but in time they confronted white leaders and white followers. These conflicts. however, were only a series of border forays, until 1778, when Major George Rogers Clarke' led a regular expedition against the frontier posts of the enemy. in the wilderness in the far north-west, now the States of Indiana and Illinois. His little army rendezvoused at the Falls of the Ohio, where Louisville now stands, where he was joined by Simon Kenton, and other pioneers. From thence they penetrated the country northward, and on the 4th of July [1778]; they captured Kaskaskia. On the 9th, they took the village of Cahokia, sixty miles further up the river; and finally, in August, the stronger British post of Vincennes, on the Wabash, fell into their hands.

Acting in the capacity of a peace-maker, Clarke was working successfully toward the pacification of the western tribes, when, in the month of January, 1779, the commander of the British fort at Detroit retook Vincennes. With one hundred and seventy-five men, Clarke penetrated the dreadful wilderness a hundred miles from the Ohio. For a whole week they traversed the "drowned lands" of Illinois, suffering every privation from wet, cold, and hunger. When they arrived at the Little Wabash, at a point where the forks of the stream are three miles apart, they found the intervening space covered with water to the depth of three feet. The points of dry land were five miles apart, and all that distance those hardy soldiers, in the month of February; waded the cold snow-flood' in the forest, sometimes arm-pit deep! They arrived in sight of Vincennes on the 18th [February, 1779], and the next morning at dawn, with their faces blackened with gunpowder, to make themselves appear hideous, they crossed the river in a boat, and pushed toward the town. On the 20th, the stripes and stars were again unfurled over the fort at Vincennes and a captured garrison. Had armed men dropped from the clouds, the people and soldiers at Vincennes could not have been more astonished, than at the apparition of these troops, for it seemed impossible for them to have traversed the deluged country.

The indignation of the people was fiercely aroused by the atrocities at Wyoming and upon the head waters of the Susquehanna; and in the summer of 1779, General Sullivan' was sent into the heart of the country of the SIX NATIONS, to chastise and humble them. He collected troops in the Wyoming

1

George Rogers Clarke, was born in Albemarle county, Virginia, in 1752, and first appears in history as an adventurer beyond the Alleghanies, twenty years afterward. He had been a landsurveyor, and first went to the Ohio region in 1772. He was a captain in Dunmore's army [note 4, page 237] in 1774, and in 1775, he accompanied some emigrants to Kentucky. Pleased with the country, he determined to make it his home; and during the war for Independence, he labored nobly to secure the vast region of the west and north-west, as a home for the free. Under his leadership, what afterward became the North-west Territory, was disenthralled, and he has been appropriately styled the Father of that region. He was promoted to the rank of brigadier, after serving under the Baron Steuben against Arnold, in Virginia, in 1781, and at the close of the war he remained in Kentucky. He died near Louisville, in February, 1818, at the age of sixty-six ' Page 180. 3 Note 3, page 241. John Sullivan was born in Maine, in 1740. He was a delegate in the first Continental Congress [1774], and was one of the first eight brigadiers in the Continental Army. After being in active service about four years, he resigned his commission in 1779. He was afterward a member of

years.

Congress, and governor of New Hampshire, and died in 1795.

Page 25. British emissaries had gained over to the royal interest the whole of the SIX NA

TIONS except the Oneidas. These were kept loyal to the republicans, chiefly through the instru

GENERAL SULLIVAN.

Valley; and on the last day of July, marched up the Susquehanna, with about three thousand soldiers. At Tioga Point, he met General James Clinton,' on the 22d of August, who came from the Mohawk Valley, with about sixteen hundred men. On the 29th, they fell upon a body of Indian and Tory savages, strongly fortified, at Chemung (now Elmira), and dispersed them. Without waiting for them to rally, Sullivan moved forward, and penetrated the country to the Genesee River. In the course of three weeks, he destroyed forty Indian villages, and a vast amount of food growing in fields and gardens. One hundred and sixty thousand bushels of corn in the fields and in granaries were destroyed; a vast number of the finest fruit-trees, the product of years of tardy growth, were cut down; hundreds of gardens covered with edible vegetables, were desolated; the inhabitants were driven into the forests to starve, and were hunted like wild beasts; their altars were overturned, and their graves trampled upon by strangers; and a beautiful, well-watered country, teeming with a prosperous people, and just rising from a wilderness state, by the aid of cultivation, to a level with the productive regions of civilization, was desolated and cast back a century in the space of a fortnight. To us, looking upon the scene from a point so remote, it is difficult to perceive the necessity that called for a chastisement so cruel and terrible. But that such necessity seemed to exist we should not doubt, for it was the judicious and benevolent mind of Washington that conceived and planned the campaign, and ordered its rigid execution in the manner in which it was accomplished. It awed the Indians for the moment, but it did not crush them. In the reaction they had greater strength. It kindled the fires of deep hatred, which spread far among the tribes upon the lakes and in the valley of the Ohio. Washington, like Demetrius, the son of Antigonus, received from the savages the name of An-na-ta-kau-les, which signifies a taker of towns, or TowN DESTROYER."

mentality of one or two Christian missionaries. After the war, those of the Six Nations who joined the British, pleaded, as an excuse, the noble sentiment of loyalty. They were the friends of the English, and regarded the parent country as their ally. When they saw the children of their great father, the king, rebelling against him, they felt it to be their duty, in accordance with stipulations of solemn treaties, to aid him.

1

General James Clinton was born in Ulster county, New York, in 1736. He was a captain in the French and Indian War, and an active officer during the Revolution. He died in 1812.

2 The Seneca Indians were beginning to cultivate rich openings in the forests, known as the "Genesee Flats," quite extensively. They raised large quantities of corn, and cultivated gardens and orchards. Their dwellings, however, were of the rudest character, and their villages consisted of a small collection of these miserable huts, of no value except for winter shelter.

At a council held in Philadelphia in 1792, Corn Planter, the distinguished Seneca chief, thus addressed Washington, then President of the United States: "FATHER-The voice of the Seneca nation speaks to you, the great counselor, in whose heart the wise men of all the thirteen fires have placed their wisdom. It may be very small in your ears, and, therefore, we entreat you to hearken with attention, for we are about to speak to you of things which to us are very great. When your army entered the country of the Six Nations, we called you The Town Destroyer; and to this day, when that name is heard, our women look behind them and turn pale, and our children cling close to the necks of their mothers. Our counselors and warriors are men, and can not be afraid; but their hearts are grieved with the fears of our women and children, and desire that it may be buried so deep that it may be heard no more."

SIEGE OF SAVANNAH. 1779.

While these events were in progress at the North, the Southern army, under Lincoln,' was preparing to attack Savannah, in concert with the French fleet, then in the West Indies. During that summer, Count D'Estaing had battled successfully with Admiral Byron there, and early in September, he appeared off the coast of Georgia with a powerful fleet, prepared to co-operate with Lincoln. D'Estaing landed troops and heavy battery cannon a few miles below Savannah; and on the 23d of September, the combined armies commenced the siege. It was soon perceived that the town must be taken by regular approaches, and to that end all energy was directed. On the morning of the 4th of October, a heavy cannonade and bombardment was opened upon the Britsh works. It continued for five days, but with very little effect upon the strong British intrenchments. D'Estaing became impatient of delay,' and proposed an attempt to take the place by storm. It was reluctantly agreed to, for there seemed a certainty of final victory if the siege should continue. D'Estaing would listen to no remonstrances, and the assault commenced on the morning of the 9th of October. After five hours of severe conflict, there was a truce for the purpose of burying the dead. Already, nearly a thousand of the French and Americans had been killed and wounded.' The standards of France and Carolina, which gallant men had planted upon the parapet, had been torn down. Yet important breaches were made, and another assault promised a sure triumph. But D'Estaing, strangely perverse, was unwilling to renew the assault, and made preparations to withdraw. Lincoln yielded a reluctant assent to the movement, and the enterprise was abandoned at the moment when the American commander felt certain of victory.* Ten days afterward, the French flect had left the coast, and Lincoln was retreating toward Charleston. Thus closed the campaign for 1779, at the South. The repulse at Savannah was a severe blow to the hopes of the patriots of Georgia, and spread a gloom over the whole South. Toward the Georgia seaboard, every semblance of opposition to royal power was crushed, and only in the interior did armed resistance appear.

2 D'Estaing expressed his fears, not only of the arrival of a British fleet, to blockade his own in the Savannah River, but of the autumn storms, which might damage his vessels before he could get to sea.

COUNT PULASKI.

3

Among the mortally wounded, was Count Pulaski, the brave Pole whom we first met in the battle on the Brandywine [note 5, page 273]. He died on board a vessel bound for Charleston, a few days after the siege. Serjeant Jasper, whose bravery at Fort Moultrie we have noticed [note 5, page 249], was also killed, while nobly holding aloft, upon a bastion of the British works which he had mounted, one of the beautiful colors [note 5, page 249] presented to Moultrie's regiment by ladies of Charleston. The colors were beautifully embroidered, and given to the regiment, in the name of the ladies of Charleston, by Mrs. Susanna Elliott. Just before he died, Jasper said, "Tell Mrs. Elliott I lost my life supporting the colors she presented to our regiment." These colors, captured during this siege, are among British trophies in the tower of London. Savannah honors both these heroes by having finely. shaded parks bearing their respective names. Page 289.

After the close of Sullivan's campaign against the Senecas, very little general interest transpired at the North, except the withdrawal of the British troops from Rhode Island, on the 25th of October, 1779. La Fayette had been in France during the summer, and chiefly through his efforts, the French government had consented to send another powerful fleet,' and several thousand troops, to aid the Americans. When informed of this intended expedition, the British ministry ordered Clinton to cause the evacuation of Rhode Island, and to concentrate, at New York, all his troops at the North. This was accomplished with as little delay as possible, for rumors had reached Rhode Island that the new French armament was approaching the coast. So rapid was the retreat of the British, caused by their fears, that they left behind them all their heavy artillery, and a large quantity of stores. Clinton sailed for the South at the close of the year [December 25], with about five thousand troops, to open a vigorous campaign in the Carolinas. Washington, in the mean while, had gone into winter quarters at Morristown,' where his troops suffered terribly from the severity of the cold, and the lack of provisions, clothing, and shelter.' Strong detachments were also stationed among the Hudson Highlands, and the cavalry were cantoned in Connecticut.

During this fifth year [1779] of the war for Independence, difficulties had gathered thick and fast around Great Britain. Spain had declared war against her' on the 16th of June, and a powerful French and Spanish naval armament had attempted to effect an invasion of England in August. American and French cruisers now became numerous and quite powerful, and were hovering around her coasts; and in September, the intrepid John Paul Jones' had conquered two of her proud ships of war, after one of the most desperate

'Page 286.

2 Page 269.

Dr. Thacher, in his Military Journal, says, "The sufferings of the poor soldiers can scarcely be described; while on duty they are unavoidably exposed to all the inclemency of storms and severe cold; at night, they now have a bed of straw upon the ground, and a single blanket to each man; they are badly clad, and some are destitute of shoes. We have contrived a kind of stone chimney outside, and an opening at one end of our tents gives us the benefit of the fire within. The snow is now [January 6th, 1780] from four to six feet deep, which so obstructs the roads as to prevent our receiving a supply of provisions. For the last ten days we have received but two pounds of meat a man, and we are frequently for six or eight days entirely destitute of meat, and then as long without bread. The consequence is, the soldiers are so enfeebled from hunger and cold as to be almost unable to perform their military duty, or labor in constructing their huts. It is well known that General Washington experiences the greatest solicitude for the suffering of his army, and is sensible that they, in general, conduct with heroic patience and fortitude." In a private letter to a friend, Washington said, "We have had the virtue and patience of the army put to the severest trial. Sometimes it has been five or six days together without bread, at other times as many without meat, and once for two or three days at a time without either. At one time the soldiers ate every kind of horse food but hay. Buckwheat, common wheat, rye, and Indian corn composed the meal which made their bread. As an army, they bore it with the most heroic patience; but sufferings like these, accompanied by the want of clothes, blankets, &c., will produce frequent desertions in all armies; and so it happened with us, though it did not excite a single mutiny."

4

*

* *

Hoping to regain Gibraltar, Jamaica, and the two Floridas, which Great Britain had taken from her, Spain made a secret treaty of peace with France in April, 1779, and in June declared war against Great Britain. This event was regarded as highly favorable to the Americans, because any thing that should cripple England, would aid them.

5 John Paul Jones was born in Scotland in 1747, and came to Virginia in boyhood. He entered the American naval service in 1775, and was active during the whole war. He was afterward very active in the Russian service, against the Turks, in the Black Sea, and was created rear-admiral in the Russian navy. He died in Paris in 1782.