Such was the inclemency of the weather, and so many and great the obstacles which interposed, that in despite of the ardor, perseverance and energy of the troops, they could yet advance very slowly towards the point of destination. They were five days in crossing the drowned lands of the Wabash, and for five miles had to wade through water and ice, frequently up to their breasts. They overcame every difficulty and arrived before St. Vincents on the evening of the twenty-third of February and almost simultaneously with the galley.
Thus far fortune seemed to favor the expedition. The army had not been discovered on its march, and the garrison was totally ignorant of its approach. Much however yet remained to be done. They had arrived within view of the enemy, but the battle was yet to be fought.
Sensible of the advantage to be derived from commencing the attack, while the enemy was ignorant of his approach, at seven o’clock he marched to the assault. The inhabitants instead of offering opposition, received the troops with gladness, and surrendering [190] the town, engaged with alacrity in the siege of the fort. For eighteen hours the garrison resisted the repeated onsets of the assailants; but during the night succeeding the commencement of the attack, Colonel Clarke had an entrenchment thrown up within rifle shot of the enemy’s strongest battery, and in the morning, from this position, poured upon it such a well-directed shower of balls, that in fifteen minutes he silenced two pieces of cannon without sustaining any loss whatever. The advantages thus gained, induced Hamilton to demand a parley, intimating an intention of surrendering. The terms were soon arranged. The governor and garrison became prisoners of war, and a considerable quantity of military stores fell into the hands of the conqueror. [4]
During the continuance of the siege, Colonel Clarke received information that a party of Indians which had been detached by Hamilton to harrass the frontiers, was returning and then near to St. Vincents with two prisoners. He immediately ordered a detachment of his men to march out and give them battle––nine Indians were taken and the two prisoners released.
History records but few enterprises, which display as strikingly the prominent features of military greatness, and evince so much of the genius and daring which are necessary to their successful termination, as this; while the motives which led to its delineation, were such, as must excite universal admiration. Bold and daring, yet generous and disinterested, Colonel Clarke sought not his individual advancement in the projection or execution of this campaign. It was not to gratify the longings of ambition, or an inordinate love of fame, that prompted him to penetrate the Indian country to the Kaskaskias, nor that tempted him forth from thence, to war with the garrison at St. Vincent. He was not one of
| “Those worshippers of glory, Who bathe the earth in blood, And launch proud names for an after age, Upon the crimson flood.” |
The distress and sufferings of the frontier of Virginia required that a period should speedily be put to them, to preserve the country from ravage and its inhabitants from butchery. Clarke had seen and participated in that distress and those sufferings, and put in requisition every faculty of his mind and all the energies of his body, to alleviate and prevent them. Providence smiled on his undertaking, and his exertions were crowned with complete success. The plan which had been concerted for the ensuing campaign against the frontier of Virginia, threatening to involve the whole country west of the Alleghany mountains in destruction and death, was thus happily frustrated; and he, who had been mainly instrumental in impelling the savages to war, and in permitting, if not instigating them to the commission of the most atrocious barbarities, was a prisoner in the hands of the enemy. So justly obnoxious had he [191] rendered himself by his conduct, that a more than ordinary rigor was practised upon him; and by the orders of the governor of Virginia, the governor of Detroit was manacled with irons, and confined in jail.[5]