Daniel Boone, Backwoodsman

by C. H. Forbes-Lindsay

During all this time,—nearly a year,—since his departure, Clark had received no aid, nor any word, from Governor Henry, or any of the officials of Virginia. Perhaps his wonderful success was in large measure due to the freedom from interference that enabled him to exercise his judgment and daring without trammel. The adventure which he now entered upon was one that only the stoutest heart could have contemplated without quailing. If Hamilton, with his greatly superior resources, deemed the passage of the country between Vincennes and Kaskaskia impracticable in winter, how much more formidable an undertaking was it to the ill-provided force of Clark!

On the seventh of February the American leader started at the head of one hundred and seventy men, nearly half of whom were creoles, for Vincennes. The distance was two hundred and forty miles, and the way lay through what was in summer time a beautiful region of woodland and prairie, but now much of it was what the Indians called “drowned,” that is, flooded. Fortunately, the weather was unusually mild, or the troops must have suffered intensely from cold, for they carried little baggage of any kind and had no tents. During the earlier stages of the march they secured a sufficient supply of game and made enormous fires at night, round which they slept in comparative comfort.

For a week the experiences of the party were only such as backwoodsmen and trappers were commonly accustomed to, but at the end of this time they reached the branches of the Wabash and the rigors of the journey began. Their road lay first across the two forks of the Little Wabash. These were three miles apart and hidden beneath a great lake five miles in breadth and nowhere less than three feet in depth.

Clark immediately constructed a pirogue, with which he crossed the first channel and erected a platform on the other side. He then ferried his men across, and next brought the baggage over and placed it upon the platform. Last of all, he swam the pack-horses through the stream, reloaded them beside his temporary landing, and marched the entire party over the flooded land to the farther fork. This was passed in a similar manner. The passage of a little more than three miles occupied as many days.

They had now approached within twenty miles of Vincennes, but every step of the way hereafter was fraught with dangers and difficulties, and progress was painfully slow. All day long they labored through ooze, or water, which was sometimes breast-high. The floods had cleared the country of game and the pangs of hunger were soon added to the other privations of the desperate adventurers. Clark and his officers directed their utmost efforts towards keeping up the spirits of the men, for they knew that only thus could they hope to tide them over the terrible last stages of the journey.

On the seventeenth, they reached the Embarrass River, but could find nothing in which to cross nor a dry spot to camp upon. They passed that night huddled together, wet and hungry, upon a small hillock that was just clear of the water. In the morning they were cheered by the sound of the sunrise gun at the fort, but had they known the weary way that still lay between them and their objective, some of them must have abandoned the struggle there and then.

Three days were now spent in building canoes. On the twentieth the men had been two days without food, and the control that Clark maintained of these rude levies may be inferred from the fact that they still had the horses, which he did not propose to eat except in the last extremity. In the course of the day, they captured a boat containing five Frenchmen from Vincennes, and were cheered to learn that conditions in the town remained in the state described by the trader Vigo. In the evening a deer was caught, and the situation of the party was thereby materially improved.

The following morning Clark ferried his troops across the river, but found it impossible to bring his horses any farther. The captive French were carried along, protesting that it was impossible for human beings to reach the town by way of the intervening submerged lands. But Clark was determined to go forward, and he led his men through the chill waters that often came up to their necks. Thus they advanced slowly and painfully for three miles, and at night camped upon a little knob of wet ground.

The following morning the march was resumed, but some of the men had become too weak to walk and these were conveyed in the canoes. They now came to a stretch of land where the difficulties of wading were enhanced by the presence of thick bushes. This was passed after wearisome effort, but nightfall of the twenty-second found them still six miles from the fort. Most of the men had clearly approached the limits of their endurance, and it required all the encouragement of the leader to keep them up. In this he was materially aided by “a little antic drummer,” as he calls him in his memoir of the expedition. This youngster seemed to have the most buoyant spirits and with his merry quips and pranks made the men laugh in the midst of their misery. One of the officers closes the entry in his diary for this day with the words: “No provisions yet. Lord help us!”

This night was bitterly cold. Half an inch of ice formed on the stagnant water. The miserable adventurers, with empty stomachs and drenched clothing, who cowered in the open, or moved about to keep their blood in circulation, suffered intensely. But the morning broke with a bright sun overhead, and with their leader’s assurance that the evening would see them at the goal for which they had striven so valiantly, the almost exhausted men steeled themselves to a final effort. And, indeed, they needed all the fortitude and determination that they could summon, for the final stage of the march proved to be the most trying of all.