most singular in the history of the West. We may well believe Clark refers particularly to the two French companies which composed a most important arm of his force—the Virginians, perhaps, not needing equal inspiration to endeavor. The climax in Clark’s diplomacy was reached as he now approached the flood-tides of the raging Little Wabash.

It is necessary here to emphasize that the army, turning eastward just north of present Nashville, abandoned the watershed to which their path had thus far held; the route now was nearly due east, across the tributaries of the Little Wabash. Of these, Petit Fork (Adams tributary of the Skillet) was the first to be encountered; it was passed with great heroism on the tenth of February. On the eleventh the eastward route was followed and the Saline River (Skillet Creek) was crossed. Bowman’s record reads: “11th. Crossed the Saline river. Nothing extraordinary this day.” The route between the Skillet and Little Wabash may have been either one of the two courses mentioned, not over five miles apart, and running parallel to each other. The northern passed through the southern portion of Clay County, the southern through the northern portion of Wayne. There were two encampments between the Petit Fork and the Little Wabash; if the northern route was pursued, these camps were near Xenia and Clay City in Wayne County; if the southern route was followed, the camps were near Blue Point and Mount Erie in Wayne County. Bowman’s record for the twelfth is: “12th. Marched across Cot plains;[35] saw and killed numbers of buffaloes. The road very bad from the immense quantity of rain that had fallen. The men much fatigued. Encamped on the edge of the woods. This plain or meadow being fifteen or more miles across, it was late in the night before the baggage and troops got together. Now twenty- [forty-] one miles from St. Vincent. 13th. Arrived early at the two Wabashes. Although a league asunder, they now made but one. We set to making a canoe.” Clark’s records of the arrival at the Little Wabash read (from his Memoir): “This place is called the two Little Wabashes; they are three miles apart and from the Heights of the one to that of the other on the opposite shores is five miles the whole under water gen^ly about three feet Deep never under two and frequently four;” (from Letter to Mason) “Arriving at the two Little Wabashes, although three miles asunder—they now make but one—the flowed water between them being at least three feet deep and in many places four. Being near five miles to the opposite hills, the shallowest place, except about one hundred yards, was three feet.” So far as these records go, either the Clay or the Wayne County route might have been that pursued. The long prairie of which Bowman speaks would have been, on the Clay County route, “Twelve Mile Prairie” situated between the present towns on the Baltimore and Ohio Southwestern Railway, Xenia and Clay City; on the Wayne County route it would have been “Long Prairie” lying between Blue Point and Mount Erie. The “two Wabashes” on the Clay County route would have been the Little Wabash River and the Big Muddy Creek. By the Wayne County route the two Wabashes would have been the Little Wabash and Fox River.

The indefatigable Lyman C. Draper, after a large correspondence with many of the best informed men in Illinois on the subject of the crossing-place of the Little Wabash, came to the firm conclusion that the two Wabashes were the Little Wabash and the Fox; the present writer after studying that correspondence and visiting the ground in question—which Mr. Draper did not find time to do—quite as firmly believes that the crossing-place was above the junction of the Little Wabash and Big Muddy Creek at the old McCauley’s settlement—in the southeast corner of section 21 of Clay County, range 8E, two miles east of old Maysville, which was three-fourths of a mile south of the present Clay City station on the Baltimore and Ohio Southwestern Railway. By this upper route Clark would have been on higher ground before and after crossing the Little Wabash. It is quite sure his party passed a salt spring (see p. 66) and the only one in this region was on this upper route. And finally, Bowman states that on the day after crossing the Little Wabash the party crossed the Fox River. This could not have been possible if the Little Wabash and Fox were crossed simultaneously. But even a slight discussion of the question may well be relegated to an appendix.[36] At either crossing-place, and the two are but a few miles apart, a most desperate situation confronted the intrepid Clark and his tired band of invaders.

“... I Viewed this Sheet of water for some time with Distrust,” Clark wrote in his Memoir, “but accusing myself of Doubting I amediately Set to work without holding any consultation about it or suffering anybody else to do so in my presence ordered a perogue amediately built and acted as though crossing the water would be only a piece of diversion.... My aneziety [anxiety] to cross this place continually increased as I saw that it would at once fling us into a situation of folorn hope as all Ideas of a Retreat would in some Measure be done away that if the Men began after this was accomplished to think seriously of what they had really suffered that they prefer^d Risking any seeming difficulty that might probably turn out favourable than to attempt to Retreat when they would be certain of Experiencing what they had already felt and if the weather should but Freeze altogether impracticable, except the Ice would bear them.” The heroism of Clark’s crossing of the Little Wabash has been retold on a thousand pages but it has rarely been suggested that he hurried into these dangers eagerly because they would serve to thwart any hope of retreat. He not only “burned his bridges,” but hastened impetuously across waters that could never be bridged, in the hope that they would freeze and cut off all dreams of retreat. This memoir, let it again be remarked, was written many years after the event—after Clark saw his great feat somewhat in the light we see it today. His letter to Mason, however, was written in the same year that the march was made; if not so self-laudatory, it is as interesting as the memoir, and perhaps more authentic. He thus described the crossing in that document: “This [flood] would have been enough to have stopped any set of men not in the same temper that we were. But in three days we contrived to cross by building a large canoe, ferried across the two channels; the rest of the way we waded, building scaffolds at each to lodge our baggage on until the horses crossed to take them.” Bowman’s record is that of the soldier: “14th. Finished the canoe and put her into the river about 4 o’clock in the afternoon. 15th. Ferried across the two Wabashes, it being then five miles in water to the opposite hills, where we encamped. Still raining. Orders not to fire any guns for the future, but in case of necessity.”

When, near Olney, Clark’s men crossed the Fox River on the 16th of February, it is probable that they camped on what is now the St. Louis Trace Road on one of the northeastern tributaries of the Fox. The day after, an