Fort Vincennes was a British fort located in the Ohio River Valley. It was built to guard the frontier after the French and Indian War. During the Revolutionary War, Lt. Col. George Rogers Clark (older brother of William Clark of Lewis and Clark fame) was determined to take the Ohio River Valley for the future United States. When he learned that Lt. Governor Henry Hamilton had taken command of the fort, Clark knew he could not give him time to expand British power in the area. He was also motivated by the desire to take on the notorious “Hair-Buyer” Hamilton who had a reputation for buying scalps from the Indians. Although it was still winter, he set out from Kaskaskia with 172 American and French militia. They left on Feb. 6, 1779. The journey was 180 miles, much of it wading through water. Food ran short and the men threatened to desert, but the leadership of Clark kept them going until they arrived in the town of Vincennes on Feb. 23. The next day, Clark’s men opened fire on the fort and demanded its surrender. Hamilton refused. Clark made his force seem much larger by marching his men with just flags in view to make it seem he had many more. And he showed Hamilton what would happen if the fort was taken by force. A war party of French and Indians was ambushed on its way back to the fort. Four Indians were captured. Clark had them brought to kneel before the fort and then they were tomahawked and scalped. Message received. Hamilton surrendered the fort the next day. It was renamed Fort Patrick Henry. Clark had suffered no casualties, but when a cannon was fired in the fort to celebrate the win, it exploded and killed or wounded five men. One of the dead was Clark’s second-in-command Joseph Bowman. The cannon had been sabotaged by the British. The capture of Vincennes was a factor in Great Britain ceding the Northwest Territory as part of the Treaty of Paris.
https://www.battlefields.org/learn/revolutionary-war/battles/vincennes
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Fort_Vincennes
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