9 Haldimand MSS. Haldimand to Hamilton, August 6, 1778.
10 For instances of an Indian wearing this buffalo cap, with the horns on, see Kercheval and De Haas.
11 State Department MSS. for 1777, passim. So successful were the Indian chiefs in hoodwinking the officers at Fort Pitt that some of the latter continued to believe that only three or four hundred Indians had gone on the warpath.
12 Occasionally we come across records of the women afterward making their escape; very rarely they took their half-breed babies with them. De Haas mentions one such case where the husband, though he received his wife well, always hated the copper-colored addition to his family; the latter, by the way, grew up a thorough Indian, could not be educated, and finally ran away, joined the Revolutionary army, and was never heard of afterward.
13 For an instance where a boy finally returned, see “Trans- Alleghany Pioneers,” p. 119; see also pp. 126, 132, 133, for in stances of the capture and treatment of whites by Indians.
14 Fort Henry. For an account of the siege, see De Haas, pp. 223-340. It took place in the early days of September.
15 The accounts of the different sieges of Wheeling were first written down from the statements of the pioneers when they had grown very aged. In consequence, there is much uncertainty as to the various incidents. Thus there seems to be a doubt whether Girty did or did not command the Indians in this first siege. The frontiersmen hated Girty as they did no other man, and he was credited with numerous actions done by other white leaders of the Indians; the British accounts say comparatively little about him. He seems to have often fought with the Indians as one of their own number, while his associates led organized bands of rangers; he was thus more often brought into contact with the frontiersmen, but was really hardly as dangerous a foe to them as were one or two of history companions.
16 The hill overlooks Wheeling; the slope has now much crumbled away, and in consequence has lost its steepness.
17 In the West this feat is as well known as is Putnam’s similar deed in the North.
18 In Boone’s narrative, written down by Filson, and in Clark’s diary, as given by Morehead. The McAfee MSS. and Butler’s history give some valuable information. Boone asserts that at this time the “Long Knives” proved themselves superior to their foe in almost every battle; but the facts do not seem to sustain him, though the statement was doubtless true as regards a few picked men. His estimate of the Indian numbers and losses must be received with great caution.
19 Boone says April 15th and July 4th. Clark’s diary makes the first date April 24th, Boone says one hundred Indians, Clark “40 or 50.” Clark’s account of the loss on both sides agrees tolerably well with Boone’s. Clark’s diary makes the second attack take place on May 23d. His dates are probably correct, as Boone must have written only from memory.
20 Two of the other wounded men were Captain John Todd and Boone’s old hunting companion, Stoner.
21 Clark’s diary.
22 Boone says July 19th, Clark’s diary makes it May 30th: Clark is undoubtedly right; he gives the names of the man who was killed and of the two who were wounded.
23 The name of the latter was Burr Harrison; he died a fortnight afterward.—Clark.
24 Not a fanciful comparison; the wolf is the only animal that an Indian or a trained frontiersman can not tire out in several days’ travel. Following a deer two days in light snow, I have myself gotten near enough to shoot it without difficulty.’
25 Usually early in November.—McAfee MSS.
26 Marshall, 50.
27 These game licks were common, and were of enormous extent. Multitudes of game, through countless generations, had tramped the ground bare of vegetation, and had made deep pits and channels with their hoofs and tongues. See McAfee MSS. Sometimes the licks covered acres of ground, while the game trails leading toward them through the wood were as broad as streets, even 100 feet wide. I have myself seen small game licks, the largest not a hundred feet across, in the Selkirks, Cœur d’Alenes, and Bighorns, the ground all tramped up by the hoofs of elk, deer, wild sheep, and white goats, with deep furrows and hollows where the saline deposits existed. In the Little Missouri Bad Lands there is so much mineral matter that no regular licks are needed. As the game is killed off the licks become overgrown and lost.
28 Clark’s diary, entry for July 9th.
29 The McAfee MSS. give these four stations; Boone says there were but three. He was writing from memory, however, and was probably mistaken; thus he says there were at that time settlers at the Falls, an evident mistake, as there were none there till the following year. Collins, following Marshall, says there were at the end of the year only one hundred and two men in Kentucky,—sixty-five at Harrodstown, twenty-two at Boonesborough, fifteen at Logan’s. This is a mistake based on a hasty reading of Boone’s narrative, which gives this number for July, and particularly adds that after that date they began to strengthen. In the McAfee MSS. is a census of Harrodstown for the fall of 1777, which sums up: Men in service, 81; men not in service, 4; women, 24; children above ten, 12; children under ten, 58; slaves above ten, 12; slaves under ten, 7; total, 198. In October Clark in his diary records meeting fifty men with their families (therefore permanent settlers), on their way to Boone, and thirty-eight men on their way to Logan’s. At the end of the year, therefore, Boonesborough and Harrodstown must have held about two hundred souls apiece: Logan’s and McGarry’s were considerably smaller. The large proportion of young children testifies to the prolific nature of the Kentucky women, and also shows the permanent nature of the settlements. Two years previously, in 1775, there had been, perhaps, three hundred people in Kentucky, but very many of them were not permanent residents.
30 See Clark’s Diary, entry for October 25, 1777.
31 Haldimand MSS. B, 122, p. 35. Hamilton to Carleton, April 25, 1778. He says fourscore Miamis.
32 Do., June 14, 1778.
33 Do., April 25, 1778.
34 Boone’s narrative.
35 Haldimand MSS. Aug. 17, 1778, Girty reports that four hundred Indians have gone to attack “ Fort Kentuck.” Hamilton’s letter of Sept. 16th speaks of there being three hundred Shawnees with de Quindre (whom Boone calls Duquesne).
36 See Boone’s narrative.
37 Apparently there were eighteen Indians on the treaty-ground, but these were probably, like the whites, unarmed.
38 McAfee MSS.
39 De Quindre reported to Hamilton that, though foiled, he had but two men killed and three wounded. In Haldimand MSS., Hamilton to Haldimand, October 15, 1778. Often, however, these partisan leaders merely reported the loss in their own particular party of savages, taking no account of the losses in the other bands that had joined them—as the Miamis joined the Shawnees in this instance. But it is certain that Boone (or Filson, who really wrote the Narrative) greatly exaggerated the facts in stating that thirty- seven Indians were killed, and that the settlers picked up 125 pounds’ weight of bullets which had been fired into the fort.
40 Haldimand MSS. Letter of Hamilton, September 16, 1778. Hamilton was continually sending out small war parties; thus he mentions that on August 25th a party of fifteen Miamis went out; on September 5th, thirty-one Miamis; on September 9th, one Frenchman, five Chippewas, and fifteen Miamis, etc.
41 McAfee MSS.
42 Marshall, 55.
43 McAfee MSS.
44 The last point is important. No Europeans could have held their own for a fortnight in Kentucky; nor is it likely that the Western men twenty years before, at the time of Braddock’s war, could have successfully colonized such a far-off country.
45 See McClung’s “Sketches of Western Adventure,” pp. 86-117; the author had received from Kenton, and other pioneers, when very old, the tales of their adventures as young men. McClung’s volume contains very valuable incidental information about the customs of life among the borderers, and about Indian warfare; but he is a very inaccurate and untrustworthy writer; he could not even copy a printe
d narrative correctly (see his account of Slover’s and McKnight’s adventures), and his tales about Kenton must be accepted rather as showing the adventures incident to the life of a peculiarly daring Indian fighter than as being specifically and chronologically correct in Kenton’s individual case.
46 For this part of Kenton’s adventures compare the “Last of the Mohicans.”
47 McClung gives the exact conversations that took place between Kenton, Logan, Girty, and the Indian chiefs. They are very dramatic, and may possibly be true; the old pioneer would probably always remember even the words used on such occasions; but I hesitate to give them because McClung is so loose in his statements. In the account of this very incident he places it in ‘77, and says Kenton then accompanied Clark to the Illinois. But in reality—as we know from Boone—it took place in ‘78, and Kenton must have gone with Clark first.
CHAPTER VI
CLARK’S CONQUEST OF THE ILLINOIS, 1778
KENTUCKY HAD been settled, chiefly through Boone’s instrumentality, in the year that saw the first fighting of the Revolution, and it had been held ever since, Boone still playing the greatest part in the defence. Clark’s more far-seeing and ambitious soul now prompted him to try and use it as a base from which to conquer the vast region northwest of the Ohio.
The country beyond the Ohio was not, like Kentucky, a tenantless and debatable hunting-ground. It was the seat of powerful and warlike Indian confederacies, and of clusters of ancient French hamlets which had been founded generations before the Kentucky pioneers were born; and it also contained posts that were garrisoned and held by the soldiers of the British king. Virginia, and other colonies as well, made, it is true, vague claims to some of this territory.1 But their titles were as unreal and shadowy as those acquired by the Spanish and Portuguese kings when the Pope, with empty munificence, divided between them the Eastern and the Western hemispheres. For a century the French had held adverse possession; for a decade and a half the British, not the colonial authorities, had acted as their unchallenged heirs; to the Americans the country was as much a foreign land as was Canada. It could only be acquired by force, and Clark’s teeming brain and bold heart had long been busy in planning its conquest. He knew that the French villages, the only settlements in the land, were the seats of the British power, the headquarters whence their commanders stirred up, armed, and guided the hostile Indians. If these settled French districts were conquered, and the British posts that guarded them captured, the whole territory would thereby be won for the Federal Republic, and added to the heritage of its citizens; while the problem of checking and subduing the Northwestern Indians would be greatly simplified, because the source of much of both their power and hostility would be cut off at the springs. The friendship of the French was invaluable, for they had more influence than any other people with the Indians.
In 1777, Clark sent two young hunters as spies to the Illinois country and to the neighborhood of Vincennes, though neither to them nor to any one else did he breathe a hint of the plan that was in his mind. They brought back word that, though some of the adventurous young men often joined either the British or the Indian war parties, yet that the bulk of the French population took but little interest in the struggle, were lukewarm in their allegiance to the British flag, and were somewhat awed by what they heard of the backwoodsmen.2 Clark judged from this report that it would not be difficult to keep the French neutral if a bold policy, strong as well as conciliatory, was pursued toward them; and that but a small force would be needed to enable a resolute and capable leader to conquer at least the southern part of the country. It was impossible to raise such a body among the scantily garrisoned forted villages of Kentucky. The pioneers, though warlike and fond of fighting, were primarily settlers; their soldiering came in as a purely secondary occupation. They were not a band of mere adventurers, living by the sword and bent on nothing but conquest. They were a group of hard-working, hard-fighting freemen, who had come in with their wives and children to possess the land. They were obliged to use all their wit and courage to defend what they had already won without wasting their strength by grasping at that which lay beyond. The very conditions that enabled so small a number to make a permanent settlement forbade their trying unduly to extend its bounds.
Clark knew he could get from among his fellow-settlers some men peculiarly suited for his purpose, but he also realized that he would have to bring the body of his force from Virginia. Accordingly he decided to lay the case before Patrick Henry, then Governor of the State of which Kentucky was only a frontier county.
On October 1, 1777, he started from Harrods-burg,3 to go over the Wilderness Road. The brief entries of his diary for this trip are very interesting and sometimes very amusing. Before starting he made a rather shrewd and thoroughly characteristic speculation in horseflesh, buying a horse for £12, and then “swapping’’ it with Isaac Shelby and getting £10 to boot. He evidently knew how to make a good bargain, and had the true backwoods passion for barter. He was detained a couple of days by that commonest of frontier mischances, his horses straying; a natural incident when the animals were simply turned loose on the range and looked up when required.4 He traveled in company with a large party of men, women, and children who, disheartened by the Indian ravages, were going back to the settlements. They marched from fifteen to twenty miles a day, driving beeves along for food. In addition, the scouts at different times killed three buffalo5 and a few deer, so that they were not stinted for fresh meat.
When they got out of the wilderness he parted from his companions and rode off alone. He now stayed at the settler’s house that was nearest when night overtook him. At a large house, such as that of the Campbells, near Abingdon, he was of course welcomed to the best, and treated with a generous hospitality, for which it would have been an insult to offer money in return. At the small cabins he paid his way; usually a shilling and threepence or a shilling and sixpence for breakfast, bed, and feed for the horse; but sometimes four or five shillings. He fell in with a Captain Campbell, with whom he journeyed a week, finding him “an agreeable companion.” They had to wait over one stormy day, at a little tavern, and probably whiled away the time by as much of a carouse as circumstances allowed; at any rate, Clark’s share of the bill when he left was £1 4s.6 Finally, a month after leaving Harrods burg, having traveled six hundred and twenty miles, he reached his father’s house.7
After staying only a day at his old home, he set out for Williamsburg, where he was detained a fortnight before the State auditors would settle the accounts of the Kentucky militia, which he had brought with him. The two things which he deemed especially worthy of mention during this time were his purchase of a ticket in the State lottery, for three pounds, and his going to church on Sunday—the first chance he had had to do so during the year.8 He was overjoyed at the news of Burgoyne’s surrender; and with a light heart he returned to his father’s house, to get a glimpse of his people before again plunging into the wilds.
After a week’s rest he went back to the capital, laid his plans before Patrick Henry, and urged their adoption with fiery enthusiasm.9 Henry’s ardent soul quickly caught flame; but the peril of sending an expedition to such a wild and distant country was so great, and Virginia’s resources were so exhausted, that he could do little beyond lending Clark the weight of his name and influence. The matter could not be laid before the Assembly, nor made public in any way; for the hazard would be increased tenfold if the strictest secrecy were not preserved. Finally, Henry authorized Clark to raise seven companies, each of fifty men, who were to act as militia and to be paid as such.10 He also advanced him the sum of twelve hundred pounds (presumably in depreciated paper), and gave him an order on the authorities at Pittsburg for boats, supplies, and ammunition; while three of the most prominent Virginia gentlemen11 agreed in writing to do their best to induce the Virginia Legislature to grant to each of the adventurers three hundred acres of the conquered land, if they were successful. He was likewise given the comm
ission of colonel, with instructions to raise his men solely from the frontier counties west of the Blue Ridge,12 so as not to weaken the people of the seacoast region in their struggle against the British.
Thus the whole burden of making ready the expedition was laid on Clark’s shoulders. The hampered Virginian authorities were able to give him little beyond their goodwill. He is rightfully entitled to the whole glory; the plan and execution were both his. It was an individual rather than a State or national enterprise.
Governor Henry’s open letter of instructions merely ordered Clark to go to the relief of Kentucky. He carried with him also the secret letter which bade him attack the Illinois regions; for he had decided to assail this first, because, if defeated, he would then be able to take refuge in the Spanish dominions beyond the Mississippi. He met with the utmost difficulty in raising men. Some were to be sent to him from the Holston overland, to meet him in Kentucky; but a combination of accidents resulted in his getting only a dozen or so from this source.13 Around Pittsburg the jealousy between the Virginians and Pennsylvanians hampered him greatly. Moreover, many people were strongly opposed to sending any men to Kentucky at all, deeming the drain on their strength more serious than the value of the new land warranted; for they were too short-sighted rightly to estimate what the frontiersmen had really done. When he had finally raised his troops he was bothered by requests from the different forts to aid detachments of the local militia in expeditions against bands of marauding Indians.
But Clark never for a moment wavered or lost sight of his main object. He worked steadily on, heedless of difficulty and disappointment, and late in the spring at last got together four small companies of frontiersmen from the clearings and the scattered hunters’ camps. In May, 1778, he left the Redstone settlements, taking not only his troops—one hundred and fifty in all14—but also a considerable number of private adventurers and settlers with their families. He touched at Pittsburg and Wheeling to get his stores. Then the flotilla of clumsy flat-boats, manned by tall riflemen, rowed and drifted cautiously down the Ohio between the melancholy and unbroken reaches of Indian-haunted forest. The presence of the families shows that even this expedition had the usual peculiar Western character of being undertaken half for conquest, half for settlement.
The Winning of the West Page 35