The force kept at the post numbered only about
eighty or ninety whites, with a few Indians.
Clark now had at Kaskaskia a band of slightly over a hundred men.
He understood Hamilton's army to number five or six hundred. The
outlook was dubious, until Francois Vigo, a friendly Spanish
trader of St. Louis, escaping captivity at Vincennes, came to
Kaskaskia with the information that Hamilton had sent away most
of his troops; and this welcome news gave the doughty Kentuckian
a brilliant idea. He would defend his post by attacking the
invaders while they were yet at Vincennes, and before they were
ready to resume operations. "The case is desperate," he wrote to
Governor Henry, "but, sir, we must either quit the country or
attack Mr. Hamilton." He had probably never heard of Scipio
Africanus but, like that indomitable Roman, he proposed to carry
the war straight into the enemy's country. "There were
undoubtedly appalling difficulties," says Mr. Roosevelt, "in the
way of a midwinter march and attack; and the fact that Clark
attempted and performed the feat which Hamilton dared not try,
marks just the difference between a man of genius and a good,
brave, ordinary commander.
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