y military solution to the western fighting were the old
rivalries among the states for control of the western lands. Virginia had
to establish county government in Kentucky in order to head off North
Carolinian Richard Henderson's bid for that region in 1776.
Pennsylvanians and Virginians still quarrelled over Pittsburgh and the
Upper Ohio. Aid from the Continental Congress was obstructed by the
claims of at least four states to Ohio and the jealousy of the landless
states toward the landed states.

Then in 1777 a 23 year-old Virginian, George Rogers Clark, found the
solution. Virginia should go it alone, raise and equip a small army of
riflemen, and in a lightening move take the Indiana and Illinois region
from the British. Clark reasoned that the British were trying to hold a
vast tract of land with a few troops, a handful of Tories, and the
Indians. The British posts at Kaskaskia, on the Mississippi, and
Vincennes, on the Wabash, were former French forts manned by men with no
allegiance to Britain. Clark's enthusiasm convinced Governor Henry and
the Council of State that victory was possible if the operation was
conducted secretly. Support from George Mason, Thomas Jefferson, and
George Wythe was solicited and gained. The assembly, without knowing the
purpose for the authorization, gave Clark permission to raise troops and
released the needed gunpowder.

In June 1778 Clark with 175 riflemen, far short of his hoped-for
complement, set out from the Falls of the Ohio (Louisville). The small
number can be attributed to the fact that the men, like the assembly, had
to sign-on without knowing their destiny. A few slipped away after they
learned Clark's true plans. Those who stayed were dedicated warriors. On
July 4, after floating down the Ohio, Clark's men appeared outside
Kaskaskia. The fort surrendered without a shot being fired. As Clark
suspected, the French inhabitants welcomed the Americans. On July 6
another former French town, Cahokia, 60 miles northward, capitulated. And
on July 14 Frenchmen from Kaskaskia persuaded their fellow countrymen at
Fort Sackville in Vincennes to surrender. On August 1 Clark occupied the
fort.

Clark's plan had worked to perfection. But he was now faced with the same
problem which had enabled him to seize the region--he could not hold
three forts scattered over several hundred miles (Vincennes is 180 miles
east of Kaskaskia). Therefore, when Governor Hamilton moved south from
Detroi