ts [Footnote: State Department MSS. Letters to Washington, Vol.
33, p. 90. "A Journal of Col. G. R. Clark. Proceedings from the 29th
Jan'y 1779 to the 26th March Inst." [by Captain Bowman]. This journal
has been known for a long time. The original is supposed to have been
lost; but either this is it or else it is a contemporary MS. copy. In
the "Campaign in the Illinois" (Cincinnati, Robert Clarke and Co.,
1869), p. 99, there is a printed copy of the original. The Washington
MS. differs from it in one or two particulars. Thus, the printed diary
in the "Campaign," on p. 99, line 3, says "fifty volunteers"; the MS.
copy says "50 French volunteers." Line 5 in the printed copy says "and
such other Americans"; in the MS. it says "and several other Americans."
Lines 6 and 7 of the printed copy read as follows in the MS. (but only
make doubtful sense): "These with a number of horses designed for the
settlement of Kantuck &c. Jan. 30th, on which Col. Clark," etc. Lines 10
and 11 of the printed copy read in the MS.: "was let alone till spring
that he with his Indians would undoubtedly cut us all off." Lines 13 and
14, of the printed copy read in the MS. "Jan. 31st, sent an express to
Cahokia for volunteers. Nothing extraordinary this day."]; but at
nightfall they kindled huge camp-fires, and spent the evenings merrily
round the piles of blazing logs, in hunter fashion, feasting on bear's
ham and buffalo hump, elk saddle, venison haunch, and the breast of the
wild turkey, some singing of love and the chase and war, and others
dancing after the manner of the French trappers and wood-runners.

Thus they kept on, marching hard but gleefully and in good spirits until
after a week they came to the drowned lauds of the Wabash. They first
struck the two branches of the Little Wabash. Their channels were a
league apart, but the flood was so high that they now made one great
river five miles in width, the overflow of water being three feet deep
in the shallowest part of the plains between and alongside them.

Clark instantly started to build a pirogue; then crossing over the first
channel he put up a scaffold on the edge of the flooded plain. He
ferried his men over, and brought the baggage across and placed it on
the scaffold; then he swam the pack-horses over, loaded them as they
stood belly-deep in the water beside the scaffold, and marched his men
on through the water until they came to the second channel, which was
crossed as the fir