George Rogers Clark (November 19, 1752 – February 13, 1818) was
a soldier from Virginia and the highest ranking American
military officer on the northwestern frontier during the
American Revolutionary War. He served as leader of the Kentucky
militia throughout much of the war, Clark is best-known for his
celebrated capture of Kaskaskia (1778) and Vincennes (1779),
which greatly weakened British influence in the Northwest
Territory. Because the British ceded the entire Northwest
Territory to the United States in the 1783 Treaty of Paris,
Clark has often been hailed as the "Conqueror of the Old
Northwest." Clark's military achievements all came before his
30th birthday. Afterwards he led militia in the opening
engagements of the Northwest Indian War, but was accused of
being drunken on duty. Despite his demand for a formal
investigation into the accusations, he was disgraced and forced
to resign causing him to leave Kentucky to live on the Indiana
frontier. Never fully reimbursed by Virginia for his wartime exp