Veterans of the Revolutionary War settled this part of Ohio through land grants in the Virginia Military District, which included all of Clinton County, and many of those veterans are buried throughout the county. Clinton County was officially established two years before the War of 1812, when Ohio militia defended the American Northwest against an anticipated British invasion tied to Great Britain’s refusal to withdraw troops from the Great Lakes after the Revolutionary War; after Admiral Oliver Hazard Perry’s victory at the Battle of Lake Erie on September 10th, 1813, Clinton County soldiers returned home to a period of peace that lasted until the Mexican War began in 1846. Two Clinton County natives later received the Medal of Honor: Private Thomas Guinn of Company D, 47th Ohio Infantry, for gallantry in the charge of the Volunteer Storming Party at Vicksburg, Mississippi, on May 22, 1863, and Captain Jonathan C. Kirk of Company F, 20th Indiana Infantry, for volunteering for dangerous service and single-handedly capturing 13 armed Confederate soldiers at North Anna River on May 23, 1864. In 1942, Fife Field was renamed Clinton County Army Airfield, and when the United States Air Force became a separate branch in 1947, it became Clinton County Air Force Base. The base’s Glider Branch tested the only U.S.-built glider used in combat during World War II. During the 1950s, the Clinton County Missile site, designated Nike CD-27 and located on State Route 730 about five miles from Wilmington, served for twelve years as part of a nationwide air defense program against long-range Soviet bombers armed with nuclear bombs before closing in 1971.