Till the Extinction of This Rebellion: George Rogers Clark, Frontier Warfare, and the Illinois Campaign of 1778–1779

Kudos, Eric Sterner, kudos for shining a light on a long-neglected chapter of Illinois's history. Kudos for telling the story of George Rogers Clark's remarkable campaign to wrest the Illinois Country from British control. In the process, Sterner tweaked the revisionist view of Clark, restoring a bit of the luster on Clark's reputation following recent criticisms from several scholars on Clark's “explicit racism and the brutality of frontier warfare, almost as if they were the exclusive province of George Rogers Clark or his primary characteristics.” The revisionists criticisms resulted in the University of Virginia recently removing Clark's statue due to its less than flattering depiction of Native Americans. Sterner's book restores a more measured assessment of a very complicated man.Sterner takes us along with Clark as he led a tiny army on an unimaginably daunting journey down the Ohio River to the Mississippi River, then upstream to Kaskaskia before guiding his soldiers across southern Illinois. Anyone who reads this account will conclude that our forefathers were made of sterner stuff (no pun intended) than those of us today who live in the relative luxury of central heating, paved roads, and three squares a day, not to mention our ever-present cellphones equipping us with instant communication and GPS.At the heart of Sterner's book is his detailed narrative of Lieutenant Colonel Clark as he guided his men on a remarkable trek from Kaskaskia, Illinois, on the Mississippi River, to Vincennes, Indiana, on the Wabash River. It is a journey that Clark and an eclectic band of soldiers began on January 30, 1779, from Kaskaskia, deliberately avoiding what passed for the roads and trails of the day actually nothing more than deer tracks and Indian trails. Instead, Clark's band went overland, often wading through flooded terrain and carving their way through the underbrush despite frigid temperatures and all too frequent downpours. They traveled light, taking no shelter and very little food as they pushed across southern Illinois toward British occupied Vincennes and the adjacent Fort Sackville. Clack's force consisted of a polyglot band of approximately 170 soldiers, a group that reflected the complicated mix of languages and cultures of those who populated the Illinois Territory at that time, especially among those who lived along its rivers. At the core were Clark's Kentuckians, but the group also included Frenchmen, Spaniards and an ever-evolving collection of Native Americans, who were every bit as skilled as Clark in playing the French, Americans, and British against each other, always seeking their own advantage.While Sterner spends the last half of his book discussing Clark's Vincennes campaign, he takes pains to lay out in detail the situation that led to that audacious campaign. He includes a detailed description of the geography of the vast region “stretching from Pittsburg on the east to the Mississippi towns in the west, from the Kentucky settlements in the south to Detroit in the north” (p. 28). It was a region, in the words of English explorer Thomas Hutchins, “blessed with a more healthful air, or climate—watered with more navigable rivers, . . . or capable of producing with less labour and expense, Wheat, Indian Corn, Buck-wheat, Rye, Oats, barley, Flax, Hemp, Tobacco, Rice, Silk, Pot-ash &c., than the country under consideration” (p. 29). “In other words,” writes Sterner, “it was a land worth fighting for” (p. 29). The problem for Clark was not just that his hearty band of Americans thought that way, but so too did the French, English, and Native Americans.Populating that region was a hearty and diverse mix of Spaniards (on the western shores of the Mississippi), Frenchmen, Brits, who claimed the region as their own, and Black persons, both slaves and freemen. These people were concentrated in a handful of settlements carved out of the wilderness, almost all hugging the shores of one of the region's great rivers. But mostly the region, especially the interior, was populated by Native Americans belonging to a competing set of tribes and Indian nations, each with their own distinct dialect and culture, not to mention their own set of complicated alliances and divisions.Sterner then launches into the organization and launching of Clark's campaign. Consider this. The force he commanded in June 1778 when they first began their journey down the Ohio River toward the confluence with the Mississippi consisted, at its height, of a mere 175 Virginians, an infinitesimal force compared to the vastness of the Illinois Territory. They referred to themselves as “Virginians” because the Kentucky territory was still technically part of that state. Indeed, Clark received his instructions, such as they were, not from George Washington but from Virginia's governor, Patrick Henry.It is in the last half of the book where Sterner's story really soars. It is here that he details Clark's nonviolent conquest, first of the diverse settlement at Kaskaskia followed quickly by Cahokia, using both bluff and intimidation to convince the towns’ residents to surrender. He then sent Captain Leonard Helm, who led a handful of men, to Vincennes in August to ensure that settlement stayed in American hands.Sterner then turns his attention to the British side of the ledger, introducing readers to Lieutenant-Governor Henry Hamilton, the British officer who was tasked with reclaiming Vincennes and the adjacent Fort Sackville for the British crown. Hamilton accomplished that task in December 1778, then settled into the fort confident that no American force could possibly attack the outpost until the spring. But Lieutenant Colonel Clark was nothing if not audacious, and he began his march from Kaskaskia in January 1779.Woven throughout Sterner's book is a discussion of Clark's unique set of leadership and strategic skills—including his “charisma and intelligence” (p. 59). Clark was a master motivator, always conscious of maintaining morale, whether achieved by acting the buffoon or by threatening harsh punishments, especially during the worst periods of their journey across Illinois. Once they reached the Wabash, Clark used diplomacy to divide his foes, stripping away Hamilton's Native American allies who wavered in their loyalty. His diplomacy worked so well it convinced the residents of Kaskaskia and Cahokia to turn their town over to the invaders without a shot being fired. Clark then treated the residents humanely, allowing them a moderate amount of self-government after they acquiesced. He masterfully employed deception to hide the size of his “army” during his siege of Vincennes, tricking the British into believing his army exceeded the defender's own forces, despite the fact the Virginians were initially significantly outnumbered. And Clark was not hesitant to use shows of ruthless brutality when that served his purposes—demoralizing his foes and undermining their resistance. It was a type of brutality that would be condemned today but was all too common in the Illinois Territory, whether practiced by Americans, Brits or Native Americans.If there is a shortcoming of the book, it is the absence of information tying what Clark and his tiny army accomplished to the larger context of the American Revolution. That oversight could lead readers to search for that information themselves. But Sterner is otherwise deserving of our thanks for shining a new light on a remarkable American hero, flaws and all.