Clark’s Expedition.

These troubles on the Wabash merely hardened the determination of the Kentuckians no longer to wait until the Federal Government acted.  With the approval of Governor Patrick Henry, they took the initiative themselves.  Early in August the field officers of the district of Kentucky met at Harrodsburg, Benjamin Logan presiding, and resolved on an expedition, to be commanded by Clark, against the hostile Indians on the Wabash.  Half of the militia of the district were to go; the men were to assemble, on foot or on horseback, as they pleased, at Clarksville on September 10th. [Footnote:  Draper MSS.  Minutes of meetings of the officers of the district of Kentucky, Aug. 2, 1786.  State Dept.  MSS., No. 150, vol. ii.  Letter of P. Henry, May 16, 1786.] Besides pack-horses, salt, flour, powder, and lead were impressed, [Footnote:  Draper MSS.  J. Cox to George Rogers Clark, Aug. 8, 1786.] not always in strict compliance with law, for some of the officers impressed quantities of spirituous liquors also. [Footnote:  State Dept.  MSS., Madison papers.  Letter of Caleb Wallace Nov. 20,1786.] The troops themselves however came in slowly. [Footnote:  State Dept.  MSS., Papers Continental Congress.  No. 150, vol. ii.  Letter of Major Wm. North, Sept. 15, 1786.] Late in September when twelve hundred men had been gathered, Clark moved forward.  But he was no longer the man he had been.  He failed to get any hold on his army.  His followers, on their side, displayed all that unruly fickleness which made the militia of the Revolutionary period a weapon which might at times be put to good use in the absence of any other, but which was really trusted only by men whose military judgment was as fatuous as Jefferson’s.

    Clark’s Failure.

After reaching Vincennes the troops became mutinous, and at last flatly refused longer to obey orders, and marched home as a disorderly mob, to the disgrace of themselves and their leader.  Nevertheless the expedition had really accomplished something, for it overawed the Wabash and Illinois Indians, and effectively put a stop to any active expressions of disloyalty or disaffection on the part of the French.  Clark sent officers to the Illinois towns, and established a garrison of one hundred and fifty men at Vincennes, [Footnote:  Do.  Virginia State Papers.  G. R. Clark to Patrick Henry.  Draper MSS., Proceedings of Committee of Kentucky Convention, Dec. 19, 1786.] besides seizing the goods of a Spanish merchant in retaliation for wrongs committed on American merchants by the Spaniards.

    Logan’s Expedition.