Fort Jefferson (Kentucky)

For other places with the same name, see Fort Jefferson (disambiguation).

Fort Jefferson
Kentucky County, Virginia (present-day Ballard County, Kentucky)
Site information
Type	Stockade
Controlled by	Virginia
Location
Coordinates	36°57′11.19″N89°05′23.25″W / 36.9531083°N 89.0897917°W / 36.9531083; -89.0897917 [1]
Site history
Built	April 19–June 1780
Built by	Clark's Illinois Battalion
In use	April 19, 1780 (1780-04-19)–June 8, 1781 (1781-06-08)
Materials	Wood
Fate	Abandoned by garrison
Battles/wars	American Revolutionary War Siege of Fort Jefferson
Garrison information
Past commanders	Capt. Robert George
Garrison	100 state troops

Siege of Fort Jefferson
Part of the American Revolutionary War
Date August 27–31, 1780 Location Kentucky County, Virginia (present-day Ballard County, Kentucky) Result American victory
Belligerents
United States	Great Britain Chickasaw Nation
Commanders and leaders
Robert George William Clark Leonard Helm	John Whitehead James Colbert  (WIA)
Strength
100 state troops 46 militia	2 provincial troops 150 Chickasaw
Casualties and losses
8 dead and 3 wounded or missing	Probably about the same as American casualties
[2] [3]

Fort Jefferson was a small 18th-century stockade fort built by Virginia at the mouth of the Ohio in present-day Kentucky. It was constructed in 1780 by Clark's Illinois Battalion during the American Revolutionary War. The fort was abandoned in June 1781.

History

The initial proposal for a fortification at the mouth of the Ohio was made by Virginia governor Patrick Henry in 1777, in a letter to the Spanish governor of Louisiana, Bernardo de Galvez. He proposed a fortification to protect trade and supplies between Virginia and Spanish Louisiana from British interference. Henry would also propose this idea to George Rogers Clark, who saw it as a fortification for frontier protection and conquest of British Indian allies. Clark would later press Henry's successor, Thomas Jefferson, on the importance of a fort along both rivers, to control commerce and stop British supplies.

In January 1780, Jefferson formally approved the fort with the formal stipulation that the land must be purchased from the Chickasaw, whom he erroneously identified as Cherokee. Jefferson would also write to Joseph Martin that "the ground at the mouth of the Ohio on the south side belonging to the Cherokee, we would not meddle in without their leave". ^[4] George Rogers Clark would go on to ignore this provision, as he would not buy the land from the Chickasaw or gain their consent to build the fortifications. Many historians point to Clark's disregard of the Chickasaw as the point at which the fortification and settlement project was doomed to failure.

In 1782, four Chickasaw chiefs sent a letter to American military post commanders in the West to initiate peace negotiations, stating, "What damage occurred because you established a fort in our hunting grounds without our permission, and at that location, you suffered most from us." The Chickasaw would eventually sign a peace treaty with the Spanish (representing the American alliance) that respected Chickasaw territorial integrity, but kept them at war with the Kickapoo. ^[5]

References

Citations

1. U.S. Geological Survey Geographic Names Information System: Fort Jefferson (Kentucky)
2. "Chickasaw.tv | Fort Jefferson".
3. Fraser, Kathryn M. (1983). "Fort Jefferson: George Rogers Clark's Fort at the Mouth of the Ohio River, 1780-1781". The Register of the Kentucky Historical Society. 81 (1): 1–24. JSTOR   23379603.
4. Fraser, Kathryn M. (1983). "Fort Jefferson: George Rogers Clark's Fort at the Mouth of the Ohio River, 1780-1781". The Register of the Kentucky Historical Society. 81 (1): 1–24. JSTOR   23379603.
5. St. Jean, Wendy (2009). "The Chickasaw-Quapaw Alliance in the Revolutionary Era". The Arkansas Historical Quarterly. 68 (3): 272–282. JSTOR   40543238.

Bibliography

• Carstens, Kenneth C. (1991). "Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition: Munition Supplies at George Rogers Clark's Fort Jefferson, 1780-1781". In Holden, Robert J. (ed.). Selected Papers From The 1989 And 1990 George Rogers Clark Trans-Appalachian Frontier History Conferences (PDF). Vincennes, Indiana: Eastern National Park & Monument Association and Vincennes University. pp. 21–32. Retrieved November 5, 2025.
• Carstens, Kenneth C. (January 1993). "The 1780 William Clark Map of Fort Jefferson" (PDF). The Filson Club History Quarterly . 67 (1). The Filson Historical Society: 23–43. Retrieved November 5, 2025.
• Carstens, Kenneth C. (July 1997). "George Rogers Clark's Fort Jefferson, 1780-1781" (PDF). The Filson Club History Quarterly . 71 (3). The Filson Historical Society: 259–284. Retrieved November 5, 2025.

External links

• Media related to Fort Jefferson (Kentucky) at Wikimedia Commons
• Fort Jefferson Hill Park and Memorial Cross at the Lewis & Clark Trail Alliance
• "Fort Jefferson Memorial Cross". Tripadvisor .
• Fort Jefferson Site and Indian Massacre at the Historical Marker Database