[Footnote: State Dept.MSS., Papers Continental Congress.No.150, vol.ii.Letter of Major Wm.

North, Sept.
15, 1786.] Late in September when twelve hundred men had been gathered, Clark moved forward.

But he was no longer the man he had been.

He failed to get any hold on his army.

His followers, on their side, displayed all that unruly fickleness which made the militia of the Revolutionary period a weapon which might at times be put to good use in the absence of any other, but which was really trusted only by men whose military judgment was as fatuous as Jefferson's.
Clark's Failure.
After reaching Vincennes the troops became mutinous, and at last flatly refused longer to obey orders, and marched home as a disorderly mob, to the disgrace of themselves and their leader.