George Rogers Clark Medal

Starting at the beginning George Rogers Clark (1752-1818) was born in Charlottesville, Virginia Nov. 19, 1752.He was the older brother of William Clark who was the Clark in the famous Lewis and Clark expedition. His military service began as a scout in Lord Dunmore’s war of 1774. Clark then settled in Kentucky and organized the militia defense against the hostile Indian allies of the British during the revolutionary war. About this time Clark was promoted to Lt.-Colonel and made Commander of the Kentucky frontier militia. In 1778 Clark led a 175 man expedition down the Ohio and into Illinois where on July 4 they captured Kaskaskia and then Cahokia and Vincennes in August of the same year. Vincennes had to be recaptured Feb. 25, 1779. Now as a Brigadier General Clark led a successful expedition against the Shawnee and repelled a British and Indian attack on the then Spanish settlement of St. Louis in 1780. In Jan. of 1781 he assisted in repelling attacks led by Benedict Arnold. From 1783-1786 Clark was the US Indian Commissioner and led an expedition against the Wabash tribes. During the 1790’s Clark was involved in several failed French and Spanish colonization schemes trying to better himself financially and then retired to Louisville, Kentucky until his death Feb. 13, 1818.

The medal, 20 x 34.4mm is bronze and in the shape of a stone arrow head with Clark's portrait on the obverse facing to the left. The inscription “KY GEORGE ROGERS CLARK TRACE” is above and below the portrait. (What is meant by the word “Trace” is unknown to me.) The reverse is blank except for the makers name “Medal Arts Co. Roch. N. Y. " The ribbon is faded and discolored but the original colors were probably blue and white. My guess is that this medal was made in the 1920's and is rarely seen on that large internet auction site.

Nature abhors a vacuum and so does human nature. After the First World War a defeated Germany found itself in a vacuum. The imperial and royal governments had fallen. The weak Weimar Republican government had so completely disavowed war and the military that it refused to issue any medals for WWI service. Millions of veterans who served honorably and suffered so many hardships (as did the veterans on all sides) came home to a government that wanted to forget the last 4 ¼ years. To fill this medallic void numerous German veteran and patriotic groups issued a flood of WWI service awards. Even some former allied countries like Austria, Bulgaria and Hungary issued medals. The medals were sold to anyone who felt that they were entitled to wear a particular medal. As a result medal groups can be found with many interesting combinations of medals which often are totally unverifiable. The field is vast and not yet completely cataloged. One could spend a life time just collecting these unofficial awards. Illustrated below are just four of the better looking examples, one from each of the former kingdoms of the Germany Empire: Bavaria, Prussia, Saxony and Wuerttemberg. Take a close look and see if you can figure out which is which.