Col. George Rogers Clark established the first American settlement in the vicinity of modern-day Louisville in 1778, during the American Revolutionary War. He was conducting a campaign against the British in areas north of the Ohio River, then called the Illinois Country. Clark organized a group of 150 soldiers, known as the Illinois Regiment, after heavy recruiting in Virginia and Pennsylvania. On May 12, they set out from Redstone, today's Brownsville, Pennsylvania, taking along 80 civilians who hoped to claim fertile farmland and start a new settlement in Kentucky. They arrived at the Falls of the Ohio on May 27. It was a location Clark thought ideal for a communication post. The settlers helped Clark conceal the true reason for his presence in the area.