miles of it to cross, here
ankle- or knee-deep, there waist-deep. But they had known this when they
started, and they were not the men to turn back. At Colonel Clark's
cheery word of command they plunged in and began their long and
shivering journey.
For nearly a week this terrible journey went on. It was a frightful
experience. Now and then one of them would stumble and fall, and come up
dripping. All day long they tramped dismally on through that endless
waste of icy water. Here and there were islands of dry land over which
they were glad enough to trudge, but at night they often had trouble to
find a dry spot to build their fires and cook their food, and to sleep
on beside the welcome blaze. It was hard enough to find game in that
dreary waste, and their food ran out, so that for two whole days they
had to go hungry. Thus they went on till they came to the point where
White River runs into the Wabash.
Here they found some friends who had come by a much easier way. On
setting out Colonel Clark had sent Captain Rogers and forty men, with
two small cannon, in a boat up Wabash River, telling them to stop at the
White River fork, about fifteen or twenty miles below Vincennes. Here
their trudging friends found them, and from this point they resumed
their march in company. It was easy enough now to transport the cannon
by dragging or rowing the boat through the deep water which they had to
traverse.
The worst of their difficult journey lay before them, for surrounding
the fort was a sheet of water four miles wide which was deeper than any
they had yet gone through. They had waded to their knees, and at times
to their waists, but now they might have to wade to their necks. Some of
them thrust their hands into the water and shivered at the touch, saying
that it was freezing cold. There were men among them who held back,
exclaiming that it was folly to think of crossing that icy lake.
"We have not come so far to turn back now," said Colonel Clark, sternly.
"Yonder lies the fort, and a few hours will take us there. Follow me,"
and he walked boldly into the flood. As he did so he told one of his
officers to shoot the first man who refused to follow. That settled the
matter; they all plunged in.
It was the most frightful part of their journey. The water at places, as
we have said, came at times almost to their necks. Much of it reached
their waists. They struggled resolutely on, almost benumbed with the
cold, now stumbling and catching themselves again, holding their guns
and powder above their heads to keep them from becoming wet, and glad
enough when they found the water growing shallower. At length dry land
was reached once more, and none too soon, for some of the men were so
faint and weak that they fell flat on the ground. Colonel Clark set two
of his men to pick up these worn-out ones and run them up and down till
they were warm again. In this way they were soon made all right.
It was now the evening of the 18th of February, 1779. They were near
enough to the fort to hear the boom of the evening gun. This satisfied
the colonel that they were at the end of their journey, and he bade his
men to lie down and sleep and get ready for the work before them. There
was no more wading to do, but there was likely to be some fighting.
Bright and early the next morning they were up and had got their arms
and equipments in order. They were on the wrong side of the river, but a
large boat was found, in which they crossed. Vincennes was now near at
hand, and one of its people soon appeared, a Frenchman, who looked at
them with as much astonishment as if they had dropped down from the sky.
Colonel Clark questioned him about matters in the fort, and then gave
him a letter to Colonel Hamilton, telling the colonel that they had come
across the water to take back the fort, and that he had better surrender
and save trouble.