There was another important old place called Vincennes, on the Wabash river, in what is now Indiana. When Colonel Hamilton heard what Clark was doing he led an army of five hundred men, many of whom were Indians, from Detroit to Vincennes. It took them more than two months to make the journey. Clark sent some of his men with boats and provisions and cannon down the Mississippi, up the Ohio, and up the Wabash. He, with most of his little force, went across the prairie. It was a winter march and they had to wade through flood waters for a part of the way. He found the food and the guns and soon captured Hamilton and his army. This was the last of British government between the Ohio river and the Great Lakes. At the close of the war the American messengers, who were in Paris arranging for peace, could say that they already had possession of all the land this side of the Mississippi, so no excuse was left for the British to claim it. In this way one frontier soldier saved several great states for his country. The frontiersmen had beaten Cornstalk at Point Pleasant in 1774. Clark had won the prairie country five years later; and the next year, 1780, saw the great victory of Kings Mountain. Lord Cornwallis was now chief general of the British. He had conquered the southern colonies, the Carolinas and Georgia. Two of his officers, Tarleton and Ferguson, were brave and active commanders, and they were running over the country east of the mountains keeping the patriots down. Ferguson gathered together many American Tories and drilled them to march and fight. [Illustration: FIG. 61. ON THE FRENCH BROAD, BETWEEN ASHEVILLE AND KNOXVILLE] The Watauga men, just over the mountains to the west, were loyal patriots. Ferguson heard of them and sent them a stormy message. He told them to keep still or he would come over and scatter them and hang their leading men. They were not used to talk of this kind and they determined to teach Ferguson a lesson. Isaac Shelby rode in hot haste from his home to John Sevier’s log house on the Nolichucky river. When he arrived he found all the neighbors there; for Sevier had made a barbecue, and there was to be a big horse race, with running and wrestling matches. Shelby took Sevier off by himself and told him about Ferguson. They agreed to call together the mountain men and go over the Great Smokies to punish the British general.