Note 1501 — Chapter IX

George Rogers Clark's own narratives furnish the most authentic information concerning his Illinois campaigns, three of which are accessible in print, as follow in the order of their dates: (1) Letter to the governor of Virginia, dated Kaskaskia, April 29, 1779, concerning his capture of Vincennes (in Jefferson's Writings, i. 222-226). (2) Letter to George Mason, dated Louisville, Falls of Ohio, November 19, 1779, which covers the period from setting out on his second visit to Virginia, in the autumn of 1777, to the end of his Vincennes campaign. It is printed from the original MS. in the Collections of the Hist. Soc. of Kentucky, with an introduction by Henry Pirtle; a biographical sketch of Clark; and the journal of Capt. (later Major) Joseph Bowman in the expedition against Vincennes. It is one of the Ohio Valley Series, Cincinnati, 1869, and is here quoted as Clark's Campaign. (3) "Memoirs composed by himself at the united desire of Presidents Jefferson and Madison", printed (with omissions and interpolations) in Dillon's Indiana (1843, pp. 127-184; and 2d ed., 1859, pp. 114-170). The second edition is here quoted. H. W. Beckwith used extracts from the same in his Historic Notes on the Northwest, pp. 245-259. It is the most extended of the three narratives. The original, with a large mass of other MSS. of, and relating to, Geo. Rogers Clark, is in the possession of Dr. Lyman C. Draper, of Madison, Wis. The date when it was written is not given; but it must have been written more than twelve years after the events occurred which it describes. Jefferson, writing March 7, 1791, to Col. James Innes, concerning Col. Clark, said: "We are made to hope he is engaged in writing the accounts of his expeditions north of the Ohio. They will be valuable morsels of history, and will justify to the world those who have told them how great he was" (Writings, iii. 218). Mann Butler's account of Clark's exploits (Hist. of Kentucky, pp. 35-88) is highly seasoned with popular traditions, and with incidents which are not consistent with Clark's own statements; and yet Butler has been more frequently quoted than the narratives of Clark. (4) The Canadian Archives, at Ottawa, has a journal of Clark, dated Vincennes, Feb. 24, 1779, the day of the surrender, which has never been printed nor quoted. (See report of Douglas Brymner, archivist, for 1882, p. 27, where an abstract of the report is given.) This is Clark's original report on his Vincennes campaign to the governor of Virginia. Three days after the surrender, a messenger arrived at Vincennes with despatches from the governor. On the 14th of March this messenger (whom Clark calls William Myres; Bowman, Mires; the Canadian Calendar, Moires; and Jefferson, Morris) was sent back to Williamsburg with letters to the governor. Near the Falls of the Ohio he was killed by the Indians, and the report of Clark, with nine other letters captured upon him, appear in the Haldimand Collection in the Canadian Archives. Clark, writing to Jefferson April 29th, mentions that he had heard of the killing of his messenger, "news very disagreeable to me, as I fear many of my letters will fall into the hands of the enemy at Detroit, although some of them, as I learn, were found in the woods, torn to pieces" (Jefferson's Writings, i. 222; see also Dillon, p. 159). Copies of these captured documents I have received from Ottawa. Clark's report is very interesting, and gives details of his interviews with Gov. Hamilton, while negotiating the surrender, which are omitted in his later narratives, and show that he treated Hamilton as if he believed he was responsible for the Indian barbarities inflicted upon the frontier settlers. (5) The report of Gov. Hamilton to Gen. Haldimand, July 6, 1781, which is an extended and detailed narrative of his expedition from Detroit to Vincennes in the autumn and early winter of 1778, of his capture by Clark, and of his long imprisonment in Virginia. He gives many facts and incidents which have not before appeared. He earnestly defends himself against the charges of cruelty made by Clark and the Virginia Assembly; and while admitting that, under instructions of his government, he sent out parties of Indians against the white settlements, he claims that he always gave the savages special instructions to be merciful, and that they obeyed him! This document, which has not been used by any writer, or been accessible until recently, is important, and is about the only statement we have giving the British view of the Vincennes campaign. With sixty other early manuscripts relating to the Northwest, it was kindly furnished to me by Mr. B. F. Stevens, of London, who copied it from the family papers of Lord George Germain. It now appears that it is also in the Haldimand Collection in the British Museum and in the Canadian Archives. It has lately been printed in the Michigan Pioneer Collections, ix. 489-516.