George Rogers Clark Totally Explained

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George Rogers Clark (November 19, 1752 – February 13, 1818) was a soldier from Virginia and the preeminent American military officer on the northwestern frontier during the American Revolutionary War. The leader of the Kentucky militia throughout much of the war, Clark is best-known for his celebrated capture of Kaskaskia (1778) and Vincennes (1779), which greatly weakened British influence in the Northwest Territory. Because the British ceded the entire Northwest Territory to the United States in the 1783 Treaty of Paris, Clark has often been hailed as the "Conqueror of the Old Northwest."
Clark's military achievements came before his 30th birthday. Never fully reimbursed by Virginia for his wartime expenditures, he spent the final decades of his life in increasing poverty and obscurity, often struggling with alcoholism. He was aided in his final years by family members, including his younger brother William, one of the leaders of the Lewis and Clark Expedition.

Early years

George Rogers Clark was born in Albemarle County, Virginia not far from the home of Thomas Jefferson. He was the second of ten children of John Clark and Ann Rogers Clark, who were Anglicans of English and Scottish ancestry. Five of their six sons became officers during the American Revolutionary War. Their youngest son, William Clark, was too young to fight in the Revolution, but later became famous as a leader of the Lewis and Clark Expedition. In about 1756, after the outbreak of the French and Indian War, the family moved away from the frontier to Caroline County, Virginia, and lived on a small plantation.
Little is known of Clark's schooling, but he went to live with his grandfather so he could attend Donald Robertson's school with James Madison and John Taylor of Caroline and received a common education. He was also tutored at home, as was usual for Virginian children of the period, eventually becoming a farmer and surveyor.
In 1772, as a twenty-year-old surveyor, Clark made his first trip into Kentucky, one of thousands of settlers entering the area as a result of the Treaty of Fort Stanwix of 1768. American Indians living in the Ohio country hadn't been party to that treaty, which ceded their Kentucky hunting grounds. The violence that resulted eventually culminated in Lord Dunmore's War, in which Clark played a small role as a captain in the Virginia militia.

Revolutionary War

As the American Revolutionary War began in the East, settlers in Kentucky were involved in a dispute over the region's sovereignty. Richard Henderson, a judge and land speculator from North Carolina, had purchased much of Kentucky from the Cherokees in an illegal treaty. Henderson intended to create a proprietary colony known as Transylvania, but many Kentucky settlers didn't recognize Transylvania's authority over them. In June 1776, these settlers selected Clark and John Gabriel Jones to deliver a petition to the Virginia General Assembly, asking Virginia to formally extend its boundaries to include Kentucky. Clark and Jones traveled via the Wilderness Road to Williamsburg, where they convinced Governor Patrick Henry to create Kentucky County, Virginia. Clark was given 500 pounds of gunpowder to help defend the settlements and was appointed a major in the Kentucky County militia. Clark was just 24 years old, but older men like Daniel Boone, Benjamin Logan, and Leonard Helm looked to him for leadership.

Illinois campaign

In 1777, the American Revolutionary War intensified in Kentucky. American Indians, armed and encouraged by British lieutenant governor Henry Hamilton at Fort Detroit, waged war against the Kentucky settlers in hopes of reclaiming the region as their hunting ground. Clark participated in several skirmishes against raiders. As a leader of the defense of Kentucky, Clark believed that the best way to end these raids was to seize British outposts north of the Ohio River, thereby destroying British influence with the Indians. Clark asked Governor Henry for permission to lead a secret expedition to capture the nearest British posts, which were located in the Illinois country. Governor Henry commissioned Clark as a lieutenant colonel in the Virginia militia and authorized him to raise troops for the expedition.
In July 1778, Clark and about 175 men crossed the Ohio River at Fort Massac and marched to Kaskaskia, taking it on the night of 4 July. Cahokia, Vincennes, and several other villages and forts in British territory were subsequently captured without firing a shot, because most of the French-speaking and American Indian inhabitants were unwilling to take up arms on behalf of the British. To counter Clark's advance, Henry Hamilton reoccupied Vincennes with a small force. In February 1779, Clark returned to Vincennes in a surprise winter expedition and retook the town, capturing Hamilton in the process. This daring winter expedition was Clark's most notable achievement and the source of his reputation as an early American military hero. Virginia capitalized on Clark's success by establishing the region as Illinois County, Virginia.

Final years of the war

Clark's ultimate goal during the Revolutionary War was to seize British-held Detroit, but he could never recruit enough men to make the attempt. The Kentucky militiamen generally preferred to defend their homes by staying closer to Kentucky rather than making a long and potentially perilous expedition to Detroit. In June 1780, a mixed force of British and Indians from Detroit invaded Kentucky, capturing two fortified settlements and carrying away scores of prisoners. In August 1780, Clark led a retaliatory force that won a victory near the Shawnee village of Pekowee. The next year Clark was promoted to brigadier general by Governor Thomas Jefferson and prepared once more to lead an expedition against Detroit, but a detachment of his troops was disastrously defeated in August 1781, ending the campaign.
An even worse defeat was to follow the next year: in August 1782, another British-Indian force defeated the Kentucky militia at the Battle of Blue Licks. Although he hadn't been present at the battle, Clark, as senior military officer, was severely criticized for the disaster. In response, Clark led another expedition into the Ohio country, destroying several Indian towns along the Great Miami River in the last major expedition of the war.
The importance of Clark's activities in the Revolutionary War has been the subject of much debate. Because the British ceded the entire Northwest Territory to the United States in the 1783 Treaty of Paris, some historians have credited Clark with nearly doubling the size of the original Thirteen Colonies by seizing control of the Illinois country during the war. For this reason, Clark was nicknamed "Conqueror of the Northwest", and his Illinois campaign—particularly the surprise march to Vincennes—was greatly celebrated and romanticized. Other historians have downplayed the importance of the campaign, arguing that Clark's "conquest" was a temporary occupation that had no impact on the boundary negotiations in Europe.

Later years

Clark was just 30 years old when fighting in the Revolutionary War ended, but his greatest military achievements were already behind him. Ever since Clark's victories in Illinois, settlers had been pouring into Kentucky, often illegally squatting on Indian land north of the Ohio River. Clark helped to negotiate the Treaty of Fort McIntosh in 1785 and the Treaty of Fort Finney in 1786 with tribes north of the river, but violence between American Indians and Kentucky settlers continued to escalate. According to a 1790 U.S. government report, 1,500 Kentucky settlers had been killed in Indian raids since the end of the Revolutionary War. In an attempt to end these raids, Clark led an expedition against Indians towns on the Wabash River in 1786, one of the first actions of the Northwest Indian War. The campaign ended ingloriously: lacking supplies, about 300 militiamen mutinied, and Clark had to withdraw. It was rumored that Clark had often been drunk on duty. Clark's reputation was tarnished and he never again led men in battle.
   Clark lived most of the rest of his life in financial difficulties. Clark had financed the majority of his military campaigns with borrowed funds. When creditors began to dun him for these unpaid debts, he wasn't able to obtain recompense from Virginia or the United States Congress because record keeping on the frontier during the war had been haphazard. Although Clark had claims to thousands of acres of land resulting from his military service and land speculation, he was "land-poor", for example he owned much land but lacked the means to make money from it.
   With his career seemingly over and his prospects for prosperity doubtful, on February 2 1793, Clark offered his services to Edmond-Charles Genêt, the controversial ambassador of revolutionary France. Western Americans were outraged that the Spanish, who controlled Louisiana, denied Americans free access to the Mississippi River, their only easy outlet for long distance commerce. The Washington Administration was also seemingly deaf to western concerns about opening the Mississippi to U.S. commerce. Clark proposed to Genêt that, with French financial support, he could lead an expedition to drive the Spanish out of the Mississippi Valley. Genêt appointed Clark "Major General in the Armies of France and Commander-in-chief of the French Revolutionary Legion on the Mississippi River." Clark began to organize a campaign to seize New Madrid, St. Louis, Natchez, and New Orleans, getting assistance from old comrades such as Benjamin Logan and John Montgomery, and winning the tacit support of Kentucky governor Isaac Shelby. Clark spent $4,680 of his own money for supplies. In early 1794, however, President Washington issued a proclamation forbidding Americans from violating U.S. neutrality and threatened to dispatch General Anthony Wayne to Fort Massac to stop the expedition. The French government recalled Genêt and revoked the commissions of Americans recruited for the war against Spain. Clark's planned campaign gradually collapsed, and he tried but was unable to have the French reimburse him for his expenses.
   After a few years, the lenders and their assigns closed in and deprived the veteran of almost all of his property. Clark was left with a small plot of land in Clarksville, where he built a small gristmill which he worked with two African American slaves. Clark lived for another two decades, often struggling with alcohol abuse, a problem which had plagued him on-and-off for many years. He never married and had no verifiable romantic relationships, although a family tradition held that he'd once been in love with Teresa de Leyba, sister of Don Fernando de Leyba. Writings from his niece and cousin in the Draper Manuscripts attest to Clark's lifelong disappointment over the failed romance. In 1809, Clark suffered a severe stroke. Falling into an operating fireplace, he suffered a burn on one leg so severe as to necessitate the amputation of the limb. It was impossible for Clark to continue to operate his mill, so he became a dependent member of the household of his brother-in-law, Major William Croghan, a planter at Locust Grove farm eight miles (13 km) from the growing town of Louisville. After a second stroke, Clark died at Locust Grove, 13 February 1818. Originally buried at Locust Grove two days later, Clark's body was reburied at Cave Hill Cemetery in Louisville in 1889.

Legacy

On May 23, 1928, President Calvin Coolidge ordered a memorial to George Rogers Clark to be erected in Vincennes. Completed in 1933, the George Rogers Clark Memorial, built in Roman Classical style, stands on what was then believed to be the site of Fort Sackville, and is now the George Rogers Clark National Historical Park. It includes a statue of Clark by Hermon Atkins MacNeil.
   On February 25, 1929, to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the surrender of Fort Sackville, the U.S. Post Office Department issued a 2-cent postage stamp, which depicted the surrender.
   In 1975, the Indiana General Assembly designated February 25 George Rogers Clark Day in Indiana.
   Built in 1929, the George Rogers Clark Memorial Bridge (Second Street Bridge) carries U.S. Highway 31, over the Ohio River at Louisville, Kentucky.
   Other statues of Clark can be found in:

Metropolis, Fort Massac, Illinois, by sculptor Leon Hermant, placed by the Daughters of the American Revolution in the early 1900s.
Louisville, Kentucky, by sculptor Felix de Weldon, at Riverfront Plaza/Belvedere, next to the wharf on the Ohio River.
Springfield, Ohio, by Charles Keck at the site of the Battle of Piqua.
Charlottesville, Virginia, by Robert Aitken on the grounds of the University of Virginia.
Quincy, Illinois, in Riverview Park, on the eastern bank of the Mississippi River.
Indianapolis, Indiana, by sculptor John H. Mahoney, in Monument Circle

Places named for Clark include:

Clark County, Illinois

Clarksville, Clark County, Indiana

Clark County, Kentucky, which is the home of George Rogers Clark High School.

Clark County, Ohio, which is the home of Clark State Community College.

Clarksburg, West Virginia

Clarksville, Tennessee

Clark Street (Chicago) Schools named after Clark include George Rogers Clark Elementary School in Clarksville, Indiana, George Rogers Clark Middle/High School in Hammond, Indiana, George Rogers Clark High School and Clark Middle School in Winchester, Kentucky, Clark Elementary School in Charlottesville, Virginia, George Rogers Clark Middle School in Vincennes, Indiana and George Rogers Clark Elementary School of Chicago.

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