| Anthony Wayne | |
|---|---|
| Nickname | Mad Anthony |
| Born | January 1, 1745 Easttown Township, Pennsylvania |
| Died | December 15, 1796 (aged 51) |
| Buried at | Fort Presque Isle (now Erie, Pennsylvania) |
| Allegiance | United States of America |
| Years of service | 1775-1783 1792-1796 |
| Rank | Colonel 1775-1777 Brigadier General 1777-1783 Major General 1783; 1792-1796 |
| Battles/wars | American Revolutionary War Battle of Trois-Rivières Battle of Brandywine Battle of Paoli Battle of Germantown Battle of Monmouth Battle of Stony Point Battle of Bull's Ferry Battle of Green Spring Northwest Indian War Siege of Fort Recovery Battle of Fallen Timbers |
Anthony Wayne (January 1, 1745 – December 15, 1796) was a United States Army general and statesman. Wayne adopted a military career at the outset of the American Revolutionary War, where his military exploits and fiery personality quickly earned him a promotion to the rank of brigadier general and the sobriquet of Mad Anthony.
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At the onset of the war in 1775, Wayne raised a militia unit and, in 1776, became colonel of the 4th Pennsylvania Regiment. He and his regiment were part of the Continental Army's unsuccessful invasion of Canada where he was sent to aid Benedict Arnold, during which he commanded a successful rear-guard action at the Battle of Trois-Rivières, and then led the distressed forces at Fort Ticonderoga. His service resulted in a promotion to brigadier general on February 21, 1777.
Later, he commanded the Pennsylvania Line at Brandywine, Paoli, and Germantown. After winter quarters at Valley Forge, he led the American attack at the Battle of Monmouth. During this last battle, Wayne's forces were pinned down by a numerically superior British force. However, Wayne held out until relieved by reinforcements sent by Washington. This scenario would play out again years later, in the Southern campaign.
The highlight of Wayne's Revolutionary War service was probably his victory at Stony Point. In July 1779 Washington named Wayne to command the Corps of Light Infantry, a temporary unit of four regiments of light infantry companies from all the regiments in the Main Army. On July 16, 1779, in a bayonets-only night attack lasting thirty minutes, three columns of light infantry, the main attack personally led by Wayne, stormed British fortifications at Stony Point, a cliffside redoubt commanding the southern Hudson River. The success of this operation provided a boost to the morale of an army which had at that time suffered a series of military defeats. Congress awarded him a medal for the victory.
On 21 July 1780, Washington sent Wayne with two Pennsylvania brigades and four cannons to destroy a blockhouse at Bulls Ferry opposite New York City. In the Battle of Bull's Ferry, Wayne's troops were unable to capture the position, suffering 64 casualties, while inflicting only 21 on the loyalist defenders.[1]
On January 1, 1781, Wayne, then the commanding officer of the Pennsylvania Line of the Continental Army, was faced with a mutiny over pay and conditions that was one of the most serious of the war. The mutiny was successfully resolved by dismissing about one half of the line, which Wayne then had to rebuild. This work was largely completed by May 1781, but it delayed his departure to Virginia, where he had been sent to assist the Marquis de Lafayette against British forces operating there. The line's departure was delayed once more when the men again complained about being paid in the nearly-worthless Continental currency.
In Virginia, Wayne led Lafayette's advance forces in an action at Green Spring, where he led a bayonet charge against the numerically superior British forces after stepping into a trap set by Charles Cornwallis. This increased his popular reputation as a bold commander. After the British surrendered at Yorktown, he went further south and severed the British alliance with Native American tribes in Georgia. He then negotiated peace treaties with both the Creek and the Cherokee, for which Georgia rewarded him with the gift of a large rice plantation. He was promoted to major general on October 10, 1783.
After the war, Wayne returned to Pennsylvania and served in the state legislature for a year in 1784. He then moved to Georgia and settled upon the tract of land granted him by that state for his military service. He was a delegate to the state convention which ratified the United States Constitution in 1788.
In 1791, he served a year in the Second United States Congress as a U.S. Representative of Georgia but lost his seat during a debate over his residency qualifications and declined to run for re-election in 1792.[2]
President George Washington recalled Wayne from civilian life in order to lead an expedition in the Northwest Indian War, which up to that point had been a disaster for the United States. Many American Indians in the Northwest Territory had sided with the British in the Revolutionary War. In the Treaty of Paris that had ended the conflict, the British had ceded this land to the United States. The Indians, however, had not been consulted, and resisted annexation of the area by the United States. The Western Indian Confederacy achieved major victories over U.S. forces in 1790 and 1791 under the leadership of Blue Jacket of the Shawnees and Little Turtle of the Miamis. They were encouraged and supplied by the British, who had refused to evacuate British fortifications in the region as called for in the Treaty of Paris.
Washington placed Wayne in command of a newly-formed military force called the "Legion of the United States". Wayne established a basic training facility at Legionville to prepare professional soldiers for his force. Wayne's was the first attempt to provide basic training for regular U.S. Army recruits and Legionville was the first facility established expressly for this purpose.
He then dispatched a force to Ohio to establish Fort Recovery as a base of operations. On August 3, a tree fell on Wayne's tent. He survived, but was rendered unconscious. By the next day, he had recovered sufficiently to resume the march.[3] On August 20, 1794, Wayne mounted an assault on the Indian confederacy at the Battle of Fallen Timbers, in modern Maumee, Ohio (just south of present-day Toledo), which was a decisive victory for the U.S. forces, ending the war. Wayne then negotiated the Treaty of Greenville between the tribal confederacy and the United States, which was signed on August 3, 1795. The treaty gave most of what is now Ohio to the United States, and cleared the way for that state to enter the Union in 1803.
Wayne died of complications from gout on December 15, 1796 during a return trip to Pennsylvania from a military post in Detroit, and was buried at Fort Presque Isle (now Erie, Pennsylvania) where the modern Wayne Blockhouse stands. His body was disinterred in 1809 and, after boiling the body to remove the remaining flesh, as many of the bones as would fit in two saddlebags were relocated to the family plot in St. David's Episcopal Church cemetery in Radnor, Pennsylvania.[4] A legend says that many bones were lost along the roadway that encompasses much of modern U.S. Route 322, and that every January 1 (Wayne's birthday), his ghost wanders the highway searching for his lost bones.
On September 14, 1929 the US Post office issued a stamp honoring General Wayne and which commemorated the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Fallen Timbers. The post office issued a series of stamps often referred to as the 'Two Cent Reds' by collectors, issued to commemorate the 150th Anniversaries of the many events that occurred during the American Revolution and to honor people such as General Wayne and those others who were there during these times of struggle.
There are many political jurisdictions and institutions named after Wayne, especially in Ohio, Michigan, and Indiana, the region where he fought many of his battles.
Wayne's legacy has extended to American popular culture in a number of ways.
(alphabetized by author)
| United States House of Representatives | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by James Jackson (politician) |
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Georgia's 1st congressional district March 4, 1791– March 21, 1792 |
Succeeded by John Milledge |
| Military offices | ||
| Preceded by Arthur St. Clair |
Senior Officer of the United States Army 1792–1796 |
Succeeded by James Wilkinson |
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