This pleased the leader of the borderers, for he saw that his own spirit animated his men. He therefore wrote to the Governor of Virginia, telling him of his plans for border warfare, and requesting aid. Men and ammunition were sent him. An expedition was speedily organized at Louisville—then called the Falls of the Ohio—and the border soldiers started down the stream in boats. At the mouth of the Tennessee River a party of hunters were met with. From them Clarke learned that the garrisons at Kaskaskia and Kahokia were fully aware of his coming and were quite ready to give his men a hot reception.
“The greater portion of the French,” said the guides, “prefer American to English rule. You will find no difficulty in winning them over to your cause.”
These men were taken along as scouts, and, creeping quietly through the wilderness, they surrounded and captured Kaskaskia without shedding a drop of blood. So kind were Clarke’s followers to the inhabitants that many accompanied them on the march to Kahokia,—a town just opposite St. Louis, Missouri. Both places were populated mainly by people of French extraction who adhered to the cause of France in America.
Clarke was a diplomat. Some one has said that “he eked out the courage of a lion with the cunning of a fox.” At any rate, he knew enough to make a firm friend of the parish priest, Monsieur Gerbault, who consented to go to Vincennes—in the absence of the British commander, who had gone to Detroit—and induce the garrison there to embrace the cause of the Kentuckians. He was successful. After a lengthy harangue the fort went over to the Americans and its command was given to a Captain Helm, one of Clarke’s Lieutenants.
Clarke had accomplished what was thought to be the impossible. Without any difficulty whatsoever he had captured three forts and had persuaded all the inhabitants to join his standard. But these were the French. There were still the redskinned devils who would soon be burning, plundering, and massacring upon the borders. Clarke needed more men. So he promptly organized the French into militia companies with which to garrison the captured fort, appointed French officers to command them, and was thus able to use all of his Kentucky backwoodsmen in dealing with the redskins.
The French and Spaniards never asked for peace from the Indians but always harshly demanded whatever they might desire. Clarke determined to adopt their course. This kind of diplomacy is that which usually wins with the American Indian, for the red man could never comprehend why the whites would offer peace if they felt at all certain that they could accomplish their purpose by means of war. The Indians never made treaties unless they had met with a reverse and were in the presence of a superior enemy. When Clarke demanded like a warrior it suited their ideas much better than if he had asked like a squaw.
We now come to the most extraordinary event in his career: an event which marks him as a man of courage and capacity. When things were going against him he managed to turn the tide in his own favor with remarkable ability.
Braving great dangers and privations, he met the redskins in their own villages and conferred with them. Two attempts were made upon his life, but he escaped all harm and managed to secure a treaty of peace upon terms which the red men had first spurned. The treaty was signed and Clarke’s eyes looked hungrily at Detroit—the great stronghold of the British. He had not sufficient men to take it.
Two detachments from his small army captured a British post on the upper Wabash, garrisoned by forty men. This aroused the British to greater activity. The Kentuckians and French were coming too near for either pleasure or safety. Besides this, the savages had begun to waver in their allegiance to the British flag as they saw the success of the pioneers from across the Ohio River.