The little American garrison was unable to oppose such a force and was
compelled to surrender. Instead of pushing on against Clark at
Kaskaskia, Hamilton disbanded his Indians and sent some of his troops
back to Detroit, and prepared to spend the winter at Vincennes. He
repaired the fort, strengthened the defenses, and then sat down for the
winter, confident that when spring came, he would again be master of the
whole Illinois country.
Clark, at Kaskaskia, realized that it was a question of his taking the
British or the British taking him, and that, if he waited for spring, he
would have no chance at all; so he gathered together the pick of his
men, one hundred and seventy all told, and early in February, 1779, set
out for Vincennes. The task before him was to capture a force nearly
equal to his own, protected by a strong fort well supplied for a siege.
At first the journey was easy enough, for they passed across the snowy
Illinois prairies, broken occasionally by great stretches of woodland,
but when they reached the drowned lands of the Wabash, the march became
almost incredibly difficult. The ice had just broken up and everything
was flooded; heavy rains set in, and when the men were not wading
through icy water, they were struggling through mud nearly knee-deep.
After twelve days of this, they came to the bank of the Embarass river,
only to find the country all under water, save one little hillock, where
they spent the night without food or fire.
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