Eva Emery Dye - The Conquest - The True Story of Lewis & Clark

"Now what shall you do with me?" demanded Hamilton.

"You? I shall dispatch you as a prisoner of war to Virginia."

Clark was not an hour too soon. Indians were already on the march.

"Hamilton is taken!"

Wabasha, the Sioux, from the Falls of St. Anthony, heard, and stopped at Prairie du Chien.

"Hamilton is taken!"

Matchekewis, the gray-haired chief of the Chippewas, coming down from Sheboygan, heard the astounding word and fell back to St. Joseph's.

The great Hamilton carried away by the rebels! The Indians were indeed cowed. The capture of Hamilton completed Clark's influence. The great Red-Coat sent away as a prisoner of war was an object-lesson the Indians could not speedily forget.

Out of Hamilton's captured mail, Clark discovered that the French in the neighbourhood of Detroit were not well-affected toward the British, and were ready to revolt whenever favourable opportunity offered.

"Very well, then, Detroit next!"

But Clark had more prisoners than he knew what to do with.

"Here," said he, to the captured Detroiters, "I am anxious to restore you to your families. I know you are unwilling instruments in this war, but your great King of France has allied himself with the Americans. Go home, bear the good news, bid your friends welcome the coming of their allies, the Americans. And tell Captain Lernoult I am glad to hear that he is constructing new works at Detroit. It will save us Americans some expense in building."

The City of the Strait was lit with bonfires.

"We have taken an oath not to fight the Virginians," said the paroled Frenchmen.

The people rejoiced when they heard of Hamilton's capture; they hated his tyranny, and, certain of Clark's onward progress, prepared a welcome reception for "les Américains."

"See," said the mistress of a lodging house to Captain Lernoult. "See what viands I haf prepared for le Colonel Clark." And the Captain answered not a word. Baptiste Drouillard handed him a printed proclamation of the French alliance.

Everywhere Detroiters were drinking, "Success to the Thirteen United States!"

"Success to Congress and the American arms! I hope the Virginians will soon be at Detroit!"

"Now Colonel Butler and his scalping crew will meet their deserts. I know the Colonel for a coward and I'll turn hangman for him!"

"Don't buy a farm now. When the Virginians come you can get one for nothing."

"See how much leather I am tanning for the Virginians. When they come I shall make a great deal of money."

"Town and country kept three days in feasting and diversions," wrote Clark to Jefferson, "and we are informed that the merchants and others provided many necessaries for us on our arrival." But this the Colonel did not learn until long after.

Left alone in command, with only eighty men in the garrison, Lernoult could do nothing. Bitterly he wrote to his commander-in-chief, "The Canadians are rebels to a man. In building the fort they aid only on compulsion."

Even at Montreal the Frenchmen kept saying, "A French fleet will certainly arrive and retake the country"; and Haldimand, Governor General, was constantly refuting these rumours.

"Now let me help you," again pleaded The Tobacco's son to Clark at Vincennes.

"I care not whether you side with me or not," answered the American Colonel. "If you keep the peace, very well. If not you shall suffer for your mischief."

Such a chief! Awed, the Indians retired to their camps and became spectators. To divert Clark, the British officers urged these Indians to attack Vincennes.

The Tobacco's son sent back reply, "If you want to fight the Bostons at St. Vincent's you must cut your way through them, as we are Big Knives, too!" Their fame spread to Superior and the distant Missouri.

"In the vicinity of Chicago the rebels are purchasing horses to mount their cavalry."

"The Virginians are building boats to take Michilimackinac."

"They are sending belts to the Chippewas and Ottawas."

"The Virginians are at Milwaukee."

So the rumours flew along the Lakes, terrifying every Briton into strengthening his stronghold. And this, for the time, kept them well at home.

"Had I but three hundred I could take Detroit," said Clark. Every day now came the word from the French of the city, "Come,—come to our relief."

"But Vincennes must be garrisoned. My men are too few."

Then a messenger arrived with letters from Thomas Jefferson, now Governor of Virginia, with "thanks from the Assembly for the heroic service you have rendered," and the promise of troops.

Now for the first time were the soldiery made aware of the gratitude of their country. Tumultuous cheers rent the air. The Indians heard, and thought it was news of another victory.

"Let us march this day on Detroit," begged the soldiers, few as they were. Half the population of Vincennes, and all the Indians, would have followed.

"Too many are ill," Clark said to himself. "Bowman is dying, the lands are flooded, the rains are falling. An unsustained march might end in disaster. For five hundred troops, I would bind myself a slave for seven years!"

To the soldiers he explained, "Montgomery is coming with men and powder. Let us rendezvous here in June and make a dash at Detroit."

Leaving a garrison in the fort, in answer to imperative call, Clark set out with six boatloads of troops and prisoners for a flying trip to Kaskaskia.

But every step of the way, day and night, "Detroit must be taken, Detroit must be taken," was the dream of the disturbed commander. "I cannot rest. Nothing but the fall of Detroit will bring peace to our frontiers. In case I am not disappointed, Detroit is already my own."

"A prisoner of war? No, indeed, he is a felon, a murderer!" exclaimed the Virginians, as weary, wet, and hungry the late Governor of Detroit sat on his horse in the rain at the door of the governor's palace at Williamsburg, where Jefferson now resided. The mob gathered to execrate the "hair-buyer general" and escort him to jail.

There were twenty-seven prisoners, altogether, brought by a band of borderers, most of the way on foot.

Every step of the long journey Captain John Rogers and his men had guarded the "hair-buyer general" from the imprecations of an outraged people.

It was the first news of Vincennes, as the startled cry ran,—

"Governor Hamilton, charged with having incited Indians to scalp, torture, and burn, is at the door,—Hamilton, who gave standing rewards for scalps but none for prisoners; and Dejean, Chief Justice of Detroit, the merciless keeper of its jails, a terror to captives with threats of giving them over to savages to be burnt alive; Lamothe, a captain of volunteer scalping parties; Major Hay, one of Hamilton's chief officers, and others."

"Load them with heavy fetters and immure them in a dungeon," said Governor Jefferson. "Too many of our boys are rotting in British prison ships." This from Jefferson, so long the humane friend of Burgoyne's surrendered troops now quartered at Charlottesville!

The British commanders blustered and protested, but Jefferson firmly replied, "I avow my purpose to repay cruelty, hangings, and close confinement. It is my duty to treat Hamilton and his officers with severity. Iron will be retaliated with iron, prison ships by prison ships, and like by like in general."

Washington advised a mitigation of the extreme severity, but Jefferson's course had its effect. The British were more merciful thereafter.

And with the coming of Hamilton came all the wonderful story of the capture of Vincennes. And who can tell it? Who has told it? Historians hesitate. Romancers shrink from the task. Not one has surpassed George Rogers Clark's own letters, which read like fragments of the gospel of liberty.