Benjamin Franklin travels to Paris to get financial and military support for the American war. Encouraged by Gates’ and Arnold’s victory at Saratoga, France forms an alliance with the Americans and enters the war. The French threat forces the British to abandon Philadelphia and consolidate their forces at New York City. Washington engages the retreating British at the Battle of Monmouth, the largest and hottest battle of the Revolutionary War. George Rogers Clark captures the Illinois Country for the Americans. British encouraged Native American raids in western Pennsylvania and the Mohawk River Valley of New York cause panic amongst colonial settlers. General Washington dispatches the Continental Army to destroy all Iroquois villages in the region, effectively ending the Iroquois Confederacy. The Continental Army suffers through the coldest winter of the War in Morristown, leading some troops to mutiny.