George Rogers Clark

George Rogers Clark (November 19, 1752 – February 13, 1818) was an American military officer and surveyor from Virginia who became the highest-ranking Patriot military officer on the northwestern frontier during the Revolutionary War. He served as leader of the Virginia militia in Kentucky (then part of Virginia) throughout much of the war, and is credited for founding Louisville, Kentucky, mid-war. He is best known for his captures of Kaskaskia, Illinois, in 1778 and Vincennes, Indiana, in 1779 during the Illinois campaign, which greatly weakened British influence in the Northwest Territory (then part of the British Province of Quebec) and earned Clark the nickname of "Conqueror of the Old Northwest". The British ceded the entire Northwest Territory to the United States in the 1783 Treaty of Paris.

Clark's major military achievements occurred before his thirtieth birthday. Afterward, he led militia forces in the opening engagements of the Northwest Indian War, but was accused of being drunk on duty. He was disgraced and forced to resign, despite his demand for a formal investigation into the accusations. Clark left Kentucky to live in the Indiana Territory but was never fully reimbursed by the Virginian government for his wartime expenditures. During the final decades of his life, he worked to evade creditors and suffered living in increasing poverty and obscurity. He was involved in two failed attempts to open the Spanish-controlled Mississippi River to American traffic. Following a stroke and the amputation of his right leg, he became disabled. Clark was aided in his final years by family members, including his younger brother William, one of the leaders of the Lewis and Clark Expedition. He died of a stroke on February 13, 1818.

Early life

George Rogers Clark was born on November 19, 1752, in Albemarle County, Virginia, near Charlottesville, the hometown of Thomas Jefferson. He was the second of ten children borne by John and Ann Rogers Clark, who were Anglicans of English and possibly Scottish descent. Five of their six sons became officers during the American Revolutionary War. Their youngest son William, was too young to fight in the war, but he later became famous as a leader of the Lewis and Clark Expedition. The family moved from the frontier to Caroline County, Virginia, in 1756 after the outbreak of the French and Indian War. They lived on a plantation that they later developed to a total of more than .

Clark had little formal education.

In 1771, at age 19, Clark left his home on his first surveying trip into western Virginia. In 1772, he made his first foray into Kentucky via the Ohio River at Pittsburgh and spent the next two years surveying the Kanawha River region, as well as learning about the area's natural history and customs of the various tribes of Indians who lived there. In the meantime, thousands of settlers were entering the area as a result of the Treaty of Fort Stanwix of 1768, by which some of the tribes had agreed to peace.

Clark's military career began in 1774, when he served as a captain in the Virginia militia. He was preparing to lead an expedition of 90 men down the Ohio River when hostilities broke out between the Shawnee and settlers on the Kanawha frontier; this conflict eventually culminated in Lord Dunmore's War. Most of Kentucky was not inhabited by Indians, although such tribes as the Shawnee, Cherokee, and Seneca (of the Iroquois Confederacy) used the area for hunting. Tribes in the Ohio Country who had not been party to the treaty signed with the Cherokee were angry, because the Kentucky hunting grounds had been ceded without their approval. As a result, they tried to resist encroachment by the American settlers, but were unsuccessful. Clark spent a few months surveying in Kentucky, as well as assisting in organizing Kentucky as a county for Virginia prior to the American Revolutionary War. and authorized him to raise troops for the expedition. The men gathered at Redstone and the regiment departed from there on May 12, proceeding on boats down the Monongahela to Fort Pitt to take on supplies and then down the Ohio to Fort Henry and on to Fort Randolph at the mouth of the Kanawha. They reached the Falls of the Ohio on May 27 where they spent about a month along the Ohio River preparing for their secret mission. The settlement they left behind at Corn Island led to the founding of Louisville, Kentucky, for which Clark came to be credited.

In July 1778, Clark led about 175 men of the Illinois Regiment and crossed the Ohio River at Fort Massac and marched to Kaskaskia, capturing it on the night of July 4 without firing their weapons. The next day, Captain Joseph Bowman and his company captured Cahokia in a similar fashion without firing a shot. The garrison at Vincennes along the Wabash River surrendered to Clark in August.

News of Clark's victory reached General George Washington, and his success was celebrated and was used to encourage the alliance with France. General Washington recognized that Clark's achievement had been gained without support from the regular army, either in men or funds. Virginia also capitalized on Clark's success, laying claim to the Old Northwest by calling it Illinois County, Virginia.

thumb|right|325px|Clark's march to [[Siege of Fort Vincennes|Vincennes was the most celebrated event of his career; it has been often depicted, as in this illustration by F. C. Yohn.]]

Final years of the war

Clark's ultimate goal during the Revolutionary War was to seize the British-held fort at Detroit, but he could never recruit enough men and acquire sufficient munitions to make the attempt. Kentucky militiamen generally preferred to defend their own territory and stay closer to home, rather than make the long and potentially perilous expedition to Detroit. Clark returned to the Falls of the Ohio and Louisville, Kentucky, where he continued to defend the Ohio River valley until the end of the war.

In June 1780, a mixed British-Indian force, including Shawnee, Lenape and Wyandot warriors, set out from Fort Detroit and invaded Kentucky. They captured two fortified settlements and seized hundreds of prisoners. In August 1780, Clark led a retaliatory force that defeated the Shawnee at the village of Peckuwe.

In 1781, Virginia Governor Thomas Jefferson promoted Clark to brigadier general and gave him command of all the militia in the Kentucky and Illinois counties. As Clark prepared to lead another expedition against the British and their allies in Detroit, General Washington transferred a small group of regulars to assist, but the detachment was disastrously defeated in August 1781 before they could meet up with Clark. This ended the western campaign.

In August 1782, another British-Indian force defeated the Kentucky militia at the Battle of Blue Licks. Clark was the militia's senior military officer, but he had not been present at the battle and was severely criticized in the Virginia Council for the disaster. In response, during November 1782, Clark led another expedition into the Ohio Country, destroying several Indian villages along the Great Miami River, including the Shawnee village of Piqua, Miami County, Ohio. This was the last major expedition of the war.

The importance of Clark's activities during the Revolutionary War has been the subject of much debate among historians. As early as 1779, George Mason called Clark the "Conqueror of the Northwest". Because the British ceded the entire Old Northwest Territory to the United States in the Treaty of Paris, some historians, including William Hayden English, credit Clark with nearly doubling the size of the original Thirteen Colonies when he seized control of the Illinois Country during the war. Clark's Illinois campaign—particularly the surprise march to Vincennes—was greatly celebrated and romanticized. After killing several captive Indians by hatchet within view of the fort, Clark forced its surrender.

thumb|right|Virginia Land Office warrant to Clark for 560 acres for having raised a [[battalion to fight in the Revolutionary War, January 1780]]

Later years

In 1783, Clark, who reputedly hated Native Americans and once declared that he would like to see "the whole race of Indians extirpated, that for his part he would never spare Man woman or child of them on whom he could lay his hands", publicly proposed that a 2,000-strong force be mustered in Virginia to attack Native Americans in the Ohio Valley. Clark argued that this proposed expedition would show "that [the United States] are always able to crush [Native Americans] at our pleasure". He also once told Native Americans that if they declared war on the United States, they "should know that the next thing would be the Tomahawk" with "Your Women & Children given to the Dogs to eat". The proposed expedition was never carried out due to budgetary concerns.

After Clark's victories in the Illinois Country, settlers continued to pour into Kentucky and spread into and develop the land north of the Ohio River. On December 17, 1783, Clark was appointed Principal Surveyor of Bounty Lands. From 1784 to 1788, Clark served as the superintendent-surveyor for Virginia's war veterans, surveying lands granted to them for their service in the war. The position brought Clark a small income, but he devoted very little time to the enterprise.

Clark helped to negotiate the Treaty of Fort McIntosh in 1785 and the Treaty of Fort Finney in 1786, but the violence between Native Americans and European-American settlers continued to escalate. When Clark learned of the accusations, he demanded an official inquiry, but the Virginia governor declined his request and Virginia Council condemned Clark's actions. With Clark's reputation tarnished, he never again led men in battle. Clark left Kentucky and moved across the Ohio River to the Indiana frontier, near present-day Clarksville, Indiana. Although Clark had claims to tens of thousands of acres of land as the result of his military service and land speculation, he was "land-poor," meaning that he owned much land but lacked the resources to develop it. In the early twentieth century, Clark's receipts were discovered in the Richmond Virginia's Auditors building showing that his record keeping efforts were complete and correct but not reimbursed due to the State of Virginia's incompetency, thus he was exonerated, though not officially. Although his autobiography contains factual inaccuracies, the work includes Clark's perspective on the events of his life. Some historians believe Clark wrote his memoirs in an attempt to salvage his damaged reputation and to document his contributions during the Revolutionary War. Many Americans were outraged that the Spanish, who controlled Louisiana, denied Americans free access to the Mississippi River, their only easy outlet for long-distance commerce. The Washington administration was also unresponsive to western matters.

Genêt appointed Clark "Major General in the Armies of France and Commander-in-chief of the French Revolutionary Legion on the Mississippi River". Clark began to organize a campaign to seize New Madrid, St. Louis, Natchez, and New Orleans, getting assistance from old comrades such as Benjamin Logan and John Montgomery, and winning the tacit support of Kentucky governor Isaac Shelby. Clark spent $4,680 () of his own money for supplies.

In early 1794, however, President Washington issued a proclamation forbidding Americans from violating U.S. neutrality and threatened to dispatch General Anthony Wayne to Fort Massac to stop the expedition. The French government recalled Genêt and revoked the commissions he granted to the Americans for the war against Spain. Clark's planned campaign gradually collapsed, and he was unable to convince the French to reimburse him for his expenses. Clark's reputation, already damaged by earlier accusations at the end of the Revolutionary War, was further maligned as a result of his involvement in these foreign intrigues. Brigadier General James Wilkinson, 2nd in command of the Legion of the United States, claimed credit for undermining Clark and for preventing supplies from being shipped down the Ohio River.

Mounting debts

In his later years Clark's mounting debts made it impossible for him to retain ownership of his land, since it became subject to seizure due to his debts. Clark deeded much of his land to friends or transferred ownership to family members so his creditors could not seize it. Lenders and their assignees eventually deprived the veteran of nearly all of the property that remained in his name. Clark, who was at one time the largest landholder in the Northwest Territory, was left with only a small plot of land in Clarksville. In 1803 Clark built a cabin overlooking the Falls of the Ohio, where he lived until his health failed in 1809.

Death and legacy

After a third stroke,

In his funeral oration, Judge John Rowan succinctly summed up Clark's stature and importance during the critical years on the trans-Appalachian frontier: "The mighty oak of the forest has fallen, and now the scrub oaks sprout all around." Clark's career was closely tied to events in the Ohio-Mississippi Valley at a pivotal time when the region was inhabited by numerous Native American tribes and claimed by the British, Spanish, and French, as well as the fledgling U.S. government. As a member of the Virginia militia, and with Virginia's support, Clark's campaign into the Illinois Country helped strengthen Virginia's claim on lands in the region as it came under the control of the Americans. Clark's military service in the interior of North America also helped him became an "important source of leadership and information (although not necessarily accurate) on the West." and he kept no account of any romantic relationships, although his family held that he had once been in love with Teresa de Leyba, sister of Fernando de Leyba, the lieutenant governor of Spanish Louisiana. Writings from his niece and cousin in the Draper Manuscripts in the archives of the Wisconsin Historical Society attest to their belief in Clark's lifelong disappointment over the failed romance.

Honors and tributes

A bronze statue of Clark is one of several erected on Monument Circle, surrounding the Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument, in downtown Indianapolis. Sculptor John H. Mahoney received the commission to create the statue, which was completed in 1895.
The Daughters of the American Revolution placed a statue of Clark by sculptor Leon Hermant at Metropolis, the site of Fort Massac, in Massac County, Illinois, in 1907.
A Clark statue was erected in Riverview Park, on the eastern bank of the Mississippi River at Quincy, Illinois, in 1909.
Robert Aitken's bronze sculpture of Clark was erected on Monument Square, on the grounds of the University of Virginia at Charlottesville, Virginia, in 1921. It was removed by the University of Virginia in July 2021, after it was deemed offensive in its portrayal of Native Americans and its removal was recommended by a racial equity task force.
In 1924, Charles Keck created the memorial statue of Clark at the site of the Battle of Piqua, near Springfield, Ohio.
On May 23, 1928, President Calvin Coolidge ordered a memorial to Clark to be erected at Vincennes, Indiana. Completed in 1933, the George Rogers Clark Memorial was dedicated on June 14, 1936, by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The Roman-style temple was erected on what was believed to have been the site of Fort Sackville. The site, now called the George Rogers Clark National Historical Park, became a part of the National Park Service in 1966. Hermon Atkins MacNeil created the monument's bronze statue of Clark. The monument's walls include seven murals depicting Clark's famous expedition. Also included is a bas-relief, created by Sculptor Joseph Kiselewski, which depicts a young George Rogers Clark receiving his orders to attack the British outposts on the Western frontier from Patrick Henry.
On February 25, 1929, to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the surrender of Fort Sackville, the U.S. Postal Service issued a two-cent postage stamp depicting the event.
In April 1929, the Paul Revere Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution of Muncie, Indiana, erected a monument to Clark on Washington Avenue in Fredericksburg, Virginia.
In 1973, sculptor Felix de Weldon created the Clark statue at Riverfront Plaza/Belvedere, next to the wharf on the Ohio River, in Louisville, Kentucky.
In 1975, the Indiana General Assembly designated February 25 as George Rogers Clark Day in Indiana.
On March 23, 2005, the Ohio General Assembly designated November 19 as George Rogers Clark Day in Ohio.
On November 13, 2017, the United States Mint issued an America the Beautiful Quarter in honor of Clark, representing the state of Indiana. The back of the quarter depicts Clark leading his men through the flooded plains approaching Fort Sackville.

Eponyms

Counties

Clark County, Illinois
Clark County, Indiana
Clark County, Kentucky
Clark County, Ohio

Communities

Clarksville, Indiana
Clarksville, Tennessee
Clarksburg, West Virginia

Schools

George Rogers Clark Elementary School in Chicago
George Rogers Clark Middle/High School in Whiting, Indiana (closed in 2021)
George Rogers Clark High School in Winchester, Kentucky
George Rogers Clark Elementary School in Charlottesville, Virginia

Other sites and structures

George Rogers Clark Memorial Bridge in Louisville, Kentucky
George Rogers Clark Trail in Indiana (established in 1979)
Clark Street in Chicago

Notes

Bibliography

External links

Patrick Henry's Secret Orders to Clark, dated January 2, 1778 – Indiana Historical Society
The George Rogers Clark Heritage Association
Indiana Territory, Indiana Historical Bureau
George Rogers Clark Memoir, Indiana Historical Bureau
Clark Family Collection, 1766–1991 (Search Results) – Missouri Historical Society
"George Rogers Clark". Biography.com. A&E Networks Television, July 7, 2020.
"George Rogers Clark". Encyclopædia Britannica. February 9, 2020.
"The Clarks: The First Family of the Frontier," 8thVirginia.com.
Guide to the Reuben T. Durrett Collection of George Rogers Clark Papers 1776–1896 at the University of Chicago Special Collections Research Center