tantial reward.

The whole of the Illinois and Indiana country was now in American hands.
Tenure, however, was precarious so long as Detroit remained a British
stronghold, and Clark now broadened his plans to embrace the capture of
that strategic place. Leaving Vincennes in charge of a garrison of forty
men, he returned to Kaskaskia with the Willing and set about organizing
a new expedition. Kentucky pledged three hundred men, and Virginia
promised to help. But when, in midsummer, the commander returned to
Vincennes to consolidate and organize his force, he found the numbers to
be quite insufficient. From Kentucky there came only thirty men.

Disappointment followed disappointment; he was ordered to build a fort
at the mouth of the Ohio--a project of which he had himself approved;
and when at last he had under his command a force that might have been
adequate for the Detroit expedition, he was obliged to use it in meeting
a fresh incursion of savages which had been stirred up by the new
British commandant on the Lakes. But Thomas Jefferson, who in 1779
succeeded Henry as Governor of Virginia, was deeply interested in the
Detroit project, and at his suggestion Washington gave Clark an order on
the commandant of Fort Pitt for guns, supplies, and such troops as
could be spared. On January 22, 1781, Jefferson appointed Clark
"brigadier-general of the forces to be embodied on an expedition
westward of the Ohio." Again Clark was doomed to disappointment.
One obstacle after another interposed. Yet as late as May, 1781, the
expectant conqueror wrote to Washington that he had "not yet lost sight
of Detroit." Suitable opportunity for the expedition never came, and
when peace was declared the northern stronghold was still in British
hands.

Clark's later days were clouded. Although Virginia gave him six thousand
acres of land in southern Indiana and presented him with a sword, peace
left him without employment, and he was never able to adjust himself to
the changed situation. For many years he lived alone in a little
cabin on the banks of the Ohio, spending his time hunting, fishing, and
brooding over the failure of Congress to reward him in more substantial
manner for his services. He was land-poor, lonely, and embittered. In
1818 he died a paralyzed and helpless cripple. His resting place is
in Cave Hill Cemetery, Louisville; the finest statue of him stands in
Monument Circle, Indianapolis--"an athletic figure, scarcely past