George Rogers Clark (1752-1818) led four victorious campaigns
against the Indians and British in the Ohio Valley during the
American Revolution, but his most astonishing coup was recapturing
Fort Sackville in 1779, when he was only twenty-six. For eighteen
days, in the dead of winter, Clark and his troops marched through
bone-chilling nights to reach the fort. With a deft mix of guile
and violence, Clark led his men to triumph, without losing a single
soldier. Although historians have ranked him among the greatest
rebel commanders, Clark's name is all but forgotten today. William
R. Nester resurrects the story of Clark's triumphs and his downfall
in this, the first full biography of the man in more than fifty
years. Nester attributes Clark's successes to his drive and daring,
good luck, charisma, and intellect. Born of a distinguished
Virginia family, Clark wielded an acute understanding of human
nature, both as a commander and as a diplomat. His interest in the
natural world was an inspiration to lifelong friend Thomas
Jefferson, who asked him in 1784 to lead a cross-country expedition
to the Pacific and back. Clark turned Jefferson down. Two decades
later, his youngest brother, William, would become the Clark
celebrated as a member of the Corps of Discovery. By the beginning
of the nineteenth century, though, George Rogers Clark may not have
been fit to command any expedition. After the revolution, he raged
against the government and pledged fealty to other nations, leading
to his arrest under the Sedition Act. The inner demons that fueled
Clark's anger also drove him to excessive drinking. He died at the
age of sixty-five, bitter, crippled, and alcoholic. He was, Nester
shows, a self-destructive hero: a volatile, multidimensional man
whose glorying in war ultimately engaged him in conflicts far
removed from the battlefield and against himself.
General
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