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

"And what have you learned?" he whispered, when on the darkest night of those tempestuous midsummer days they gave the password at the gate.

"What have we learned? That the forts are negligently guarded; that the French are secretly not hostile; that preparations are on foot for an invasion of Kentucky with British, Indians, and artillery."

"I will give them something to do in their own country," was Clark's inward comment.

Without a word of his secret intent, Clark buckled on his sword, primed his rifle, and set out for Virginia. With regret and fear the people saw him depart, and yet with hope. Putting aside their detaining hands, "I will surely return," he said.

With almost superhuman daring the leather-armoured knight from the beleaguered castle in the wood ran the gauntlet of the sleeping savages. All the Wilderness Road was lit with bonfires, and woe to the emigrant that passed that way. Cumberland Gap was closed; fleet-winged he crossed the very mountain tops, where never foot of man or beast had trod before.

Scarce noting the hickories yellow with autumn and the oaks crimson with Indian summer, the young man passed through Charlottesville, his birthplace, and reached his father's house in Caroline at ten o'clock at night.

In his low trundle-bed little William heard that brother's step and sprang to unclose the door. Like an apparition George Rogers Clark appeared before the family, haggard and worn with the summer's siege. All the news of his brothers gone to the war was quickly heard.

"And will you join them?"

"No, my field is Kentucky. To-morrow I must be at Williamsburg."

The old colonial capital was aflame with hope and thanksgiving as Clark rode into Duke of Gloucester Street. Burgoyne had surrendered. Men were weeping and shouting. In the mêlée he met Jefferson and proposed to him a secret expedition. In the exhilaration of the moment Jefferson grasped his hand,—"Let us to the Governor."

Crowds of people were walking under the lindens of the Governor's Palace. Out of their midst came Dorothea, the wife of Patrick Henry, and did the honours of her station as gracefully as, thirty years later, Dolly Madison, her niece and namesake, did the honours of the White House.

Again Patrick Henry pushed his reading spectacles up into his brown wig and scanned the envoy from Kentucky.

"Well, sirrah, did you get the powder?"

"We got the powder and saved Kentucky. But for it she would have been wiped out in this summer's siege. All the Indians of the Lakes are there. I have a plan."

"Unfold it," said Patrick Henry.

In a few words Clark set forth his scheme of conquest.

"Destroy Detroit, Vincennes, Kaskaskia, and you have quelled the Indians. There they are fed, clothed, armed, and urged to prey upon us. I have sent spies to reconnoitre, and have received word that assures me that their capture is feasible."

The scintillating blue eyes burned with an inward light, emitting fire, as Patrick Henry leaned to inquire, "What would you do in case of a repulse?"

"Cross the Mississippi and seek protection from the Spaniards," answered the ready chief. With his privy council, Mason, Wythe, and Jefferson, Patrick Henry discussed the plan, and at their instance the House of Delegates empowered George Rogers Clark "to aid any expedition against their western enemies."

"Everything depends upon secrecy," said the Governor as he gave Clark his instructions and twelve hundred pounds in Continental paper currency. "But you must recruit your men west of the Blue Ridge; we can spare none from here."

Kindred spirits came to Clark,—Bowman, Helm, Harrod and their friends, tall riflemen with long buckhorn-handled hunting-knives, enlisting for the west, but no one guessing their destination.

Despite remonstrances twenty pioneer families on their flat-boats at Redstone-Old-Fort joined their small fleet to his. "We, too, are going to Kentucky."

Jumping in as the last boat pulled out of Pittsburg, Captain William Linn handed Clark a letter. He broke the seal.

"Ye gods, the very stars are for us! The French have joined America!"

With strange exhilaration the little band felt themselves borne down the swift-rushing waters to the Falls of the Ohio.

Before them blossomed a virgin world. Clark paused while the boats clustered round. "Do you see that high, narrow, rocky island at the head of the rapids? It is safe from the Indian. While the troops erect a stockade and blockhouse, let the families clear a field and plant their corn."

Axes rang. The odour of hawthorn filled the air. Startled birds swept over the falls,—eagles, sea gulls, and mammoth cranes turning up their snowy wings glittering in the sunlight. On the mainland, deer, bear, and buffalo roamed under the sycamores serene as in Eden.

"Halloo-oo!" It was the well-known call of Simon Kenton, paddling down to Corn Island with Captain John Montgomery and thirty Kentuckians.

"What news of the winter?"

"Boone and twenty-seven others have been captured by the Indians."

"Boone? We are laying a trap for those very Indians," and then and there Major Clark announced the object of the expedition.

Some cheered the wild adventure, some trembled and deserted in the night, but one hundred and eighty men embarked with no baggage beyond a rifle and a wallet of corn for each.

The snows of the Alleghanies were melting. A million rivulets leaped to the blue Ohio. It was the June rise, the river was booming. Poling his little flotilla out into the main channel Clark and his borderers shot the rapids at the very moment that the sun veiled itself in an all but total eclipse at nine o'clock in the morning.

It was a dramatic dash, as on and on he sped down the river, bank-full, running like a millrace.

Double manned, relays of rowers toiled at the oars by night and by day.

"Do you see those hunters?"

At the mouth of the Tennessee, almost as if prearranged, two white men emerged from the Illinois swamps as Clark shot by. He paused and questioned the strangers.

"We are just from Kaskaskia. Rocheblave is alone with neither troops nor money. The French believe you Long Knives to be the most fierce, cruel, and bloodthirsty savages that ever scalped a foe."

"All the better for our success. Now pilot us."

Governor Rocheblave, watching St. Louis and dreaming of conquest, was to be rudely awakened. All along the Mississippi he had posted spies and was watching the Spaniard, dreaming not of Kentucky.

Out upon the open, for miles across the treeless prairies, the hostile Indians might have seen his little handful of one hundred and eighty men, but Clark of twenty-six, like the Corsican of twenty-six, "with no provisions, no munitions, no cannon, no shoes, almost without an army," was about to change the face of three nations.

Twilight fell as they halted opposite Kaskaskia on the night of July 4, without a grain of corn left in their wallets.

"Boys, the town must be taken to-night at all hazards."

Softly they crossed the river,—the postern gate was open.

"Brigands!" shouted Governor Rocheblave, leaping from his bed at midnight when Kenton tapped him on the shoulder. It was useless to struggle; he was bound and secured in the old Jesuit mansion which did duty as a fort at Kaskaskia.

"Brigands!" screamed fat Madame Rocheblave in a high falsetto, tumbling out of bed in her frilled nightcap and gown. Seizing her husband's papers, plump down upon them she sat. "No gentleman would ever enter a lady's bed-chamber."

"Right about, face!" laughed Kenton, marching away the Governor. "Never let it be said that American soldiers bothered a lady."

In revenge Madame tore up the papers, public archives, causing much trouble in future years.