XVII
_"DETROIT MUST BE TAKEN"_
Again George Rogers Clark sped through Cumberland Gap, fair as aTyrolean vale, to Virginia. And dashing along the same highway, downthe valley of Virginia, came the minute men of the border, in greenhunting shirts, hard-riders and sharp-shooters of Fincastle.
"Hey and away, and what news?"
The restless mountaineers of the Appalachians, almost as fierce andwarlike as the Goths and Vandals of an earlier day, answered:
"We have broken the back of Tarleton's army at King's Mountain,Cornwallis is facing this way, and cruisers are coming up into theChesapeake."
"Marse Gawge! Marse Gawge!"
This time it was little York, the negro, who, peeping from the slavequarters of old York and Rose, detected the stride of George RogersClark out under the mulberry trees.
The long, low, Virginia farmhouse was wrapped in slumber, an almostfuneral pall hung over the darkened porch, as John Clark stepped outto grasp the hand of his son.
"Three of my boys in British prisons, we looked for nothing less foryou, George. William alone is left."
"Girls do not count, I suppose," laughed the saucy Lucy, peeping outin her night-curls with a candle in her hand. "Over at Bowling Greenthe other day, when all the gallants were smiling on me, one jealousgirl said, 'I do not see what there is so interesting about LucyClark. She is not handsome, and she has red hair.' 'Ah,' I replied, 'Ican tell her. They know I have five brothers all officers in theRevolutionary army!'"
"What, Edmund gone, too?" exclaimed George. "He is but a lad!"
"Big enough to don the buff and blue, and shoulder a gun," answeredthe father. "He would go,--left school, led all his mates, and sixweeks later was taken prisoner along with Jonathan and the wholearmy."
That was the fall of Charleston, in the very May when Clark was savingSt. Louis.
"We are all at war," spoke up Elizabeth, the elder sister, sadly."Even the boys drill on mimic battlefields; all the girls in Virginiaare spinning and weaving clothes for the soldiers; Mrs. Washingtonkeeps sixteen spinning-wheels busy at Mount Vernon; mother and all theladies have given their jewels to fit out the army. Mrs. Jeffersonherself led the call for contributions, and Mrs. Lewis of Albemarlecollected five thousand dollars in Continental currency. Father hasgiven up his best horses, and Jefferson impressed his own horses andwaggons at Monticello to carry supplies to General Gates. All the ladsin the country are moulding bullets and making gun-powder. We haven'ta pewter spoon left."
"An' we niggers air raisin' fodder," ventured the ten-year-old York.
York had his part, along with his young master, William. Daily theyrode together down the Rappahannock, carrying letters to FieldingLewis at Fredericksburg. It was there, at Kenmore House, that they metMeriwether Lewis, visiting his uncle and aunt Betty, the sister ofWashington. "And when she puts on his _chapeau_ and great coat, shelooks exactly like the General," said William.
"What has become of my captured Governors?" George asked of hisfather.
"I hear that Hamilton was offered a parole on condition that he wouldnot use his liberty in any way to speak or influence any one againstthe colonies. He indignantly refused to promise that, and so wasreturned to close captivity. But I think when Boone came up to thelegislature he used some influence; at any rate Hamilton was paroledand went with Hay to England. Rocheblave broke his parole and fled toNew York."
The five fireplaces of the old Clark home roared a welcome that dayup the great central chimney, and candles gleamed at evening fromdormer window to basement when all the neighbours crowded in to hail"the Washington of the West."
"Now, Rose, you and Nancy bake the seed cakes and have beat biscuit,"said Mrs. Clark to the fat cook in the kitchen. "York has gone afterthe turkeys."
"Events are in desperate straits," said George at bedtime; "I mustleave at daylight." But earlier yet young William was up to gallop amile beside his brother on the road to Richmond, whither the capitalhad been removed for greater safety.
"Is this the young Virginian that is sending home all the westernGovernors?" exclaimed the people. An ovation followed him all the way.
"What is your plan?" asked Governor Jefferson, after the fierycavalier had been received with distinction by the Virginia Assembly.
"My plan is to ascend the Wabash in early Spring and strike beforereinforcements can reach Detroit, or escape be made over the breakingice of the Lakes. The rivers open first."
George Rogers Clark, born within three miles of Monticello, had knownJefferson all his life, and save Patrick Henry no one better graspedhis plans. In fact, Jefferson had initiative and was not afraid ofuntried ventures.
"My dear Colonel, I have already written to Washington that we couldfurnish the men, provisions, and every necessary except powder, had wethe money, for the reduction of Detroit. But there is no money,--noteven rich men have seen a shilling in a year. Washington to the northis begging aid, Gates in the south is pleading for men and arms, andnot a shilling is in the treasury of Virginia."
"But Detroit must be taken," said Clark with a solemn emphasis."Through my aides I have this discovery: a combination is forming tothe westward,--a confederacy of British and Indians,--to spread dismayto our frontier this coming Spring. We cannot hesitate. The fountainhead of these irruptions must be cut off, the grand focus of Indianhostilities from the Mohawk to the Mississippi."
Even as he spoke, Jefferson, pen in hand, was noting points in anotherletter to Washington.
"We have determined to undertake it," wrote Jefferson, "and commit itto Clark's direction. Whether the expense of the enterprise shall bedefrayed by the Continent or State we leave to be decided hereafter byCongress. In the meantime we only ask the loan of such necessaries as,being already at Fort Pitt, will save time and expense oftransportation. I am, therefore, to solicit Your Excellency's order tothe commandant at Fort Pitt for the articles contained in the annexedlist."
Clark had the list in hand. "It is our only hope; there is not amoment to be lost."
On fleet horses the chain of expresses bore daily news to the camp ofWashington, but before his answer could return, another express reinedup at Richmond.
"Benedict Arnold, the traitor, has entered the Capes of Virginia witha force of two thousand men."
It was New Year's Eve and Richmond was in a tumult. On New Year's dayevery legislator was moving his family to a place of safety. The verywinds were blowing Arnold's fleet to Richmond.
Virginia had laid herself bare of soldiers; every man that could bespared had been sent south.
And Arnold? With what rage George Rogers Clark saw him destroy thevery stores that might have taken Detroit,--five brass field-pieces,arms in the Capitol loft and in waggons on the road, five tons ofpowder, tools, quartermaster's supplies. Then the very wind that hadblown Arnold up the river turned and blew him back, and the only bloodshed was by a handful of militia under George Rogers Clark, who killedand wounded thirty of Arnold's men.
"I have an enterprise to propose," said the Governor to Clark onreturn. "I have confidence in your men from the western side of themountains. I want to capture Arnold and hang him. You pick the propercharacters and engage them to seize this greatest of all traitors. Iwill undertake, if they are successful, that they shall receive fivethousand guineas reward among them."
"I cannot, Arnold is gone, I must capture Detroit."
More determined than ever, Clark and Jefferson went on planning. "Yes,you must capture Detroit and secure Lake Erie. You shall have twothousand men, and ammunition and packhorses shall be at the Falls ofthe Ohio, March 15, ready for the early break of the ice."
Washington's consent had come, and orders for artillery. WithWashington and Jefferson at his back, Clark made indefatigable effortsto raise two thousand men to rendezvous March 15.
Up the Blue Ridge his agents went and over to the Holston; he wrote towestern Pennsylvania; he visited Redstone-Old-Fort, and hurried downto Fort Pitt. Fort Pitt itself was in danger.
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The Wabash broke and ran untrammelled, but Clark was not ready.Cornwallis was destroying Gates at Camden; De Kalb fell, covered withwounds; Sumter was cut to pieces by Tarleton. The darkest night hadcome in a drama that has no counterpart, save in the Napoleonic warsthat shook Europe in the cause of human liberty.
War, war, raged from the Atlantic to the Mississippi. The land wascovered with forts and blockhouses. Every hamlet had its place ofrefuge. Mills were fortified, and private houses. Every outlyingsettlement was stockaded. Every log house had its pickets andportholes. Chains of posts followed the river fords and mountain gapsfrom Ticonderoga to the Mohawk, from the Susquehanna to the Delaware,to the Cumberland, to the Tennessee. Anxious sentinels peered from thewatchtowers of wooden castles. Guns stood on the ramparts. The peopleslept in barracks. Moats and drawbridges, chained gates and palisades,guarded the sacred citadels of America.
"And what if England wins?" said one to Washington.
"We can still retire to the Ohio and live in freedom," for, like thelast recesses of the Swiss Alps, it was thought no nation couldconquer the Alleghanies.
In desperation and unaware of the Virginian crisis behind him, GeorgeRogers Clark embarked four hundred men, all he could get of thepromised two thousand. Only a line he sent to Jefferson, "I haverelinquished all hope," but Jefferson at that hour was flying fromTarleton, Cornwallis was coming up into Virginia, and Washington withhis ragged band of veteran Continentals was marching down to Yorktown.There was no time to glance beyond the mountains.
All the northwest, in terror of Clark, was watching and fearing. If ablow was struck anywhere, "Clark did it." Shawnees and Delawares,Wyandots at the north, Choctaws and Chickasaws and Cherokees at thesouth, British and Indians everywhere, were rising against devotedKentucky.
As Clark stepped on his boats at Pittsburg word flew to remotesttribes,--
"The Long Knives are coming!"
The red man trembled in his wigwam, Detroit redoubled itsfortifications, and Clark's forlorn little garrisons in the prairiesof the west hung on to Illinois.
In those boats Clark bore provisions, ammunition, artillery,quartermaster's stores, collected as if from the very earth by hisundying energy,--everything but men, men! Major William Croghan stoodwith him on the wharf at Pittsburg, burning, longing to go, but honourforbade,--he was out on parole from Charleston.
Peeping, spying, gliding, Indians down the Ohio would have attackedbut for fear of Clark's cannon. The "rear guard of the Continentalarmy" little knew the young Virginian, the terror of his name. Forhim, Canada staid at home to guard Detroit when she might have wrestedYorktown.
With shouts of thanksgiving Louisville greeted Clark and his fourhundred; the war had come up to their very doors. Never had theIndians so hammered away at the border. Across the entire continentthe late intermittent cannon shots became a constant volley.
Every family had its lost ones,--"My father, my mother, my wife, mychild, they slaughtered, burned, tortured,--_I will hunt the Indiantill I die!_"
Detroit, Niagara, Michilimackinac--the very names meant horror, forthere let loose, the red bloodhounds of war, the most savage, the mostawful, with glittering knives, pressed close along the Ohio. Thebuffalo meat for the expedition rotted while Clark struggled,anguished in spirit, a lion chained, "Stationed here to repel a fewpredatory savages when I would carry war to the Lakes."
But troops yet behind, "almost naked for want of linen and entirelywithout shoes," were trying to join Clark down the wild Ohio. JosephBrandt cut them off,--Lochry and Shannon and one hundredPennsylvanians,--not one escaped to tell the tale.
Clark never recovered, never forgot the fate of Lochry. "Had I tarriedbut one day I might have saved them!" In the night-time he seemed tohear those struggling captives dragged away to Detroit,--"Detroit!lost for the want of a few men!" For the first time the over-wroughthero gave way to intoxication to drown his grief,--and so had Clarkthen died, "Detroit" might have been found written on his heart.
Despair swept over Westmoreland where Lochry's men were the flower ofthe frontier. Only fourteen or fifteen rifles remained inHannastown,--the Indians swooped and destroyed it utterly.