Col. Clark and his "long knives": with fewer than 200 men, Col. George Rogers Clark conquered much of the American West during the War for Independence. And he did it without losing a single man.

Colonel George Rogers Clark had led his Kentucky riflemen 170 miles across the marshes of southern Illinois toward a planned assault on the British Fort of Sackville in the village of Vincennes, on the banks of the Wabash River in present-day Indiana. Now, on the morning of February 22, 1779, his rag-tag army of just 172 arose from sleep after four days without food rations. "My object now was to keep the men in spirits through incredible difficulties," Clark reported in his journal, "far surpassing anything that any of us had ever experienced." Earlier in the march he had done so by giving them leave to hunt bison and deer for meals. But the days of wild game had long gone as they arrived on the flood-plain of the Wabash. That morning Clark led his men on a fifth day of marching without food, which he described as "five miles, the whole under water, generally three feet deep, never under two, and frequently four."

Marching in waist-deep water is an inconvenience in any season or location, but in February in Illinois, the cold of the water could cause life-threatening exposure. Fortunately for the little band of "long knives," as they called themselves, the winter of 1778-79 had been a mild one.

Clark tested the water first: "I went in her myself and sounded the water; found it deep as to my neck." Clark ordered his men to fall in and march through the water, the flood plain of the Wabash River. "Every eye was fixed on me," Clark wrote in his journal of the march. He noted that he had made the mistake of talking seriously with one of his officers, but recovered well by leading by example. "I viewed their confusion for about one minute, whispered to those near me to do as I did, immediately put some water in my hand, poured on powder, blackened my face, gave the warhoop and marched into the water, without saying a word."

Clark knew his march was on the verge of disaster, but held onto that characteristic outward optimism that had already caused him to capture a whole chain of British forts without firing a shot. "I conducted myself in such a manner that caused the whole to believe that I had no doubt of success, which kept their spirits up."

Clark, armed with news of the French alliance, had won over French settlements in Illinois up and down the Mississippi the past summer, and had negotiated peace treaties with many Indian chieftains. He did not lose a man during his summer campaign in 1778, and all of the Illinois and Indiana territory had fallen into American hands. Only a counteroffensive by British military Lieutenant Governor Henry Hamilton to recapture Vincennes on the Wabash River threatened this progress.

Clark's display of fortitude played well with the Kentucky riflemen that day. "[T]hey really began to think themselves superior to other men, and that neither the rivers nor the seasons could stop their progress. Their whole conversation was concerning what they would do when they got about the enemy."

But, throughout his eight-month campaign, the 27-year-old officer's outward confidence was partly for show. Victory was far from certain. "All this was no doubt pleasing to those of us who had more serious thoughts," he later wrote in his journal. "We were now, as it were, in the enemy's country--no possibility of a retreat if the enemy should discover and overpower us, except by means of our galley, if we should fall in with her."

Clark's gunboat galley was his only chance at resupply, and a meager chance at that. Before he began the march on February 6, he had ordered a single company of 50 riflemen to man a gunboat and sail down the Mississippi and up the Ohio and Wabash Rivers to meet them at Vincennes, where Ft. Sackville was located. And the gunboat, which had all of Clark's cannon and most of his gunpowder, didn't arrive until alter the campaign was over.

Clark's Kentucky riflemen, along with some French militia volunteers, had not eaten since February 17, except for a deer shot on February 20. They were almost out of ammunition, and would face a well-supplied British enemy more than twice their number, within an enclosed fort supported by cannon.

Clark's key officer, Major Joseph Bowman, noted that only the thought of what would happen should they fail drove them onward: "Never were men so animated with the thought of avenging the wrongs done to their back settlements as this small army was."

What Was at Stake

No one knew the stakes of this contest better than the men of Kentucky. The British government had closed the West to settlement after the French and Indian War, but desperate settlers on the run from the law or eager to strike out on their own settled there anyway. The British viewed these settlers as nothing more than trespassers.

The settlers rarely mixed well with the Indians who lived there. The Indian tribes in that territory--the Fox, Shawnee, Chippewa, Delaware, Cherokee and Miami--knew they could coexist with the French fur traders and tolerated the English redcoats. But they disliked the frontiersmen who brought the axe and plow to clear forest land for their farms; these were the same lands where Indians hunted.

Armed and supplied by the British base in Detroit, Indian tribes marauded up and down the frontier as far south as the Carolinas. Clark noted in his journal that frontier fighting during the War for Independence was a life and death struggle for Indians and frontiersmen alike. Neither side observed the rules of warfare conducted in more civilized regions.

Clark noted in his memoirs that in Kentucky alone "upwards of two thousand souls have perished on our soil" in almost as many small guerrilla-style engagements during the war years. "No people could have been in a more alarming situation," Clark observed, explaining that his men were "at least 200 miles from the nearest settlements of the states, surrounded by numerous nations of Indians, each one far superior to ourselves in numbers and under the influence of the British government and pointedly directed to destroy us, as appeared by instruments of writing left on the back of people killed."

The frontier lands of Kentucky, Indiana, Illinois and Ohio comprised almost a second front against the Americans during the early part of the war. The British military governor, Lt. Colonel Henry Hamilton, had indeed armed the Indian nations and had been given the title "hair-buyer" by those who had settled on the western side of the Appalachians. He was widely, but falsely, believed to have offered bounties for white men's scalps during the war. Militias formed along the frontiers of the states often refused to march outside of their counties, for fear their homes and loved ones would be put to the torch and the tomahawk. But the murder and plunder of the British-supplied Indians also worked in the Americans' favor by hardening the resolve of the settlers in favor of independence.

Leading by Example

The evening of February 22 was the coldest of the winter, and when Clark's men awoke they found a crust of ice on the water between half and three-quarters of an inch thick. Again Clark had to motivate his men to march into the icy water. Major Joseph Bowman wrote in his journal that "here we expected some of our brave men must certainly perish, having frozen in the night, and so long fasting." The warm morning sun quickly melted the ice, but again some of the men grumbled, and a few of the French militia volunteers talked openly about quitting the campaign.

Clark led again by example. He reported in his journal that he "immediately stepped into the water without waiting for any reply. A huzza took place. We generally marched through the water in a line, it was much easiest." And to make sure he didn't lose any soldiers, he sent Bowman to the rear with 25 loyal Kentucky men with orders to shoot anyone who turned back.

Clark used the handful of canoes he had brought with him to ferry the wounded and supplies, and he quietly ordered some stronger men to march ahead of the main body and bring back tidings of dry land as they approached the woods. "This stratagem had its desired effect," Clark reported. "The men, encouraged by it, exerted themselves almost beyond their abilities--the weak holding by the stronger, and frequently one with two others' help." Despite the ruse, Clark reported: "The water never got shallower, but continued deepening--even when getting to the woods, where the men expected land."

After four more miles of slogging through the icy water, Clark's men landed on high ground in view of the town. He sent a patrol to capture some duck hunters in nearby marshes. The patrol returned with a single French prisoner who revealed grave news. Hamilton's forces, reinforced by 200 Indians, had just completed 11-foot-high wooden stockade walls. The only encouraging news the prisoner brought was that the loyalty of some of the Indians was suspect, and that Clark still retained the advantage of surprise.

The Great Bluff

Though outnumbered by more than two to one, Clark knew that his starving "long knives" would not improve their position by waiting. They could be discovered at any time by the British, and they were in territory occupied by hostile Indian tribes. "We knew that nothing but the most daring conduct would insure success," he wrote in his journal, and the young officer proceeded to break every rule of military warfare.

Clark acted without the reinforcements from the missing galley ship and gave up his sole advantage of surprise by deciding instead to hatch a bluff of incredible proportions. He sent the prisoner off with a letter stating that he would soon occupy the fort. Citizens loyal to the United States or those unwilling to suffer for England, he wrote, should stay in their homes and away from the fort, "for every person found under arms, on my arrival, will be treated as an enemy." He gave every impression to the prisoner that he had an army of 1,000 which had arrived from Kentucky rather than Illinois, and prevented the prisoner from seeing the totality of his force.

Clark then ordered his men to pull out their drums and banners and march into the town just before sundown. Taking advantage of hilly ground, he had his men march around and around to reinforce the bluff that he had many times his actual number, and that this number was only the advance guard of a larger force.

Clark's "long knives" even separated into small groups as they marched through the deserted streets of the town, unharassed, increasing the impression that a large force had arrived.

"We were flinging ourselves into certain destruction--or success; there was no midway thought of," Clark wrote. The desperate gamble was that most of Hamilton's tepid allies would melt away in the face of a supposedly overwhelming force. Had the bluff failed, the superior British force could have cut apart Clark's divided forces and chased down the starving survivors in the river plain.

The gamble paid off. Nearly all of Hamilton's Indian allies fled, and many of the Frenchmen stayed in their homes in town--outside the fort. Some of the French even helped the Americans by showing them secret powder stores and giving them more powder and ball than they needed.

Upon arriving in town, Clark immediately dispatched his men on patrols to surround the fort, and he told a lieutenant to use a mere 14-man squad to begin digging entrenchments for the siege against the fort. Again, had Hamilton been aware of the light force being thrown against him, he could easily have crushed the Americans with a counterattack.

Clark's men now outnumbered the 100 or so defenders who stuck with Hamilton. But the British possessed cannon and an 11-foot stockade fence to hide behind--and also harbored realistic hopes of reinforcements from friendly Indians. And Clark's men were mere backwoods riflemen, neither trained in siege tactics nor possessing the cannon needed for a successful siege.

On the morning of February 23, the siege began, but the fort's cannon fired harmlessly against the entrenchments and no Americans were killed. On the other hand, Clark's riflemen, with their accurate Kentucky long rifles, shot into the artillery ports, cutting Hamilton's artillerymen to pieces whenever they tried to get a cannon shot off. Clark noted that the cannon ports were "so badly cut that many of our troops lay under the fire of them within twenty or thirty yards of the walls" of the fort. He added that the cannon "did no damage, except to the buildings of the town."

Clark continued to have entrenchments dug around the fort, hoping that his galley would soon arrive with cannon and reinforcements. Though the galley did not arrive in time to contribute to the fight, Clark's actions gave Hamilton the impression that the tide of battle was about to swing wildly against him. Hamilton sued for peace on his terms, but Clark insisted on unconditional surrender with his usual pretensions of greater strength than he actually possessed. The following day, Hamilton surrendered his entire garrison, becoming a prisoner of war until exchanged in 1781. Hamilton called Clark's military feat "unequalled perhaps in history."

Hamilton's surrender decapitated the British war effort in the West and demonstrated the strength of the Americans to the Indian tribes. Though the British held onto their Detroit fort until the end of the war, their power in the West had been broken by the determination and sheer daring of Clark and his "long knives."

Clark's daring campaign is still celebrated in Indiana as the most significant event in state history, and a monument to Clark and the "long knives" stands at Vincennes on the banks of the Wabash River today.