hey had a number of forts in the Wilderness,[1] as that part of the
country was then called. One of these forts was at Detroit,[2] in
what is now Michigan; another was at Vincennes,[3] in what is now
Indiana; a third fort was at Kaskaskia,[4] in what is now Illinois.

[Illustration: Map showing the Forts at Detroit, Kaskaskia, and
Vincennes, with the line of Clark's march.]

Colonel Hamilton, the British commander at Detroit, was determined
to drive the American settlers out of the west. In the beginning of
the Revolution the Americans resolved to hire the Indians to fight
for them, but the British found that they could hire them better than
we could, and so they got their help. The savages did their work in
a terribly cruel way. Generally they did not come out and do battle
openly, but they crept up secretly, by night, and attacked the
farmers' homes. They killed and scalped the settlers in the west,
burned their log cabins, and carried off the women and children
prisoners. The greater part of the people in England hated this sort
of war. They begged the king not to hire the Indians to do these
horrible deeds of murder and destruction. George the Third was not
a bad-hearted man; but he was very set in his way, and he had fully
made up his mind to conquer the "American rebels," as he called them,
even if he had to get the savages to help him do it.

[Footnote 1: See map in paragraph 187.]

[Footnote 2: Detroit (De-troit'): for these forts see map in this
paragraph.]

[Footnote 3: Vincennes (Vin-senz').]

[Footnote 4: Kaskaskia (Kas-kas'ki-a).]

162. George Rogers Clark gets help from Virginia and starts to attack
Fort Kaskaskia.--Daniel Boone had a friend in Virginia named George
Rogers Clark,[5] who believed that he could take the British forts
in the west and drive out the British from all that part of the country.
Virginia then owned most of the Wilderness. For this reason Clark
went to Patrick Henry, governor of Virginia, and asked for help. The
governor liked the plan, and let Clark have money to hire men to go
with him and try to take Fort Kaskaskia to begin with.

Clark started in the spring of 1778 with about a hundred and fifty
men. They built boats just above Pittsburg[6] and floated down the
Ohio River, a distance of over nine hundred miles. Then they landed
in what is now Illinois, and set out for Fort Kaskaskia.[7]

[Footnote 5: George Rogers Clark was born near Monticello, Virginia.
See map in