In the midst of this horrible warfare a bright idea came to George Rogers Clark, but he kept it to himself. He sent two men across the Ohio and up the Mississippi and Wabash rivers to see what was going on at the British trading-posts there. The word they brought back made the young man start at once for Virginia—this time alone. He called again on Governor Patrick Henry and on his old neighbor, Thomas Jefferson. Both of those great patriots approved his plan and charged him on no account to let it leak out before he was ready to act, for fear some wily Indian or dishonest Frenchman might give warning and spoil it all.
When George Rogers Clark started again from Virginia he wore the badge of a colonel in the Continental army; and he had the promised support of the state. He went west by way of the Ohio River as far as what is now Louisville. The settlement he started there owes its name to the news which Clark heard from some men who joined him there; that the king and the people of France had pledged money, men, and ships to help the United States in the War for Independence. The new town was named in honor of the French king.
The first thing the young commander had to do was to raise a company of about two hundred men for his secret purpose. All he told his recruits was that they were to go on a mission to put a stop to the terrible outrages of the “British” Indians upon the settlers. It was not until they were again floating down the Ohio River toward the Mississippi that he told them that they were out to capture three towns on the Mississippi and the Wabash, which, as his two friends had found out for him, were not well guarded by the British. Most of the people in these towns were French settlers, but were under British rule. When they had nearly reached the place where the Ohio flows into the Mississippi, they left their boats and marched through tangled forests and across the plains toward Kaskaskia, the nearest of the three towns. They arrived on the Fourth of July, 1778, the second anniversary of American independence. They hid for a whole day in a clump of trees and bushes on the shore of the Mississippi. After nightfall Clark detailed half his men to surround the village, and led the rest to the fort, where he found the French commander of the fort giving a dance by the flaring light of several torches. Some of the women of the settlement and several Indians were present. The young Virginian went right in and stood there smiling—it was so different from what he had expected!—when an Indian spied him and gave an ear-splitting warwhoop.
The dancers stopped as if shot. All stared at the tall young officer with the keen but kindly eyes. After a moment the newcomer raised his voice and said, “Go on with the dancing, but I wish to announce that you are no longer subjects of King George. This fort and this place now belong to the State of Virginia.” As he spoke, his men burst in and took the French officers prisoner. Clark added, to the village people,
“You can go to your homes, but you must stay there. All who leave their houses to-night will do so under pain of death. The town is guarded by my men.”
The French settlers spent the night in fear, for Clark disarmed the village at once. Some of their chief men came to him next day to beg him to spare their lives. The young commander shook hands with them and told them that they need not be afraid of any one but the British. “King Louis of France,” he explained, “is the friend of America. He is going to help us in our fight for liberty.”
The French were all glad to hear the good news and lost no time in swearing to be true to the United States government.
In his record, Clark went on:
“The scene was changed from almost dejection to that of joy in the extreme—the bells ringing, the church crowded, returning thanks—in short, every appearance of extravagant joy that could fill a place with almost confusion.”
To Colonel George Rogers Clark and his sturdy pioneers this easy campaign so far seemed like a pleasure excursion. They were well received also at Fort Cahokia, on the Mississippi across from St. Louis. Then a French volunteer took a few men to Fort Sackville at Vincennes and placed them on guard there. Thus the three scattered strongholds of the British in the Northwest Territory came to belong to the new State of Virginia.