The Life of George Rogers Clark

Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 1928. First Printing [Stated]. Hardcover. Good/No DJ present. xiii, [1],534 pages. Frontispiece. Illustrations. Maps. Footnotes. Bibliography. Index. Cover has some wear and soiling. Erasable pencil notations on fep. Minor moisture signs at bottom edge. James Alton James (17 September 1864, Jefferson, Wisconsin - 12 February 1962, Evanston, Illinois) was a United States educator and historian. He entered the University of Wisconsin, where he graduated as valedictorian with an LL.B. in 1888. He received a Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins University in 1893. He was professor of history in Cornell College, Iowa, 1893-97. He became a professor of history at Northwestern University in 1897, becoming professor emeritus in 1935. He was head of the history department for over two decades, and was also the chairman of the graduate student work at the university 1917-1931. He was a member of several educational and historical societies. George Rogers Clark (November 19, 1752 - February 13, 1818) was an American surveyor, soldier, and militia officer from Virginia who became the highest-ranking American patriot military officer on the northwestern frontier during the American Revolutionary War. He served as leader of the militia in Kentucky (then part of Virginia) throughout much of the war. He is best known for his captures of Kaskaskia (1778) and Vincennes (1779) during the Illinois Campaign, which greatly weakened British influence in the Northwest Territory. The British ceded the entire Northwest Territory to the United States in the 1783 Treaty of Paris, and Clark has often been hailed as the "Conqueror of the Old Northwest". Clark's major military achievements occurred before his thirtieth birthday. Afterward, he led militia in the opening engagements of the Northwest Indian War. During the final decades of his life, he was involved in two failed attempts to open the Spanish-controlled Mississippi River to American traffic. After suffering a stroke and the amputation of his right leg, he became an invalid. He was aided in his final years by family members, including his younger brother William, one of the leaders of the Lewis and Clark Expedition. He died of a stroke on February 13, 1818.