True heroes of the Revolutionary War were not too hard to find—several of them signed their names to the Declaration of Independence right where King George could have easily found them had the British won the war.
Many true Revolutionary War heroes participated in the better-known events of the war, but others fought in areas far from the glory of the battles along the Atlantic coast in the 13 original colonies.
While these lesser-known struggles may not have been as glorious or as celebrated as their eastern counterparts, and certainly not as well known, they were no less important.
One of the men who fought the war in arguably the most important of these little-known areas, the West (today’s Midwest), was George Rogers Clark. Clark was not only heroic, he was a true hero of the Revolutionary War.
Clark came from an old-line Virginia family in which heroism apparently was endemic. His brother William would one day accompany Meriweather Lewis to the Pacific Ocean in the famous Lewis and Clark expedition.
George Rogers was young when the Revolution began. He had served as a 22-year-old volunteer in Lord Dunmore’s War against the western native tribes in 1774 and was working as a surveyor in what is today Kentucky and West Virginia when the Revolution broke out in 1776.
Clark felt the destructive British-inspired Native American raids against Virginia’s sparse and vulnerable western settlements could only be stopped by striking at the source – British trading and supply bases in the Illinois Country, the area north and west of the Ohio River and mostly west of the Wabash River.
Primarily through his urging, Virginia’s governor, Patrick Henry, funded an expedition to take the Illinois Country from the British. Clark was appointed lieutenant colonel in command of the small force.
In 1778, Clark led his rag-tag bunch of about 175 Virginia militia down the Ohio River. At the ruins of Fort Massac, constructed in what’s now Illinois by the French during the French and Indian War near the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers, Clark’s soldiers left the river and marched across the tip of Illinois to Kaskaskia.
The old capital of colonial Illinois was taken without a firing a shot on July 4, 1778, and Illinois and the rest of the old Northwest (the area north and west of the Ohio River) was secured for the United States.
In the weeks following Kaskaskia’s capture, French towns at Cahokia, Prairie du Rocher, and Vincennes surrendered to the Americans.
Clark immediately began working on public relations with Illinois’ French inhabitants, quickly turning them into converts to the Revolutionary cause. In several councils with the Illinois Country’s indigenous tribes, Clark was able to negotiate the tribes’ neutrality in the conflict between the British and their former colonials.
Although the British were caught napping by Clark’s audacious invasion, they quickly responded. A counter attack by British Col. Henry Hamilton against Clark’s supply lines at Vincennes along the Wabash River in present-day Indiana was successful, but Clark’s quick and decisive counter to Hamilton’s move was even more so. It was the most decisive strategic victory of the Revolution in the West.
Enlisting many of his new French allies in Virginia’s cause, Clark left to attack Vincennes and its British garrison in February of 1779. The young Virginian marched his troops across the wet and frigid Illinois countryside, forded the Wabash River (which was about three miles wide due to flood conditions) and took Hamilton, ensconced in his comfortable fort, by complete surprise.
Since the British seldom fought in winter, Hamilton had imprudently sent the bulk of his troops home until spring. And although diminished, Hamilton’s forces still outnumbered Clark’s tiny army.
Deft use of psychological warfare and performative violence on the colonials’ part (along with accurate shooting with their Kentucky-Pennsylvania rifles) eventually saved the day for the Americans.
Capt. Leonard Helm of Virginia, who had been captured by Hamilton when Vincennes was taken, amused himself by regaling Hamilton and his officers with bloodcurdling tales of how Clark treated enemies who failed to surrender.
After Hamilton’s surrender he was sent back to Virginia as a prisoner of war.
Subsequently, the British made a few more ineffective, unsuccessful attempts at dislodging the Americans. Clark, through the use of diplomacy with Illinois’ resident Native American tribes, managed to keep them largely neutral from then on—including those living right here in what would one day become Kendall County.
Virginia had adopted Illinois as a county of the state in 1778, but in 1783 the area was ceded to the U.S. Government. It was found to be too far away for Virginia to administer and had become a financial and governmental liability by then.
Under the U.S. Government, Illinois, along with the rest of the huge area north and west of the Ohio River—it eventually comprised the states of Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois, Indiana and Ohio—was formed into the Northwest Territory. Illinois, under the terms of the ordinance, was established as a territory in its own right in 1809, and then with political chicanery that would envied by 21st Century politicians, Illinois became a full state of the union on Dec. 3, 1818.
This year, as the nation celebrates the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, we’ll be hearing a lot about Lexington and Concord and Boston and Paul Revere and William Dawes—if you already haven’t, watch Ken Burns’ excellent documentary on the war.
But keep in mind that revolutionary things were also happening during that period of time from, 1776 to 1783, not only in Illinois as a whole, but right here in Kendall County as well. It’s our Revolution, too.
This Saturday, April 18, I’ll be speaking at Oswego’s Little White School Museum about the earliest history of the Kendall County area, including what was going on here in 1776 up through the Civil War, starting at 1 p.m. Admission is $5, with proceeds benefiting the museum. You’re welcome to stop by and chat.
Interested in more local history?