Title: Anthony Wayne, 1745-1796
Author: Downes, Randolph C.
Language: English
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    [Illustration: _Anthony Wayne_]



                             ANTHONY WAYNE
                               1745-1796


             Public Library of Fort Wayne and Allen County
                                  1954

    [Illustration: Boards of the Public Library of Fort Wayne and Allen
    County]

One of a historical series, this pamphlet is published under the
direction of the governing Boards of the Public Library of Fort Wayne
and Allen County.

           BOARD OF TRUSTEES OF THE SCHOOL CITY OF FORT WAYNE

  _Mrs. Sadie Fulk Roehrs_
  _B.F. Geyer, President_
  _Joseph E. Kramer, Secretary_
  _W. Page Yarnelle, Treasurer_
  _Willard Shambaugh_

                 PUBLIC LIBRARY BOARD FOR ALLEN COUNTY

The members of this Board include the members of the Board of Trustees
of the School City of Fort Wayne (with the same officers) together with
the following citizens chosen from Allen County outside the corporate
City of Fort Wayne:

  _James E. Graham_
  _Arthur Niemeier_
  _Mrs. Glenn Henderson_
  _Mrs. Charles Reynolds_



                                FOREWORD


After Harmar and St. Clair had been disastrously defeated by the Indians
in the Old Northwest Territory, President Washington appointed General
Anthony Wayne to reorganize the American forces, to subdue the savages,
and to protect the scattered white settlements along the frontier.
Wayne’s campaign culminated in his decisive victory at the Battle of
Fallen Timbers on August 20, 1794. General Wayne then marched his men
westward to the headwaters of the Maumee at the junction of the St.
Mary’s and St. Joseph rivers. Here, on ground commanding the adjacent
area, a fort was constructed and named Fort Wayne in his honor. If
Wayne’s campaign had failed, settlement in this section might have been
indefinitely delayed, and our city might be known by another name.

The following biographical sketch of Anthony Wayne was written by
Randolph C. Downes. It was published in 1936 by Charles Scribner’s Sons
in the DICTIONARY OF AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY, volume nineteen. Both the
American Council of Learned Societies, the copyright holder, and the
publisher have graciously accorded permission to reproduce the article
in its entirety. The portraiture, the best brief biography of Wayne, has
been reprinted verbatim; citations and bibliography have been omitted.

The Boards and the Staff of the Public Library of Fort Wayne and Allen
County present this publication in the hope that the life of the founder
of Fort Wayne will prove entertaining and informative to library
patrons.


Anthony Wayne (Jan. 1, 1745-Dec. 15, 1796), soldier, was born at
Waynesboro, Pa., the only son of Isaac and Elizabeth (Iddings) Wayne.
Isaac Wayne with his father Anthony Wayne, of English ancestry,
emigrated from Ireland and about 1724 settled in Chester County, Pa.,
where he acquired some 500 acres of land and a thriving tannery. At the
age of sixteen the boy attended a private academy kept by his uncle,
Gilbert Wayne, in Philadelphia, where he is said to have been more
proficient in feats of mock warfare, suggested no doubt by the Indian
wars in progress, than in his classroom subjects. He learned enough
mathematics to qualify as a surveyor, with some further application
after he left school two years later. In 1765 he was sent by a
Philadelphia land company to supervise the surveying and settlement of
100,000 acres of land in Nova Scotia. On Mar. 25, 1766, after the
venture had failed, he returned to Pennsylvania and married Mary
Penrose, the daughter of Bartholomew Penrose, a Philadelphia merchant.
They had two children. He went to live on his father’s estate and took
charge of the tannery. In 1774 his father died, and Anthony succeeded to
the ownership of a profitable establishment that provided him a very
comfortable competence. He was of medium height, had a handsome,
well-proportioned face with a slightly aquiline nose and high forehead.
His hair was dark, his eyes dark brown and penetrating, giving to his
face a very animated appearance.

During the early Revolutionary movement he was chairman of the committee
appointed in the county on July 13, 1774, to frame the resolutions of
protest against the coercive acts of the British government. He was
later made chairman of the county committee appointed to supervise the
carrying out of the association drawn up by the first Continental
Congress. He represented his county in the provincial assembly that met
during 1775. On Jan. 3, 1776, he was appointed by Congress to be colonel
of a Chester County regiment engaged in continental service, and as a
soldier he served through the war. His youth and lack of formal training
in the arts of war prevented him from being on friendly terms with many
of his colleagues, and he had personal difficulties with St. Clair,
Charles Lee, and James Wilkinson. Contemporaries agreed that he was
impetuous, yet Alexander Graydon, who called his manner “fervid,”
admitted that he could “fight as well as brag.” Washington admitted his
bravery and his self-possession in battle but feared his impetuousness,
when, seventeen years later, he chose him to lead the army against the
northwestern Indians. In the spring of 1776 he was sent with the
Pennsylvania brigade commanded by Gen. William Thompson to reinforce the
faltering Canadian expedition. When the Pennsylvanians met the
retreating remnants of Montgomery’s army at the mouth of the Sorel
River, they were sent down the St. Lawrence to attack what was thought
to be the advance guard of the British army at Three Rivers. It turned
out to be the main army numbering 3,000, and Wayne, whose regiment was
in the front of the attack, found himself sustaining a hot exchange with
the enemy in order to cover the retreat of his outnumbered countrymen to
Fort Ticonderoga. He was placed in command of the garrison of over two
thousand men there and had his first taste of wretched provisioning, of
sickness, starvation, and mutiny.

On Feb. 21, 1777, he was appointed to the rank of brigadier-general and
was called, on Apr. 12, to join Washington at Morristown, N. J., and to
take command of the Pennsylvania line. After a season of training and
drill his division took an active part in resisting the British in their
campaign against Philadelphia. In the battle of Brandywine on Sept. 11,
1777, he occupied the center of the defense opposing the British at
their main point of crossing. He was obliged to retreat when the
American right was flanked by Cornwallis, who crossed the creek higher
up. When Washington then withdrew to the north of the Schuylkill, he
sent Wayne to circle around the rear of the British and to surprise and
destroy their baggage train. Wayne, however, was himself surprised and,
in the battle of Paoli, Sept. 20, received a drubbing. Being accused of
negligence in this action, he demanded a court martial and was
acquitted. Rejoining Washington, he played a conspicuous part in the
battle of Germantown, on Oct. 4, leading a spirited and almost
victorious attack, but was forced back, when difficulties in the rear
turned the victory into confusion and defeat. He wintered with
Washington at Valley Forge and led the advance attack against the
British at the battle of Monmouth on June 28, 1788.

    [Illustration: leading an attack in the battle of Germantown]

In a reorganization of the army late in 1778, he was transferred to the
command of a separate corps of Continental light infantry. This corps,
under his leadership, on July 16, 1779, captured by surprise the
garrison at Stony Point, the northernmost British post on the Hudson.
Over five hundred prisoners, fifteen cannon, and some valuable stores
were taken. For his conduct in this affair Congress ordered a medal to
be struck and presented to him. Early in 1780 he led some desultory
movements against the British on the lower Hudson, aimed to embarrass
their collecting of supplies and cattle and to alleviate the attacks
being made on Connecticut. When Arnold attempted to deliver West Point
to the British on Sept. 25, 1780, Wayne’s prompt movement to that post
prevented a British occupation. After the Pennsylvania line mutinied in
December 1780, Wayne was instrumental in presenting the soldiers’
demands for pay and release to Congress and in getting Congress to
redress their grievances. In the Yorktown campaign he was ordered south
to serve under Lafayette, who was opposing Cornwallis on the lower James
River. When Cornwallis withdrew from Williamsburg, Wayne was ordered to
attack part of the British army that was mistakenly supposed to be
separated from the rest. With some 800 men he attacked the British army
of perhaps 5,000 at Green Spring, Va., on July 6, 1781, and, upon
discovering the mistake, he led a charge into the British lines that
deceived Cornwallis long enough to permit Wayne to extricate himself
with only minor losses.

After the British surrender at Yorktown, Wayne, serving under Gen.
Nathanael Greene, was sent to oppose the British, Loyalist, and Indian
hostiles in Georgia. He had the tact to divide the Indian opposition by
spreading news of the American victory so that, when the Creek
irreconcilables attacked his small force in May 1782, he was able to
rout them. He negotiated treaties of submission with the Creek and
Cherokee in the winter of 1782 and 1783. In 1783 he retired from active
service as brevet major-general.

    [Illustration: Wayne’s horse was shot by Indians in Georgia....]

From 1783 to 1792 he was engaged in civil pursuits in which he was less
fortunate than in military affairs. The state of Georgia conferred upon
him an eight-hundred-acre rice plantation, and he borrowed the necessary
capital to work it from Dutch creditors, who subsequently foreclosed on
the lands. In politics he was a conservative; he had a militarist’s
contempt for the radicals who took advantage of the revolt against Great
Britain to fashion liberal constitutions like that of Pennsylvania,
which he considered “not worth Defending.” During the war military
affairs were his major consideration; but he said, “let us once be in a
Condition to Vanquish these British Rebels and I answer for it that then
your present Rulers will give way for better men which will produce
better Measures.” Accordingly, as a member of the Pennsylvania council
of censors in 1783, he favored the calling of a new constitutional
convention. He was a representative of Chester County to the
Pennsylvania General Assembly in 1784 and 1785. In 1787 he supported the
new federal Constitution in the Pennsylvania ratifying convention. He
was elected to Congress as a representative from Georgia and served from
Mar. 4, 1791, to Mar. 21, 1792, when his seat was declared vacant
because of irregularities in the election and in his residence
qualification.

    [Illustration: _Battle of Fallen Timbers_
    _FROM THE ORIGINAL PAINTING BY CHAPPEL._]

After the failure of Harmar and St. Clair to subdue the Indian tribes of
the Wabash and Maumee rivers in 1791, Wayne was named by Washington as
major-general in command of the rehabilitated American army. He was
strongly opposed to the peace maneuvers of 1792 and 1793 but improved
his time constructing a reliable military organization at his training
camp at Legionville, Pa., and, later, near Fort Washington and Fort
Jefferson in the Northwest Territory. On Aug. 20, 1794, he defeated the
Indians at Fallen Timbers on the Maumee River near what is now Toledo,
Ohio. This victory was the result of several factors. Wayne had far more
resources at his command than had Harmar or St. Clair. He did not hazard
an autumn campaign after he received news of the final failure of peace
negotiations in August 1793. He was fortunate in that the Indians threw
away their opportunity to isolate him, when they made a futile attack on
Fort Recovery on June 29 and lost many discouraged tribesmen, who went
home. He made every effort to avoid offending the British, thus robbing
the Indians of the aid they fully expected in the moment of conflict.
Finally, when the Indians had assembled at Fallen Timbers to fight, he
delayed battle for three days. Therefore, when he attacked, a large part
of the Indians were at a distance breaking their three-day fast, and the
rest were in a half-starved condition. The complete submission and
surrender at Greenville in August 1795 was made possible by Jay’s
treaty, the British desertion of the Indians, and Wayne’s skill in
convincing the tribesmen of the hopelessness of their cause without
British support. He died at Presque Isle, now Erie, Pa., on his return
from the occupation of the post of Detroit.



                          Transcriber’s Notes


—Silently corrected a few typos.

—Retained publication information from the printed edition: this eBook
  is public-domain in the country of publication.

—In the text versions only, text in italics is delimited by
  _underscores_.





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