George Rogers Clark

Uncommon card · No. 127452

George Rogers Clark (November 19, 1752 – February 13, 1818) was an American military officer and surveyor from Virginia who became the highest-ranking Patriot military officer on the northwestern frontier during the Revolutionary War. He served as leader of the Virginia militia in Kentucky (then part of Virginia) throughout much of the war, and is credited for founding Louisville, Kentucky in 1778. He is best known for his captures of Kaskaskia, Illinois, in 1778 and Vincennes, Indiana, in 1779 during the Illinois campaign, which greatly weakened British influence in the Northwest Territory (then part of the British Province of Quebec) and earned Clark the nickname "Conqueror of the Old Northwest". The British ceded the entire Northwest Territory to the United States in the 1783 Treaty of Paris. Clark's major military achievements occurred before his thirtieth birthday. Afterward, he led militia forces in the opening engagements of the Northwest Indian War, but was accused of being drunk...

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