n8 The Winning of the West 



cennes. 50 Flat boats from the Illinois went down to 

 New Orleans, and keel-boats returned from that city 

 with arms and munitions, or were sent up to Pitts- 

 burg 51 ; and the following spring Clark built a fort 

 on the east bank of the Mississippi below the Ohio. 52 

 It was in the Chickasaw territory, and these war- 

 like Indians soon assaulted it, making a determined 

 effort to take it by storm, and though they were re- 

 pulsed with very heavy slaughter, yet, to purchase 

 their neutrality, the Americans were glad to aban- 

 don the fort. 



Clark himself, toward the end of 1779, took up 

 his abode at the Falls of the Ohio, where he served 

 in some sort as a shield both for the Illinois and for 

 Kentucky, and from whence he hoped some day to 

 march against Detroit. This was his darling scheme, 

 which he never ceased to cherish. Through no fault 

 of his own, the day never came when he could put 

 it in execution. 



50 State Department MSS. [Intercepted Letters], No. 51, 

 Vol. II, pp. 17 and 45. Letter of James Colbert, a half-breed 

 in the British interest, resident at that time among the Chicka- 

 saws, May 25, 1779, e ^ c - 



51 The history of the early navigation of the Ohio and Mis- 

 sissippi begins many years before the birth of any of our 

 Western pioneers, when the French went up and down them. 

 Long before the Revolutionary War occasional hunters, in 

 dugouts, or settlers going to Natchez in flat-boats, descended 

 these rivers, and from Pittsburg craft were sent to New Or- 

 leans to open negotiations with the Spaniards as soon as hos- 

 tilities broke out ; and ammunition was procured from New 

 Orleans as soon as Independence was declared. 



52 In Lat. 36 30'; it was named Fort Jefferson. Jefferson 

 MSS., ist Series, Vol. 19. Clark's letter. 



