He also received a
very poor education as a child. He went to live with his grandfather
so he could attend Donald Robertson's School with John Taylor of
Caroline and James Madison. Even though George went to school,
he was also tutored, just like most of the Virginia children of that
time.
Clark was a very unique man. Standing 6 feet tall, he was
topped by a gasp of flaming red hair. George Rogers Clark was
known from the native Americans as “Long Knife” and he was
skilled in a way that they appreciated. George was also known
from his younger brother William Clark who was one of the
leaders of the Lewis and Clark expedition.
During the Revolutionary War, Clark worked to protect
Kentucky and frontier Settlements from British ambushes. He was
later promoted to Lieutenant Colonel, and he captured Fort
Vincennes and Fort Kaskaskia from the British. Although the
British got them back George captured them again along with its
commander Henry Hamilton. 1781 was the year that Clark led his
final expedition against the loyalist Shawnee Tribe of Native
Americans. He achieved an advantage for the Patriots in the
Western War despite insufficient financial assistance and supplies.
After the war, Clarks reputation was tarnished by his 1786
unsuccessful attack on the Wabash Tribe of Native Americans.
After the Revolutionary War, George R. Clark was granted
8,049 acres of land in Indiana compromising what is now the city
of Clarksville, Indiana, north of Louisville. Clark had financed the
majority of his military campaigns with borrowed funds. Later on,
the lenders closed and took away most of his land and left him
with a small plot of land containing a small gristmill that he started
to work at with two African American servants. Later, he died due
to alcoholism and strokes at the age of 66 on February 13, 1818.
