The Winning of the West, Volume Two by Theodore Roosevelt

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Difficulties of the Route.

Having embarked, the troops and Indians paddled down stream to Lake
Erie, reaching it in a snowstorm, and when a lull came they struck
boldly across the lake, making what bateau men still call a "traverse"
of thirty-six miles to the mouth of the Maumee. Darkness overtook them
while still on the lake, and the head boats hung out lights for the
guidance of those astern; but about midnight a gale came up, and the
whole flotilla was nearly swamped, being beached with great difficulty
on an oozy flat close to the mouth of the Maumee. The waters of the
Maumee were low, and the boats were poled slowly up against the current,
reaching the portage point, where there was a large Indian village, on
the 24th of the month. Here a nine miles' carry was made to one of the
sources of the Wabash, called by the voyageurs "la petite riviere." This
stream was so low that the boats could not have gone down it had it not
been for a beaver dam four miles below the landing-place, which backed
up the current. An opening was made in the dam to let the boats pass.
The traders and Indians thoroughly appreciated the help given them at
this difficult part of the course by the engineering skill of the
beavers--for Hamilton was following the regular route of the hunting,
trading, and war parties,--and none of the beavers of this particular
dam were ever molested, being left to keep their dam in order, and
repair it, which they always speedily did whenever it was damaged.
[Footnote: Haldimand's MSS. Hamilton's "brief account."]

It proved as difficult to go down the Wabash as to get up the Maumee.
The water was shallow, and once or twice in great swamps dykes had to be
built that the boats might be floated across. Frost set in heavily, and
the ice cut the men as they worked in the water to haul the boats over
shoals or rocks. The bateaux often needed to be beached and caulked,
while both whites and Indians had to help carry the loads round the
shoal places. At every Indian village it was necessary to stop, hold a
conference, and give presents. At last the Wea village--or Ouiatanon, as
Hamilton called it--was reached. Here the Wabash chiefs, who had made
peace with the Americans, promptly came in and tendered their allegiance
to the British, and a reconnoitering party seized a lieutenant and three
men of the Vincennes militia, who were themselves on a scouting
expedition, but who nevertheless were surprised and captured without
difficulty. [Footnote: _Do._ The French officer had in his pocket one
British and one American commission; Hamilton debated in his mind for
some time the advisability of hanging him.] They had been sent out by
Captain Leonard Helm, then acting as commandant at Vincennes. He had but
a couple of Americans with him, and was forced to trust to the creole
militia, who had all embodied themselves with great eagerness, having
taken the oath of allegiance to Congress. Having heard rumors of the
British advance, he had dispatched a little party to keep watch, and in
consequence of their capture he was taken by surprise.

Hamilton Captures Vincennes.

From Ouiatanon Hamilton dispatched Indian parties to surround Vincennes
and intercept any messages sent either to the Falls or to the Illinois;
they were completely successful, capturing a messenger who carried a
hurried note written by Helm to Clark to announce what had happened. An
advance guard, under Major Hay, was sent forward to take possession, but
Helm showed so good a front that nothing was attempted until the next
day, the 17th of December, just seventy-one days after the expedition
had left Detroit, when Hamilton came up at the head of his whole force
and entered Vincennes. Poor Helm was promptly deserted by all the creole
militia. The latter had been loud in their boasts until the enemy came
in view, but as soon as they caught sight of the red-coats they began to
slip away and run up to the British to surrender their arms. [Footnote:
_Do._ Intercepted letter of Captain Helm, Series B., Vol. 122, p. 280.]
He was finally left with only one or two men, Americans. Nevertheless he
refused the first summons to surrender; but Hamilton, who knew that
Helm's troops had deserted him, marched up to the fort at the head of
his soldiers, and the American was obliged to surrender, with no terms
granted save that he and his associates should be treated with humanity.
[Footnote: Letter of Hamilton, Dec. 18-30, 1778. The story of Helm's
marching out with the honors of war is apparently a mere invention. Even
Mann Butler, usually so careful, permits himself to be led off into all
sorts of errors when describing the incidents of the Illinois and
Vincennes expeditions, and the writers who have followed him have
generally been less accurate. The story of Helm drinking toddy by the
fire-place when Clark retook the fort, and of the latter ordering
riflemen to fire at the chimney, so as to knock the mortar into the
toddy, may safely be set down as pure--and very weak--fiction. When
Clark wrote his memoirs, in his old age, he took delight in writing down
among his exploits all sorts of childish stratagems; the marvel is that
any sane historian should not have seen that these were on their face as
untrue as they were ridiculous.] The instant the fort was surrendered
the Indians broke in and plundered it; but they committed no act of
cruelty, and only plundered a single private house.

Measures to Secure his Conquest.

The French inhabitants had shown pretty clearly that they did not take a
keen interest in the struggle, on either side. They were now summoned to
the church and offered the chance--which they for the most part eagerly
embraced--of purging themselves of their past misconduct by taking a
most humiliating oath of repentance, acknowledging that they had sinned
against God and man by siding with the rebels, and promising to be loyal
in the future. Two hundred and fifty of the militia, being given back
their arms, appeared with their officers, and took service again under
the British king, swearing a solemn oath of allegiance. They certainly
showed throughout the most light-hearted indifference to chronic perjury
and treachery; nor did they in other respects appear to very good
advantage. Clark was not in the least surprised at the news of their
conduct; for he had all along realized that the attachment of the French
would prove but a slender reed on which to lean in the moment of trial.

Hamilton had no fear of the inhabitants themselves, for the fort
completely commanded the town. To keep them in good order he confiscated
all their spirituous liquors, and in a rather amusing burst of Puritan
feeling destroyed two billiard tables, which he announced were "sources
of immorality and dissipation in such a settlement." [Footnote: _Do._]
He had no idea that he was in danger of attack from without, for his
spies brought him word that Clark had only a hundred and ten men in the
Illinois county [Footnote: _Do._ "Fourscore at Kaskaskia and thirty at
Cahokia."]; and the route between was in winter one of extraordinary
difficulty.

He Goes into Winter Quarters.

He had five hundred men and Clark but little over one hundred. He was
not only far nearer his base of supplies and reinforcements at Detroit,
than Clark was to his at Fort Pitt, but he was also actually across
Clark's line of communications. Had he pushed forward at once to attack
the Americans, and had he been able to overcome the difficulties of the
march, he would almost certainly have conquered. But he was daunted by
the immense risk and danger of the movement. The way was long and the
country flooded, and he feared the journey might occupy so much time
that his stock of provisions would be exhausted before he got half-way.
In such a case the party might starve to death or perish from exposure.
Besides he did not know what he should do for carriages; and he dreaded
the rigor of the winter weather. [Footnote: Haldimand MSS.; in his
various letters Hamilton sets forth the difficulties at length.] There
were undoubtedly appalling difficulties in the way of a mid-winter 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.

He Plans a Great Campaign in the Spring.

Having decided to suspend active operations during the cold weather, he
allowed the Indians to scatter back to their villages for the winter,
and sent most of the Detroit militia home, retaining in garrison only
thirty-four British regulars, forty French volunteers, and a dozen white
leaders of the Indians [Footnote: _Do._ B. Vol. 122, p. 287. Return of
Vincennes garrison for Jan. 30, 1779.]; in all eighty or ninety whites,
and a probably larger number of red auxiliaries. The latter were
continually kept out on scouting expeditions; Miamis and Shawnees were
sent down to watch the Ohio, and take scalps in the settlements, while
bands of Kickapoos, the most warlike of the Wabash Indians, and of
Ottawas, often accompanied by French partisans, went towards the
Illinois country. [Footnote: Hamilton's "brief account," and his letter
of December 18th.] Hamilton intended to undertake a formidable campaign
in the spring. He had sent messages to Stuart, the British Indian agent
in the south, directing him to give war-belts to the Chickasaws,
Cherokees, and Creeks, that a combined attack on the frontier might take
place as soon as the weather opened. He himself was to be joined by
reinforcements from Detroit, while the Indians were to gather round him
as soon as the winter broke. He would then have had probably over a
thousand men, and light cannon with which to batter down the stockades.
He rightly judged that with this force he could not only reconquer the
Illinois, but also sweep Kentucky, where the outnumbered riflemen could
not have met him in the field, nor the wooden forts have withstood his
artillery. Undoubtedly he would have carried out his plan, and have
destroyed all the settlements west of the Alleghanies, had he been
allowed to wait until the mild weather brought him his hosts of Indian
allies and his reinforcements of regulars and militia from Detroit.

Panic among the Illinois French.

But in Clark he had an antagonist whose far-sighted daring and
indomitable energy raised him head and shoulders above every other
frontier leader. This backwoods colonel was perhaps the one man able in
such a crisis to keep the land his people had gained. When the news of
the loss of Vincennes reached the Illinois towns, and especially when
there followed a rumor that Hamilton himself was on his march thither to
attack them, [Footnote: The rumor came when Clark was attending a dance
given by the people of the little village of La Prairie du Rocher. The
Creoles were passionately fond of dancing and the Kentuckians entered
into the amusement with the utmost zest.] the panic became tremendous
among the French. They frankly announced that though they much preferred
the Americans, yet it would be folly to oppose armed resistance to the
British; and one or two of their number were found to be in
communication with Hamilton and the Detroit authorities. Clark promptly
made ready for resistance, tearing down the buildings near the fort at
Kaskaskia--his head-quarters--and sending out scouts and runners; but he
knew that it was hopeless to try to withstand such a force as Hamilton
could gather. He narrowly escaped being taken prisoner by a party of
Ottawas and Canadians, who had come from Vincennes early in January,
when the weather was severe and the travelling fairly good. [Footnote:
Haldimand MSS. Hamilton's letter January 24, 1779.] He was at the time
on his way to Cahokia, to arrange for the defence; several of the
wealthier Frenchmen were with him in "chairs"--presumably creaking
wooden carts,--and one of them "swampt," or mired down, only a hundred
yards from the ambush. Clark and his guards were so on the alert that no
attack was made.

Clark Receives News concerning Vincennes.

In the midst of his doubt and uncertainty he received some news that
enabled him immediately to decide on the proper course to follow. He had
secured great influence over the bolder, and therefore the leading,
spirits among the French. One of these was a certain Francis Vigo, a
trader in St. Louis. He was by birth an Italian, who had come to New
Orleans in a Spanish regiment, and having procured his discharge, had
drifted to the creole villages of the frontier, being fascinated by the
profitable adventures of the Indian trade. Journeying to Vincennes, he
was thrown into prison by Hamilton; on being released, he returned to
St. Louis. Thence he instantly crossed over to Kaskaskia, on January 27,
1779, [Footnote: State Department MSS. Letters to Washington, 33, p.
90.] and told Clark that Hamilton had at the time only eighty men in
garrison, with three pieces of cannon and some swivels mounted, but that
as soon as the winter broke, he intended to gather a very large force
and take the offensive. [Footnote: State Department MSS. Papers of
Continental Congress, No. 71, Vol. I., p. 267.]

Clark Determines to Strike the First Blow.

Clark instantly decided to forestall his foe, and to make the attack
himself, heedless of the almost impassable nature of the ground and of
the icy severity of the weather. Not only had he received no
reinforcements from Virginia but he had not had so much as "a scrip of a
pen" from Governor Henry since he had left him, nearly twelve months
before. [Footnote: _Do._] So he was forced to trust entirely to his own
energy and power. He first equipped a row-galley with two four-pounders
and four swivels, and sent her off with a crew of forty men, having
named her the Willing. [Footnote: Under the command of Clark's cousin,
Lt. John Rogers.] She was to patrol the Ohio, and then to station
herself in the Wabash so as to stop all boats from descending it. She
was the first gun-boat ever afloat on the western waters.

His March against Vincennes.

Then he hastily drew together his little garrisons of backwoodsmen from
the French towns, and prepared for the march overland against Vincennes.
His bold front and confident bearing, and the prompt decision of his
measures, had once more restored confidence among the French, whose
spirits rose as readily as they were cast down; and he was especially
helped by the creole girls, whose enthusiasm for the expedition roused
many of the more daring young men to volunteer under Clark's banner. By
these means he gathered together a band of one hundred and seventy men,
at whose head he marched out of Kaskaskia on the 7th of February.
[Footnote: Letter to Henry. The letter to Mason says it was the 5th.]
All the inhabitants escorted them out of the village, and the Jesuit
priest, Gibault, gave them absolution at parting.

The route by which they had to go was two hundred and forty miles in
length. It lay through a beautiful and well watered country, of groves
and prairies; but at that season the march was necessarily attended with
the utmost degree of hardship and fatigue. The weather had grown mild,
so that there was no suffering from cold; but in the thaw the ice on the
rivers melted, great freshets followed, and all the lowlands and meadows
were flooded. Clark's great object was to keep his troops in good
spirits. Of course he and the other officers shared every hardship and
led in every labor. He encouraged the men to hunt game; and to "feast on
it like Indian war-dancers," [Footnote: Clark's "Memoir."] each company
in turn inviting the others to the smoking and plentiful banquets. One
day they saw great herds of buffaloes and killed many of them. They had
no tents [Footnote: State Department MSS. Letters to Washington, Vol.
33, p. 90. "A Journal of Col. G. R. Clark. Proceedings from the 29th
Jan'y 1779 to the 26th March Inst." [by Captain Bowman]. This journal
has been known for a long time. The original is supposed to have been
lost; but either this is it or else it is a contemporary MS. copy. In
the "Campaign in the Illinois" (Cincinnati, Robert Clarke and Co.,
1869), p. 99, there is a printed copy of the original. The Washington
MS. differs from it in one or two particulars. Thus, the printed diary
in the "Campaign," on p. 99, line 3, says "fifty volunteers"; the MS.
copy says "50 French volunteers." Line 5 in the printed copy says "and
such other Americans"; in the MS. it says "and several other Americans."
Lines 6 and 7 of the printed copy read as follows in the MS. (but only
make doubtful sense): "These with a number of horses designed for the
settlement of Kantuck &c. Jan. 30th, on which Col. Clark," etc. Lines 10
and 11 of the printed copy read in the MS.: "was let alone till spring
that he with his Indians would undoubtedly cut us all off." Lines 13 and
14, of the printed copy read in the MS. "Jan. 31st, sent an express to
Cahokia for volunteers. Nothing extraordinary this day."]; but at
nightfall they kindled huge camp-fires, and spent the evenings merrily
round the piles of blazing logs, in hunter fashion, feasting on bear's
ham and buffalo hump, elk saddle, venison haunch, and the breast of the
wild turkey, some singing of love and the chase and war, and others
dancing after the manner of the French trappers and wood-runners.

Thus they kept on, marching hard but gleefully and in good spirits until
after a week they came to the drowned lauds of the Wabash. They first
struck the two branches of the Little Wabash. Their channels were a
league apart, but the flood was so high that they now made one great
river five miles in width, the overflow of water being three feet deep
in the shallowest part of the plains between and alongside them.

Clark instantly started to build a pirogue; then crossing over the first
channel he put up a scaffold on the edge of the flooded plain. He
ferried his men over, and brought the baggage across and placed it on
the scaffold; then he swam the pack-horses over, loaded them as they
stood belly-deep in the water beside the scaffold, and marched his men
on through the water until they came to the second channel, which was
crossed as the first had been. The building of the pirogue and the
ferrying took three days in all.

They had by this time come so near Vincennes that they dared not fire a
gun for fear of being discovered; besides, the floods had driven the
game all away; so that they soon began to feel hunger, while their
progress was very slow, and they suffered much from the fatigue of
travelling all day long through deep mud or breast-high water. On the
17th they reached the Embarras River, but could not cross, nor could
they find a dry spot on which to camp; at last they found the water
falling off a small, almost submerged hillock, and on this they huddled
through the night. At daybreak they heard Hamilton's morning gun from
the fort, that was but three leagues distant; and as they could not find
a ford across the Embarras, they followed it down and camped by the
Wabash. There Clark set his drenched, hungry, and dispirited followers
to building some pirogues; while two or three unsuccessful attempts were
made to get men across the river that they might steal boats. He
determined to leave his horses at this camp; for it was almost
impossible to get them further. [Footnote: This is not exactly stated in
the "Memoir"; but it speaks of the horses as being with the troops on
the 20th; and after they left camp, on the evening of the 21st, states
that he "would have given a good deal ... for one of the horses."]

Hardship and Suffering.

On the morning of the 20th the men had been without food for nearly two
days. Many of the Creole volunteers began to despair, and talked of
returning. Clark knew that his Americans, veterans who had been with him
for over a year, had no idea of abandoning the enterprise, nor yet of
suffering the last extremities of hunger while they had horses along. He
paid no heed to the request of the Creoles, nor did he even forbid their
going back; he only laughed at them, and told them to go out and try to
kill a deer. He knew that without any violence he could yet easily
detain the volunteers for a few days longer; and he kept up the spirits
of the whole command by his undaunted and confident mien. The canoes
were nearly finished; and about noon a small boat with five Frenchmen
from Vincennes was captured. From these Clark gleaned the welcome
intelligence that the condition of affairs was unchanged at the fort,
and that there was no suspicion of any impending danger. In the evening
the men were put in still better heart by one of the hunters killing a
deer.

It rained all the next day. By dawn Clark began to ferry the troops over
the Wabash in the canoes he had built, and they were soon on the eastern
bank of the river, the side on which Vincennes stood. They now hoped to
get to town by nightfall; but there was no dry land for leagues round
about, save where a few hillocks rose island-like above the flood. The
Frenchmen whom they had captured said they could not possibly get along;
but Clark led the men in person, and they waded with infinite toil for
about three miles, the water often up to their chins; and they then
camped on a hillock for the night. Clark kept the troops cheered up by
every possible means, and records that he was much assisted by "a little
antic drummer," a young boy who did good service by making the men laugh
with his pranks and jokes. [Footnote: Law, in his "Vincennes" (p. 32),
makes the deeds of the drummer the basis for a traditional story that is
somewhat too highly colored. Thus he makes Clark's men at one time
mutiny, and refuse to go forwards. This they never did; the Creoles once
got dejected and wished to return, but the Americans, by Clark's own
statement, never faltered at all. Law's "Vincennes" is an excellent
little book, but he puts altogether too much confidence in mere
tradition. For another instance besides this, see page 68, where he
describes Clark as entrapping and killing "upwards of fifty Indians,"
instead of only eight or nine, as was actually the case.]

Next morning they resumed their march, the strongest wading painfully
through the water, while the weak and famished were carried in the
canoes, which were so hampered by the bushes that they could hardly go
even as fast as the toiling footmen. The evening and morning guns of the
fort were heard plainly by the men as they plodded onward, numbed and
weary. Clark, as usual, led them in person. Once they came to a place so
deep that there seemed no crossing, for the canoes could find no ford.
It was hopeless to go back or stay still, and the men huddled together,
apparently about to despair. But Clark suddenly blackened his face with
gunpowder, gave the war-whoop, and sprang forwards boldly into the
ice-cold water, wading out straight towards the point at which they were
aiming; and the men followed him, one after another, without a word.
Then he ordered those nearest him to begin one of their favorite songs;
and soon the whole line took it up, and marched cheerfully onward. He
intended to have the canoes ferry them over the deepest part, but before
they came to it one of the men felt that his feet were in a path, and by
carefully following it they got to a sugar camp, a hillock covered with
maples, which once had been tapped for sugar. Here they camped for the
night, still six miles from the town, without food, and drenched
through. The prisoners from Vincennes, sullen and weary, insisted that
they could not possibly get to the town through the deep water; the
prospect seemed almost hopeless even to the iron-willed, steel-sinewed
backwoodsmen [Footnote: Bowman ends his entry for the day with: "No
provisions yet. Lord help us!"]; but their leader never lost courage for
a moment.

That night was bitterly cold, for there was a heavy frost, and the ice
formed half an inch thick round the edges and in the smooth water. But
the sun rose bright and glorious, and Clark, in burning words, told his
stiffened, famished, half-frozen followers that the evening would surely
see them at the goal of their hopes. Without waiting for an answer, he
plunged into the water, and they followed him with a cheer, in Indian
file. Before the third man had entered the water he halted and told one
of his officers [Footnote: Bowman] to close the rear with twenty-five
men, and to put to death any man who refused to march; and the whole
line cheered him again.

Then came the most trying time of the whole march. Before them lay a
broad sheet of water, covering what was known as the Horse Shoe Plain;
the floods had made it a shallow lake four miles across, unbroken by so
much as a handsbreadth of dry land. On its farther side was a dense
wood. Clark led breast high in the water with fifteen or twenty of the
strongest men next him. About the middle of the plain the cold and
exhaustion told so on the weaker men that the canoes had to take them
aboard and carry them on to the land; and from that time on the little
dug-outs plied frantically to and fro to save the more helpless from
drowning. Those, who, though weak, could still move onwards, clung to
the stronger, and struggled ahead, Clark animating them in every
possible way. When they at last reached the woods the water became so
deep that it was to the shoulders of the tallest, but the weak and those
of low stature could now cling to the bushes and old logs, until the
canoes were able to ferry them to a spot of dry land, some ten acres in
extent, that lay near-by. The strong and tall got ashore and built
fires. Many on reaching the shore fell flat on their faces, half in the
water, and could not move farther. It was found that the fires did not
help the very weak, so every such a one was put between two strong men
who ran him up and down by the arms, and thus soon made him recover.
[Footnote: Clark's "Memoir."]

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