Joseph Clark

Major Joseph Clark

Born an indentured servant’s son in Lantern Hill, Joseph Clark would have quietly lived out his life on a tiny farm had the Revolution not come. Joseph’s father treasured his hard-earned freedom above all, and he instilled this same value in his son. When the time came to fight for liberty, Joseph grabbed his musket and formed up with the nearest colonial militia without a second thought. Thus began one of the most remarkable military careers in American history.
Like his father, Clark was a trusted friend of the neighboring Happanuks, and he learned from them at an early age how to track, hide, and fight like an Indian. Using this knowledge, he transformed the ragtag Freedom militia–at the time, largely made up of men turned down for service in the Continental Army–into a fighting unit capable of besting many times its number.
During the next eight years, Clark’s bravery, ingenuity, and integrity became legendary, as he outwitted and outfought the redcoats in one daring exploit after another. Freedom City schoolchildren still learn how he made a hundred Hessian mercenaries break and run by marching the same dozen men in a continuous procession behind a hill, with only a seemingly endless line of bayonets visible to the enemy. Similar trickery compelled a fully loaded British troop transport to surrender without firing a shot, only to discover it had capitulated to a mere score of Clark’s men “aiming” blackened tree trunks instead of cannons.
Initially skeptical of the untrained and undersized Freedom militia, General Washington gradually assigned more and more men to Clark’s command and eventually promoted him to Major. In time, the Happanuk warriors also joined Clark’s command, his unbroken word winning them over despite the offer of substantial British bribes to attack the colonists.
By 1779, Clark was able to harness substantial numbers of troops to his incomparable guile. In the fall of that year, he executed a brilliant series of maneuvers that forced the British to surrender Freedom for good. Clark spent the remainder of the war on special missions for the Continental Army throughout North America, outfoxing the redcoats just as he’d done in Freedom.
After the Revolution, Clark returned to his farm, married, and raised eight children. He appeared in public only once more, wishing Godspeed to the Freedom militia as it mobilized for the War of 1812. He died in his sleep a short while later on July 4th, the birthday of the nation he’d done much to bring into being.