Note 8 — INTRODUCTION

A footnote cannot do justice to the services of General George Rogers Clark in Western history. Born in Albemarle County, Virginia (1752), he became a surveyor on the upper Ohio. Serving in Dunmore's campaign in 1774, the following year he settled in Kentucky. Returning to Virginia to urge upon the legislature the conquest of the Illinois territory, he was made a lieutenant-colonel and authorized to raise troops for the undertaking. June 24, 1778, he set out from the Falls of the Ohio, upon his memorable campaign, capturing Kaskaskia July 4, and Vincennes the following February. See Thwaites, How George Rogers Clark won the Northwest, etc. (Chicago, 1903). The attack upon the Shawnee towns in 1782 was his last important work; an expedition up the Wabash against Detroit, was undertaken in 1786; but part of the troops mutinied, and Clark was forced to turn back before reaching his destination. He died at his sister's home, "Locust Grove," near Louisville, in February, 1818.—Ed.