In reprisal
for earlier acts on the other side, the victors insulted the dead
body of Ferguson and hanged nine of their prisoners on the limb
of a great tulip tree. Then the improvised army scattered.*
* See Chapter IX, "Pioneers of the Old Southwest", by Constance
Lindsay Skinner in "The Chronicles of America."
While the conflict for supremacy in the South was still
uncertain, in the Northwest the Americans made a stroke destined
to have astounding results. Virginia had long coveted lands in
the valleys of the Ohio and the Mississippi. It was in this
region that Washington had first seen active service, helping to
wrest that land from France. The country was wild. There was
almost no settlement; but over a few forts on the upper
Mississippi and in the regions lying eastward to the Detroit
River there was that flicker of a red flag which meant that the
Northwest was under British rule. George Rogers Clark, like
Washington a Virginian land surveyor, was a strong, reckless,
brave frontiersman. Early in 1778 Virginia gave him a small sum
of money, made him a lieutenant colonel, and authorized him to
raise troops for a western adventure. He had less than two
hundred men when he appeared a little later at Kaskaskia near the
Mississippi in what is now Illinois and captured the small
British garrison, with the friendly consent of the French
settlers about the fort.
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