Someone in Hollywood needs to tell this story, because I don’t think enough Americans know about the older brother of William Clark (of the Lewis & Clark Expedition) or how 150 men took the territory that became Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Minnesota, and Wisconsin. It’s one of my favorites.

The Revolutionary War in this area between the northern Mississippi and Ohio rivers was sort of a rematch of the French & Indian War. The French wanted revenge against the British, so they sided with the American colonists. The British were paying Native American mercenaries to fight for them, even though the natives were on the French side before. And the American colonists had antagonized the natives by taking their lands.

Clark was 19 when he started surveying the territory west of Virginia and joined the militia just before the war started in Concord, Massachusetts. Although young, he knew the area, the tribes, the conflicts and he showed initiative. He negotiated a territorial dispute with Governor Patrick Henry, representing settlers like Daniel Boone. He led Kentucky militia to defend settlements against British-funded native raids. So when the fighting broke out, he presented a bold plan to seize three British outposts in what’s now southern Illinois. Governor Henry approved the plan, gave him a promotion, but little else.

For the rest of the story, you have to watch the park film, or read a book or wait for the Hollywood blockbuster. But let me just say it involves many French settlers who help Clark, an Italian merchant who tells Clark when the British are vulnerable, Native Americans who decide to stay out of the conflict, a brutal winter march through floods, Kentucky sharpshooters, much military deception, and a desperate pre-emptive strike against a superior defensive force.

Whatever Clark did in the rest of his life to die an impoverished alcoholic, should not take away from what he accomplished at age 26: an incredible underdog victory by 150 men, whom Clark convinced to fight and trained, resulting in five states ceded by Britain to the US. (I had neither graduated from college nor gotten my drivers license by age 26.)