Kentucky pledged three hundred men, and Virginia promised to
help. But when, in midsummer, the commander returned to Vincennes
to consolidate and organize his force, he found the numbers to be
quite insufficient. From Kentucky there came only thirty men.
Disappointment followed disappointment; he was ordered to build a
fort at the mouth of the Ohio--a project of which be had himself
approved; and when at last he had under his command a force that
might have been adequate for the Detroit expedition, he was
obliged to use it in meeting a fresh incursion of savages which
had been stirred up by the new British commandant on the Lakes.
But Thomas Jefferson, who in 1779 succeeded Henry as Governor of
Virginia, was deeply interested in the Detroit project, and at
his suggestion Washington gave Clark an order on the commandant
of Fort Pitt for guns, supplies, and such troops as could be
spared. On January 22, 1781, Jefferson appointed Clark
"brigadier-general of the forces to be embodied on an expedition
westward of the Ohio." Again Clark was doomed to disappointment.
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