Clark County Chronicles: Gen. George R ClarkSubmitted by Carolyn Chism
The war in Kentucky previous to this time had been a true border war, and conducted in the irregular and desultory manner incident to that kind of hostilities. Nearly all the military operations of the period resembled more the predatory exploits of those sturdy cattle-drovers and stark moss troopers of the Scottish Highlands, whose valorous achievements have been immortalized by the graphic pen of the author of Waverly, then the warfare of a civilized people. Every man fought pretty much �on his own hook�, and waged the war in a fashion to suit himself. He selected his own ground, determined upon the time, place, and manner of attack, and its �sinews supplied�, by the adventurous spirit of private individuals. The solitary backwoodsman would sharpen his hunting knife, shoulder his rifle, and provide himself with a small quantity of parched corn as a substitute for bread, and thus equipped for service, start on an expedition into the Indian country, without beat of drum or note of warning. Arrived on the hostile soil, he would proceed with the caution of a panther stealing on his prey, until he reached the neighborhood of a village, when concealing himself in the surrounding thickets, he would lie in wait until an opportunity presented of shooting an Indian and stealing a horse, when he would return to the cultivation of his farm and the ordinary pursuits of his business. Even those more ambitious enterprises which occasionally diversified this personal warfare, were the result rather of the spontaneous combination of private individuals, that of any movement by the state. The perseverance and gallantry of the backwoodsman was left to sustain itself, with little assistance from the power of Virginia, at that time engaged in the tremendous struggle of the War of Independence, which demanded all her energies and taxed all her resources. �The State had not disposable means to act on so remote a frontier, nor does she appear to have been distinctly aware of the important diversion of the Indian force, which might be made by supporting the exertions of Kentucky. As little did she perceive the rich temptations offered to her military ambition in the British posts in the West. Yet every Indian engaged on the frontier of Kentucky was a foe taken from the nearer frontier of the parent state. And in those remote and neglected garrisons of Kaskaskia, Vincennes and Detroit, was to found the source of those Indian hostilities, which staid the advancing tide of emigration, and deluged the whole West in the blood of women and children. These combined views, however, began to acquire weight with Virginia statesmen, with the progress of the revolution, and the rapid increase of emigration to Kentucky; and they were particularly aided and enforced by the impressive representations of Major Clark. To his mind they had been long familiar and his plans were already matured. He was thoroughly acquainted with the condition, relations and resources of the country, and with that instinctive genius which stamps him as the consummate of the western commanders, he saw at a glance the policy required to develop the nascent strength and advantages of the infant settlements. At a glance, he discovered what had so long escaped the perspicacity of the Virginia statesmen, that the sources of the Indian devastations were Detroit, Vincennes and Kaskasia. It was by arms and clothing supplied at these military stations that the merciless ferocity of those fearful ravages which �drenched the land to a mire�. If they could be taken, a counter influence would be established over the Indians, and the streams of human blood which deluged the fields of Kentucky, would be dried up. �So strongly had the idea of reducing these posts taken possession of the mind and imagination of Major Clark that in the summer of 1777, he dispatched two spies to reconnoiter and report their situation. On their return they brought intelligence of great activity on the part of the garrison, who omitted no opportunity to promote and encourage the Indian depredations on the Kentucky frontier. They reported further, that although the British had essayed every art of misrepresentation to prejudice the French inhabitants against the Virginians and Kentuckians, by representing these frontier people as more shocking barbarians that the savages themselves, still there were to be seen |