George Rogers Clark
George Rogers Clark (November 19, 1752 – February 13, 1818) was the preeminent American military leader on the northwestern frontier during the American Revolutionary War. Clark was one of the great American military heroes, hailed as the conqueror of the Northwest Territory at the apex of his fame. His younger brother William was one of the leaders of the Lewis and Clark Expedition.
Early years
George Rogers Clark was born in Albemarle County, Virginia, not far from the home of young Thomas Jefferson. Little is known of Clark's schooling, but he went to live with his grandfather so he could attend Donald Robertson's school with James Madison and John Taylor of Caroline. He was also tutored at home, as was usual for Virginian children of the period, eventually becoming a farmer and surveyor.
In 1772, as a twenty-year-old surveyor, Clark made his first trip into what would become Kentucky, one of thousands of settlers entering the area as a result of the Treaty of Fort Stanwix of 1768. Indians living in the Ohio Country had not been party to that treaty, which ceded their Kentucky hunting grounds. The violence that resulted eventually culminated in Lord Dunmore's War, in which Clark played a small role.
Revolutionary War
During the Revolutionary War, the Kentucky settlements were simultaneously at war with the British and with Native Americans in the Ohio Country, particularly the Shawnee, Mingo, and Wyandot. Working for the Kentucky pioneers who saw themselves as citizens of Virginia, Clark helped to raise a militia and to organize the defense of the region. Kentucky had no official status within Virginia, so the settlers had to work unofficially. Their leaders informally chose the 24-year-old Clark as a "delegate" (really a lobbyist) to the Virginia General Assembly.
When Clark and a friend arrived in the Virginia capital with the news from Kentucky, they created a sensation. The revolutionary state government, under Governor Patrick Henry, was almost insolvent at the time, but Virginia agreed to admit Kentucky into the state as a county and issued Clark 500 pounds of black powder, which Clark carried over the Cumberland Gap to the settlements; the ammunition was used to repel attacks on Harrodsburg, Kentucky, in 1777.
As a leader of the defense of Kentucky's frontier, Clark gathered intelligence pointing to the British role as sponsor of the Indian warfare. The British Army, from a base in Detroit, Michigan, was encouraging the Native warriors, and British-Canadian fur traders in the Illinois Country were supplying the hostile forces. In response, Clark asked for permission to lead a secret expeditionary force to capture southern Illinois. Governor Henry quietly commissioned Clark as a lieutenant colonel and authorized him to raise seven companies totalling 350 men. Clark held this commission from Virginia, not from the United States, and Virginia still had little money. Clark could raise only 175 volunteers for the secret mission.
In 1778, Clark led his small troop westward from Fort Pitt. The force passed down the Ohio River along the northern border of Kentucky to the Falls of the Ohio with his troops and many families who joined the military convoy for security and protection from Indian reprisals. On May 27, 1778, Clark chose an island he named Corn Island to set up camp at the falls. It was the founding of a settlement which was later named Louisville.
After successfully passing over the white water of the Falls of the Ohio, Clark and his troops beached their vessels on June 24, 1778, at the abandoned Fort Massac, near the current site of Metropolis, Illinois. Seeking to surprise the British soldiers occupying Fort Kaskaskia, they walked overland and arrived at Kaskaskia on the night of July 4. They captured the fort and city without firing a shot. Clark dispatched French Priest Father Pierre Gibault to the trading village of Vincennes, Indiana, to influence the inhabitants of Vincennes and secure nearby Fort Sackville. Clark then placed Captain Leonard Helm in command of Fort Sackville.
Early in 1779, Clark received word from Fort Sackville that the Lieutenant Governor of Canada, Henry Hamilton, had retaken that outpost for Great Britain. With friendlier relations with the Indians of the Ohio River Valley than Clark enjoyed, Hamilton knew that time was on the British side. Native American warriors would gather around the British leader. Clark, by contrast, knew that if he remained in southern Illinois, he would likely be overwhelmed. The only alternative was to strike at Hamilton and Vincennes from an unexpected direction. The open country between Kaskaskia and Vincennes, which would later become southern Illinois, was then prairie wetland, with an endless succession of rivers and sloughs.
On February 6, 1779, Clark led 172 volunteers from Fort Kaskaskia 210 miles (340 km) eastward through "drownded country" in "the depth of winter." Over a period of 17 days, his small detachment marched and waded through southern Illinois to Vincennes. By means of some byplay with the excess company flags that Hamilton had authorized, Clark convinced the frightened and confused Hamilton that the Virginian troop totalled not 172 men, but 600 men. Clark's riflemen then practiced sharpshooting against the Fort Sackville palisade. The rebel Virginia colonel sent a message to the fort, threatening to storm it and give no quarter. The demoralized Hamilton formally surrendered on February 25. This daring winter expedition was Clark's most notable achievement and made him a legend of the early American frontier.
Clark's ultimate goal during the Revolutionary War was to seize the British stronghold of Fort Detroit and claim all lands west of the Appalachians for the American Revolutionaries (or perhaps for Virginia), but he could never recruit enough men to make the attempt. The Kentucky militiamen generally preferred to defend their homes by staying closer to Kentucky, rather than making a long and potentially perilous expedition to Detroit. However, Clark's capture of Governor Hamilton and occupation of the Illinois Country helped to reduce British effectiveness in the Northwest Territory.
The frontier raids against Kentucky continued. In June 1780, a mixed force of British and Native Americans from Detroit under Captain Henry Bird invaded Kentucky, capturing the fortified settlements of Ruddel's Station and Martin's Station. In August 1780, Clark lead a retaliatory force which won a victory near the Shawnee village of Pekowee (near present Springfield, Ohio). [1]
At the Treaty of Paris (1783) that ended the Revolutionary War, Great Britain ceded the entire Northwest Territory to the United States. Many traditional accounts credit Clark's efforts with helping to cause this momentous result. However, some historians have since questioned whether there is any textual evidence that Clark's activities played any significant role in the treaty negotiations. The cession included regions that Clark never saw, such as Michigan Territory and Wisconsin Territory.
Later, Clark helped negotiate the Treaty of Fort McIntosh in 1785 and led an unsuccessful expedition against Native Americans in the Northwest Indian War in 1786.
Later years
After the Revolutionary War, Clark was granted 8,049 acres (32.6 km²) of land in southern Indiana, comprising what is now the city of Clarksville, Indiana, and its environs, north of Louisville. He was also appointed as a principal surveyor for the lands west of the Appalachians issued as bounties in lieu of military pay to the Virginians who had served in the Revolution. With this position and assets, Clark's friends believed that he was assured of enjoying a prosperous and happy prime of life. However, such was not to be the case.
Clark had financed the majority of his military campaigns with borrowed funds. When creditors began to dun him for these unpaid debts, he was not able to obtain recompense from Virginia or the United States Congress. After a few years, the lenders and their assigns closed in and deprived the veteran of almost all of his property. Clark was left with a small plot of land in Clarksville, containing a small gristmill which he worked with two African American servants. In the humble standing of a miller, Clark lived for another two decades. He never married.
In 1809, this austere life ended when the aging warrior suffered a severe stroke. Falling into an operating fireplace, he suffered a burn on one leg so severe as to necessitate the amputation of the limb. It was impossible for Clark to continue to operate his mill, so he became a dependent member of the household of his brother-in-law, Major William Croghan, a planter at Locust Grove farm eight miles (13 km) from the growing town of Louisville. After a second stroke, Clark died at Locust Grove in 1818. General Clark's nephew was George Croghan, a U.S. Army officer who defended Fort Stephenson, in present-day Fremont, Ohio, during the War of 1812.
Legacy
On May 23, 1928, President Calvin Coolidge ordered a memorial to George Rogers Clark to be erected in Vincennes. Completed in 1933, the George Rogers Clark Memorial, built in Roman Classical style, stands on what was then believed to be the site of Fort Sackville, and is now the George Rogers Clark National Historical Park. It includes a statue of Clark by Hermon Atkins MacNeil.
On February 25, 1929, to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the surrender of Fort Sackville, the U.S. Post Office Department issued a 2-cent postage stamp, which depicted the surrender.
Built in 1929, the George Rogers Clark Memorial Bridge (Second Street Bridge) carries U.S. Highway 31, over the Ohio River at Louisville, Kentucky.
Other statues of Clark can be found in:
- Mertopolis, Fort Massac, by sculptor Leon Hermant, Illinois, placed by the Daughters of the American Revolution in the early 1900s.
- Louisville, Kentucky, by sculptor Felix de Weldon, at Riverfront Plaza/Belvedere, next to the wharf on the Ohio River.
- Springfield, Ohio, by Charles Keck at the site of the Battle of Piquia.
- Charlottesville, Virginia, by Robert Aitken on the grounds of the University of Virginia.
- Quincy, Illinois, in Riverview Park, on the eastern bank of the Mississippi River.
Places named for Clark include:
- Clark County, Illinois
- Clark County, Indiana
- Clark County, Kentucky, which is the home of George Rogers Clark High School.
- Clark County, Ohio, which is the home of Clark State Community College.
- Clarksburg, West Virginia
- Clarksville, Tennessee
- Clarksville, Indiana
Another school named after Clark is George Rogers Clark Middle/High School in Hammond, Indiana.
Among Clark's descendants was World War II General Mark Wayne Clark.
See also
References
- Bakeless, John. Background to Glory: The Life of George Rogers Clark. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1957. Bison Book printing, 1992, ISBN 0-8032-6105-5.
- Butterfield, Consul Willshire. History of George Rogers Clark's Conquest of the Illinois and the Wabash Towns, 1778 and 1779. Columbus, Ohio: Heer, 1904.
- Carstens, Kenneth C. and Nancy Son Carstens. The Life of George Rogers Clark, 1752–1818: Triumphs and Tragedies. Westport, Connecticut: Praeger, 2004. ISBN 0313322171.
- English, William Hayden. Conquest of the Country Northwest of the River Ohio, 1778–1783, and Life of Gen. George Rogers Clark. 2 volumes. Indianapolis: Bowen-Merrill, 1896.
- Harrison, Lowell H. George Rogers Clark and the War in the West. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1976; Reprinted 2001, ISBN 0-8131-9014-2.
- James, James Alton. The Life of George Rogers Clark. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1928.
