France and the United States into the Illinois country and used it with telling effect. A French priest at Vincennes raised a Virginian flag over that fort, telling the inhabitants and the Indians that their "French Father had come to life." In October Virginia incorporated the "County of Illinois" within her western empire—the first portion of the land north of the Ohio River to come under the administration of one of the states of the Union.
Contemporaneously with Clark's stirring conquest, an expedition was raised at Pittsburg to march against the Indians in the neighborhood of the British fort at Sandusky—possibly to counteract the rumored attempt to invade Pennsylvania, by Hamilton at Detroit. Troops and supplies were to be assembled at Fort Pitt, where the famous route of Bouquet was to be followed toward the lakes. The expedition was put in charge of General Lachlan McIntosh. Distressing delays made the half-hearted Indians who were to guide the army, chafe; and McIntosh started before his stores arrived, fearing that longer delay
