Illinois campaign
| Illinois Campaign | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part of the American Revolutionary War | |||||||||
 The Fall of Fort Sackville, Frederick C. Yohn, 1923 |
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| Belligerents | |||||||||
 Illinois Regiment,Virginia State Forces |
 Great Britain,Detroit Militia, Native Americans |
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| Commanders and leaders | |||||||||
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George Rogers Clark, Joseph Bowman †, Leonard Helm |
Henry Hamilton (POW), Chevalier de Rocheblave (POW), Egushawa |
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| Strength | |||||||||
| 180 | 30 regulars, 60 Native Americans, 145 militia |
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The Illinois Campaign, also known as Clark's Northwestern Campaign (1778-1779), was a series of events during the American Revolutionary War in which a small force of Virginia militiamen, led by George Rogers Clark, seized control of several British posts in the Illinois Country, in what are now present-day Illinois and Indiana in the Midwestern United States. The campaign is the best-known action of the western theater of the war and the source of Clark's reputation as an early American military hero.
In July 1778, Clark and his men crossed the Ohio River from Kentucky and took control of Kaskaskia, Vincennes, and several other villages in British territory. The occupation was accomplished without firing a shot because most of the Canadien and Native American inhabitants, who peacefully co-existed with one another, were unwilling to take up arms on behalf of the British Empire. To counter Clark's advance, Henry Hamilton, the British lieutenant governor at Fort Detroit, reoccupied Vincennes with a small force. In February 1779, Clark returned to Vincennes in a surprise winter expedition and retook the town, capturing Hamilton in the process. Virginia capitalized on Clark's success by establishing the region as Illinois County, Virginia.
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Wikipedia