born Nov. 19, 1752, Albemarle county, Va.
died Feb. 13, 1818, near Louisville, Ky., U.S.
Frontier military leader in the American Revolution.
The brother of William Clark , he worked as a surveyor in Kentucky in the mid-1770s. During the Revolution he raised troops and defended the region against the British and Indians. He captured settlements along the Mississippi River in the Old Northwest (Illinois), and in 1780 he helped defeat a British attempt to capture St. Louis. Appointed an Indian commissioner, he helped conclude a treaty with the Shawnee. In 1793 he became involved in the Citizen Genêt Affair .