(Signed) HENRY HAMILTON,
Lieut.-Gov. and Superintendent.
* * *
The business being now nearly at an end, troops were posted in several strong houses around the garrison and patrolled during the night to prevent any deception that might be attempted. The remainder on duty lay on their arms, and for the first time for many days past got some rest.
During the siege, I got only one man wounded. Not being able to lose many, I made them secure themselves well. Seven were badly wounded in the fort through ports.
Almost every man had conceived a favorable opinion of Lieutenant-governor Hamilton,—I believe what affected myself made some impression on the whole; and I was happy to find that he never deviated, while he stayed with us, from that dignity of conduct that became an officer in his situation. The morning of the 25th approaching, arrangements were made for receiving the garrison [which consisted of seventy-nine men], and about ten o’clock it was delivered in form; and everything was immediately arranged to the best advantage.[452-7]
[428-1] The first permanent settlement in Indiana was made on the Wabash River 117 miles southwest of the present city of Indianapolis. On what was originally the location of a prominent Indian village, the French established a fort in 1702, and it was generally known as The Post. In 1736 the name of Vinsenne, an early commandant of the post, was applied to the little settlement, and this name later came to be written Vincennes, in its present form.
The English took the place in 1763; in 1778 the weak English garrison was driven out by the forerunners of George Rogers Clark, who from Kaskaskia sent Captain Helm to take charge. The same winter Captain Helm and the one soldier who constituted his garrison were compelled to surrender to the British General, Hamilton, who had come from Detroit to recapture the fort. It was in the following February that Clark made the final capture as told in these memoirs. Thereafter Vincennes belonged to Virginia, who ceded it to the United States in 1783. Vincennes was the capital of Indiana territory from 1801 to 1816.
[428-2] The selection is taken from General Clark’s Memoirs.
[431-3] These were men from Vincennes whom Clark had taken from canoes and from whom he obtained much information, although it was not given with perfect willingness.
[437-4] It was said with some show of justice that General Hamilton had paid the Indians a bounty on the scalps of American settlers. His course in many ways had aroused the bitterest hatred among the colonists, and especially among the “Big Knives.”