Virtual Museum of Art | Virtual Museum of History | Virtual Public Library | Virtual Science Center | Virtual Museum of Natural History | Virtual War Museum
   You are in: Virtual War Museum >> Revolutionary War Hall >> Anthony Wayne





The Seven Flags of the New Orleans Tri-Centennial

For More Information go to New Orleans 300th Birthday


 


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".

Anthony Wayne

Revolutionary War Brigadier-General

 

Anthony Wayne, born near Paoli, Pennsylvania on January 1, 1745. He was privately educated in Philadelphia.

In 1776, after the outbreak of the American Revolution, he entered military service as a commander of a Pennsylvania regiment assigned to cover the retreat of American forces from Quebec. In 1777, after being promoted to brigadier general, he participated in the battles of Brandywine and Germantown and in 1778 distinguished himself in the Battle of Monmouth. His greatest achievement was a brilliant victory at Stony Point in 1779. In 1781 he contributed to the British defeat at Yorktown.

Wayne retired to civilian life in 1783, but he returned to active duty in 1792 as a major general and commander in chief of the western army. After spending more than two years training his troops, held led an American army north from the Ohio River, and, on August 10, 1794 he won a decisive victory at the Battle of Fallen Timbers on the Maumee River, near the site of present day Toledo, Ohio. The following year he negotiated the Treaty of Greenville, opening the Northwest Territory to American settlers. After the British had agreed in Jay’s Treaty to vacate their posts in the Old Northwest, Wayne led the American force that took possession of the forts in 1796.

 

Anthony Wayne won major recognition in the American Revolution and in Indian warfare. A dashing soldier noted for his bravery and quick temper, Wayne was popularly known as Mad Anthony.

Letter Signed, “Ant Wayne” to “The Lieutenant of the County of Washington,” from Headquarters, Legionville, PA., April 29, 1793. Wayne, acting under instructions from President Washington to learn the strength of U.S. forces on the upper Ohio and determine how many “scouts or spies” should be engaged for the area between Fort Franklin and the Falls of the Ohio on the Ohio and Allegheny Rivers, writes to a Lieutenant who is being assigned the task of enlisting twelve scouts to patrol Washington County and give advance warning of any threats to their safety. Wayne as assigned to command the small and faltering U.S. Army in1792, with the purpose of defeating hostile Indians who were preventing settlement of the Northwest Territory. He began recruiting additional troops and training the army at Legionville the winter before this letter was written. There was a great deal to be done and it took several years to accomplish, but Wayne’s revamped Army eliminated the Indian threat in the Northwest Territory by the summer of 1795. This letter must represent the realization by both Washington and Wayne that areas bordering on the Northwest Territory would need to be defended while the Army was prepared, especially because Wayne was planning to move his headquarters to Ohio. It also demonstrates the organizational skills which allowed Wayne to carry out his task so successfully.


 


 

Letter Signed, “Ant Wayne” to “The Lieutenant of the County of Washington”, Pennsylvania. Allowing authority to the lieutenant to acquire as many scouts and spies, as he deems necessary to determine the strength of Indians in the Ohio Valley.  - Courtesy of Stanley L. Klos

General Anthony Wayne was born in the township of Eastown, in Chester county, Pennsylvania, on the 1st of January, 1745. He was educated in Philadelphia, and having studied mathematics with care, he opened a surveyor's office in his native town. He was sent to Nova Scotia in 1765, to locate a grant of land from the crown to several gentlemen in Pennsylvania. They made Wayne superintendent of the settlement. This post he held until 1767, when he returned home, married a young lady in Philadelphia, and resumed his profession as surveyor. In 1773, he was appointed a representative to the general Assembly of his state. He quitted the council for the field in 1775, where he was appointed a colonel in the Continental army, and went to Canada with General Thomas. At the close of the campaign there in 1776, he was promoted to brigadier general. He was with the commander-in- chief at Brandywine, Germantown, and Monmouth, in all of which engagements he was distinguished for his valor. The capture of Stony Point raised him to the highest mark in the admiration of his countrymen. In 1781, he went with the Pennsylvania line to the South, and in Virginia co-operated with La Fayette. After the capture of Cornwallis, he was sent to conduct the war in Georgia, and was very successful. As a reward for his services, the Legislature of Georgia made him a present of a valuable farm. He was a member of the Pennsylvania Convention that ratified the Federal Constitution. In 1792, he succeeded St. Clair in the command of the army to be employed against the Western Indians, and gained a great victory over them in the battle of the Miamis, in August, 1794. He concluded a treaty with the Indians in August, 1795. While engaged in the public service, and returning home from the West, he was seized with the gout, and died in a hut at Presque Isle, in December, 1796, aged fifty-one years. He was buried, at his own request, under the flag-staff of the fort, on the shore of Lake Eric, from whence his remains were conveyed in 1809, by his son, Colonel Isaac Wayne, to Radnor church-yard, in Delaware county. The venerable church, near which the body of the hero lies, was erected in 1717. The Pennsylvania State Society of the Cincinnati caused a handsome monument of white marble to be erected over his remains, upon which are the following inscriptions :

North FRont.—''Major-general Anthony Wayne  was born at  Waynesborough,* in Chester county, State of Pennsylvania, A.D. 1745. After a life of honor and usefulness, he died in December, 1796, at a military post on the shore of Lake Eric, commander-in- chief of the army of the United States. His military achievements are consecrated in the history of his country and in the hearts of his countrymen. His remains are here interred."

South Front.—"In honor of the distinguished military services of Major-general Anthony Wayne, and as an affectionate tribute of respect to his memory, this stone was erected by his companions in arms, the Pennsylvania State Society of the Cincinnati, July 4, A.D. 1809, thirty-fourth anniversary of the ;ndependence of the United States of America; an event which constitutes the most appropriate eulogium of an American soldier and patriot."

 

 

 Stony Point From The South wEst

It was half past eleven o'clock at night when the Americans commenced their silent march toward the fort. All the dogs in the neighborhood had been killed the day before that their barking might not give notice of strangers near. The negro, with two strong men

disguised as farmers, advanced alone. The countersign was given to the first sentinel, on the high ground west of the morass, and while he was conversing with Pompey^) the men seized and gagged him. The silence of the sentinel at the causeway was secured in the same manner, and as soon as the tide ebbed sufficiently, the whole of Wayne's little army, except a detachment of three hundred men under General Muhlenburg, who remained in the rear as a reserve, crossed the morass to the foot of the western declivity of the promontory, unobserved by the enemy. The troops were now divided into two columns : the van of the right, consisting of one hundred and fifty volunteers, under Lieutenant-colonel De Fleury, and that of the left, of one hundred volunteers, under Major Stewart, each with unloaded muskets and fixed^bayonets. An avant-guard of twenty picked men for each company under Lieutenants Gibbons and Knox, preceded them, to remove the abatis and other obstructions. These vans composed the forlorn hope on that memorable night._

At a little past midnight the advanced parties moved silently to the charge, one company on the southern, and the other toward the northern portion of the height. They were followed by the two main divisions ; the right, composed of the regiments of Febiger and Meigs, being led by General Wayne in person. The left was composed of Colonel Butler's regiment, and two companies under Major Murfey. The Americans were undiscovered until within pistol shot of the pickets upon the heights, when a skirmish ensued between the sentinels and the advanced guards. The pickets fired several shots, but the Americans, true to orders, relied entirely upon the bayonet, and pressed forward with vigor. The garrison was aroused from their slumbers, and instantly the deep silence of the night was broken by the roll of the drum, the loud cry To arms.' to arms.' the rattle of troops from the ramparts and behind the lines, and the roar of cannon, charged with the deadly grape-shot, from the embrasures.' In the face of this terrible storm, the Americans forced their way, at

the point of the bayonet, through every obstacle, until the van of each column met in the center of the works where each arrived at the same time.  At the inner abatis, Wayne as struck upon the head by a musket ball, which brought him upon his knees. His two brave aids, Fishbow and Archer, raised him to his feet, and carried him gallantly through the works. He was able to join in the loud huzzas that arose when the two columns met as victors within the fort. Colonel  Jurst entered the works and struck the British standard with his own hands. The garrison  at discretion as prisoners of war, and that brilliant achievement was rendered the more glorious for the clemency which the victors exercised toward the vanquished. Not a life was taken after the flag was struck and the garrison had pleaded for quarters.  Wayne had but fifteen killed and eighty-three wounded ; the British had sixty-three killed ;' and Johnson, the commander, with five hundred and forty-three officers and men, were made prisoners. The ships of the enemy lying in the river in front of Stony Point slipped their cables and moved down to a place of security. Before daylight, Wayne sent to the commander-in-chief the brief but comprehensive reply, of which a facsimile is here given :

 

 At dawn the next morning the cannons of the captured fort were turned upon the enemy's works at Verplanck's Point under Colonel Webster, and a desultory bombardment was kept up during the day. Major-general Robert Howe had been sent to attack Fort Fayette, but on account of delays, and some misconceptions of Washington's orders, he did not make the attack in time to dislodge the garrison. News of Webster's critical situation and the capture of Stony Point was speedily communicated to Sir Henry Clinton, and he immediately sent relief to the menaced garrison at Verplanck's. Howe withdrew, and the enterprise was abandoned.

Washington, clearly perceiving the danger of attempting to retain the post at Stony Point

 

 

July, 1779.

Gold Medal Awarded By Congress To General WAYNE '

with so few troops as could be employed in the service, concluded to order an evacuation, and a destruction of the works after the ordnance and stores should be removed. This was accordingly done on the night of the eighteenth. All that was originally intended was accomplished, namely, the destruction of the works and the seizure of the artillery and stores. A large portion of the heavy ordnance was placed upon a galley to be conveyed to West Point. As soon as the vessel moved, a cannonade from Verplanck's and the British shipping was commenced upon it. A heavy shot from the Vulture struck it below water-mark, and the galley went down at the point just above Caldwcll's Landing, where speculation recently made credulity seek for treasures in a sunken vessel alleged to have belonged to the famous Captain Kidd. If, as asserted, a cannon was drawn up from a vessel lying at the bottom of the river there, it was doubtless one of the pieces taken from Stony Point, and the " ship's timbers" there discovered are the remains of the old galley. The "treasures," if secured, would be of little worth in these "piping times of peace."

The British repossessed themselves of Stony Point on the 20th, but they had little of value left them but the eligible site for a fortification.

The storming and capture of Stony Point, regarded as an exhibition of skill and indomitable courage was one of the most brilliant events of the war.

 

 
 
Anthony Wayne

From Wikepedia

January 1, 1745(1745-01-01) – December 15, 1796 (aged 51)
 
Place of birth Easttown Township, Pennsylvania
Place of death Pennsylvania
Resting place 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 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".

Early life

Wayne was born to Isaac Wayne in Waynesborough, Chester County, Pennsylvania, near present-day Paoli. He was educated as a surveyor at his uncle's private academy in Philadelphia, as well as at the College of Philadelphia (now the University of Pennsylvania), Class of 1765, although he did not earn a degree. He was sent by Benjamin Franklin and some associates to work for a year surveying land they owned in Nova Scotia, after which he returned to work in his father's tannery, while continuing his surveying. He became a leader in Chester County and served in the Pennsylvania legislature in 1774–1780. His son Isaac Wayne, future U.S. Representative from Pennsylvania, was born in 1772.

 

American Revolution

General Wayne

At the onset of the war in 1775, Wayne raised a militia 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.

A statue of General "Mad" Anthony Wayne stands in Fort Wayne's Freimann Square.

The highlight of Wayne's Revolutionary War service was probably his victory at Stony Point. On July 15, 1779, in a nighttime, bayonets-only assault lasting thirty minutes, 3 columns, one personally led by Wayne, overcame 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.

Statue of Wayne at Valley Forge.

Subsequent victories at West Point and Green Spring in Virginia, 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.

 

Political career

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 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 running for re-election in 1792.[1]

 

 Frontier general

General Wayne with the Legion of the United States, 1794.

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.[2] 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.

His grave.

"Mad" Anthony Wayne statue in Valley Forge National Historical Park.

Wayne died of complications from gout during a 1796 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 (Radnor) Episcopal Church cemetery in Radnor, Pennsylvania. 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.


Start your search on Anthony Wayne.


The Congressional Evolution of the United States Henry Middleton


Unauthorized Site: This site and its contents are not affiliated, connected, associated with or authorized by the individual, family, friends, or trademarked entities utilizing any part or the subject's entire name. Any official or affiliated sites that are related to this subject will be hyper linked below upon submission and Evisum, Inc. review.

Copyright© 2000 by Evisum Inc.TM. All rights reserved.
Evisum Inc.TM Privacy Policy

Search:

About Us

 

 

Image Use

Please join us in our mission to incorporate The Congressional Evolution of the United States of America discovery-based curriculum into the classroom of every primary and secondary school in the United States of America by July 2, 2026, the nation’s 250th birthday. , the United States of America: We The People Click Here

 

Historic Documents

Articles of Association

Articles of Confederation 1775

Articles of Confederation

Article the First

Coin Act

Declaration of Independence

Declaration of Independence

Emancipation Proclamation

Gettysburg Address

Monroe Doctrine

Northwest Ordinance

No Taxation Without Representation

Thanksgiving Proclamations

Mayflower Compact

Treaty of Paris 1763

Treaty of Paris 1783

Treaty of Versailles

United Nations Charter

United States In Congress Assembled

US Bill of Rights

United States Constitution

US Continental Congress

US Constitution of 1777

US Constitution of 1787

Virginia Declaration of Rights

 

Historic Events

Battle of New Orleans

Battle of Yorktown

Cabinet Room

Civil Rights Movement

Federalist Papers

Fort Duquesne

Fort Necessity

Fort Pitt

French and Indian War

Jumonville Glen

Manhattan Project

Stamp Act Congress

Underground Railroad

US Hospitality

US Presidency

Vietnam War

War of 1812

West Virginia Statehood

Woman Suffrage

World War I

World War II

 

Is it Real?



Declaration of
Independence

Digital Authentication
Click Here

 

America’s Four Republics
The More or Less United States

 
Continental Congress
U.C. Presidents

Peyton Randolph

Henry Middleton

Peyton Randolph

John Hancock

  

Continental Congress
U.S. Presidents

John Hancock

Henry Laurens

John Jay

Samuel Huntington

  

Constitution of 1777
U.S. Presidents

Samuel Huntington

Samuel Johnston
Elected but declined the office

Thomas McKean

John Hanson

Elias Boudinot

Thomas Mifflin

Richard Henry Lee

John Hancock
[
Chairman David Ramsay]

Nathaniel Gorham

Arthur St. Clair

Cyrus Griffin

  

Constitution of 1787
U.S. Presidents

George Washington 

John Adams
Federalist Party


Thomas Jefferson
Republican* Party

James Madison 
Republican* Party

James Monroe
Republican* Party

John Quincy Adams
Republican* Party
Whig Party

Andrew Jackson
Republican* Party
Democratic Party


Martin Van Buren
Democratic Party

William H. Harrison
Whig Party

John Tyler
Whig Party

James K. Polk
Democratic Party

David Atchison**
Democratic Party

Zachary Taylor
Whig Party

Millard Fillmore
Whig Party

Franklin Pierce
Democratic Party

James Buchanan
Democratic Party


Abraham Lincoln 
Republican Party

Jefferson Davis***
Democratic Party

Andrew Johnson
Republican Party

Ulysses S. Grant 
Republican Party

Rutherford B. Hayes
Republican Party

James A. Garfield
Republican Party

Chester Arthur 
Republican Party

Grover Cleveland
Democratic Party

Benjamin Harrison
Republican Party

Grover Cleveland 
Democratic Party

William McKinley
Republican Party

Theodore Roosevelt
Republican Party

William H. Taft 
Republican Party

Woodrow Wilson
Democratic Party

Warren G. Harding 
Republican Party

Calvin Coolidge
Republican Party

Herbert C. Hoover
Republican Party

Franklin D. Roosevelt
Democratic Party

Harry S. Truman
Democratic Party

Dwight D. Eisenhower
Republican Party

John F. Kennedy
Democratic Party

Lyndon B. Johnson 
Democratic Party 

Richard M. Nixon 
Republican Party

Gerald R. Ford 
Republican Party

James Earl Carter, Jr. 
Democratic Party

Ronald Wilson Reagan 
Republican Party

George H. W. Bush
Republican Party 

William Jefferson Clinton
Democratic Party

George W. Bush 
Republican Party

Barack H. Obama
Democratic Party

Please Visit

Forgotten Founders
Norwich, CT

Annapolis Continental
Congress Society


U.S. Presidency
& Hospitality

© Stan Klos

 

 

 

 


Virtual Museum of Art | Virtual Museum of History | Virtual Public Library | Virtual Science Center | Virtual Museum of Natural History | Virtual War Museum