In February 1779, George Rogers Clark led about 170 men across southern Illinois in the middle of winter, wading through flooded river bottoms, sometimes up to their shoulders in icy water, to surprise the British garrison at Fort Sackville here on the Wabash River. The fort surrendered, and the victory helped secure the old Northwest for the new United States. A grand circular memorial of granite with a ring of columns now stands on the riverbank where the fort once was, and it is one of the most impressive monuments in the Midwest.
Vincennes is the oldest town in Indiana, founded as a French trading post in the early eighteenth century, when this river valley was part of a vast network of French forts and missions linking Canada and Louisiana. Later it became the capital of the Indiana Territory, and its first governor, William Henry Harrison, later president, built his brick mansion, Grouseland, here; it is open to visitors. The town also produced the comedian Red Skelton, who has a museum and performing arts centre named after him.
Today Vincennes is a pleasant small city of around eighteen thousand people with a university, a historic downtown, the old French cathedral of St. Francis Xavier and a slow, wide river flowing past on the Illinois border. It is an easy place to find fuel, food, lodging and repairs, and a good point to stop on the Indiana Historic Pathways route.
The riding around Vincennes is mostly flat to gently rolling, through farmland of corn and soybeans broken by woods and river bottoms. Roads are straight, well surfaced and quiet. East of the city the land begins to rise toward the hills of southern Indiana, and the roads get more interesting as you head toward French Lick and the Hoosier National Forest. The bridges over the Wabash give fine views of the river, especially at sunset, and in spring the floodplain can be under water, which gives some sense of what Clark's men faced. Summer can be hot and humid, and winds across the open farmland can be strong.