This led to an uprising of the colonists to regain possession of the powder, by force if necessary, and young Clark marched towards Williamsburg, the then capital, as lieutenant of an independent company of riflemen for that purpose.
In the spring of 1776, Clark was promoted to the captaincy of a company (commissioned March 4), which advanced from Woodstock to Portsmouth, and was engaged in several skirmishes with the adherents of the royal governor, Dunmore, who, in the meantime, had fled the capital and taken refuge on an English ship.
He continued there until in August when he was ordered further south, and at Savannah was seized with dangerous illness which so prostrated him that, for a long time, he was unable to perform military service, and returned home on furlough in the autumn of that year.
He was also in the Battle of Monmouth in 1778, and in 1779 served with great distinction in the surprise of the enemy at Paulus Hook, on which important occasion he was second in command, having been previously promoted to be a major by congress.
He said "that a remarkable degree of prudence, address, enterprise and bravery was displayed on the occasion, which does the highest honor to all the officers and men engaged in it, and that the situation of the fort rendered the attempt critical and the success brilliant."
But his thoughts now turned to the great west, and in 1802 he joined his distinguished brother, General George Rogers Clark at the falls of the Ohio, settling finally at Trough Spring, near Louisville, Kentucky.
The following notice of General Jonathan Clark's death appeared in the Western Sun, published at Vincennes, December 14, 1811: "Another Revolutionary hero is gone--Died at his seat near Louisville, Kentucky, on Monday, the 25th ult.