Anthony Wayne

"Mad" 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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"Mad Anthony" Wayne

Early life

Wayne was born to Isaac Wayne in Easttown Township, Pennsylvania in Chester County, near present-day Paoli, Pennsylvania and educated as a surveyor at his uncle's private academy in Philadelphia. 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.

American Revolution

At the onset of the war in 1775, Wayne raised a militia and, in 1776, became colonel of the Fourth Regiment of Pennsylvania troops. He and his regiment were part of the Continental Army's unsuccessful invasion of Canada, during which he commanded the distressed forces at Fort Ticonderoga. His service resulted in the 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, and was abandoned by General Lee. However, Wayne held out until relieved by reinforcements sent by Washington. This scenario would play out again years later, in the Southern campaign.

Statue of Wayne at Valley Forge

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, light infantry commanded 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.

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. United States Congressional Elections, 1788-1997: The Official Results confirms the seat was declared vacant on March 21, 1792.

Northwest Indian War

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 (1783) 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. A confederation of Miami, Shawnee, Delaware (Lenape), and Wyandot Indians 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.

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General Wayne with the Legion of the United States, 1794

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. He then dispatched a force to Ohio to establish Fort Recovery as a base of operations.

Chief Little Turtle, presumed leader of the Native American coalition, warned that General Wayne "never sleeps" and that defeat by him was inevitable. He counseled negotiation rather than battle. Perhaps for this reason, Blue Jacket was chosen to lead the Native warriors in battle. On August 20, 1794, Wayne mounted an assault on Blue Jacket's 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. Although a relatively small skirmish, many warriors were disheartened and abandoned the camp. Soon after, the British abandoned their Northwest Territory forts in the Jay Treaty. Wayne then negotiated the Treaty of Greenville between the tribal confederacy and the United States, which was signed on August 3, 1795.

Wayne died of complications from gout during a return trip to Pennsylvania from a military post in Detroit, and was buried at Fort Presque Isle (now Erie, Pennsylvania). His body was disinterred in 1809 and, after boiling the body to remove the remaining flesh where the modern Wayne Blockhouse stands, was relocated to the family plot in St. David’s Episcopal Church Cemetery in Radnor, Pennsylvania. A legend says that many bones were lost along the roadway that encompasses much of modern PA-322, and that every January 1st (Wayne's birthday), his ghost wanders the highway searching for his lost bones.

Legacy

Wayne's was the first attempt to provide formalized basic training for regular Army recruits and Legionville was the first facility established expressly for this purpose.

The Treaty of Greenville was procured due to Wayne's military successes against the tribal confederacy and gave most of what is now Ohio to the United States, and cleared the way for that state to enter the Union in 1803.

Although it is often attributed to his recklessness and daring in battle, General Wayne received the nickname "Mad Anthony" because he was struck in the skull by a musket ball during the Battle of Stony Point in 1779. Military surgeon Absalom Baird removed the broken fragmants of his skull and replaced them with a steel plate in an operation called a cranioplasty which was pioneered by Meekeren in the 17th century. A side effect of the operation was occasional epileptic-like seizures which would cause Wayne to fall on the ground spastically and foam at the mouth. Hence the nickname.

George Washington, despite his lax position on foreign entanglements, considered General "Mad Anthony" Wayne as a last resort for the "Indian Problem."

Anthony Wayne was the father of Isaac Wayne, United States Representative from Pennsylvania.

Places, institutions, etc. named for Wayne

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. A small sample:

• Counties, cities, towns, communities, rivers
  • Wayne County, Kentucky
  • Wayne County, Pennsylvania
  • Wayne County, Georgia
  • Wayne County, Illinois
  • Wayne County, Indiana
  • Wayne County, Michigan
  • Wayne County, Missouri
  • Wayne County, Nebraska
  • Wayne County, North Carolina
  • Wayne County, New York
  • Wayne County, Ohio
  • Wayne County, West Virginia
  • Wayne City, Illinois
  • The Town of Waynesville, North Carolina
  • The Town of Waynesville, Missouri
  • The City of Waynesboro, Georgia
  • The City of Fort Wayne, Indiana
  • The City of Wayne, Michigan
  • The City of Wayne, Nebraska
  • The City of Waynesboro, Virginia
  • The City of Waynesburg, Pennsylvania
  • The City of Waynesboro, Pennsylvania
  • The Village of Waynesfield, Ohio
  • The Village of Wayne, Illinois
  • The community of Wayne, Pennsylvania
  • The former Wayne Township, Montgomery County, Ohio (now the City of Huber Heights)
  • The Village of Waynesville, Ohio
  • Wayne Township, New Jersey
  • the former Mad River Township and Mad River Township Local School District (now Riverside, Ohio)
  • the Mad River, a tributary of the Great Miami River, Dayton, Ohio
  • Wayne National Forest in Ohio

Popular culture

Wayne's legacy has extended to American popular culture in the following ways:

• Actor Marion Robert Morrison was initially given the stage name of Anthony Wayne, after the general, by Raoul Walsh who directed The Big Trail (1930), but Fox Studios changed it to John Wayne, instead. John Wayne was leading man in 142 of his 153 movies, more than any other actor.
• Comic book writer Bill Finger named Batman's alter ego, Bruce Wayne, after the general. In at least some versions of the DC continuity, Gen. Wayne is depicted as Bruce's ancestor.
• In The Catcher in the Rye, Mr. Spencer, one of the teachers at fictitious Pencey Prep , lives across the street from campus on "Anthony Wayne Avenue."
• Anthony Wayne is one of the main characters in Ann Rinaldi's historical novel A Ride into Morning.
• The Gen. "Mad" Anthony Wayne, a side-wheel steamboat, sank in April 1850 in Lake Erie while en route from the Toledo area to Buffalo, New York. 38 out of 93 passengers and crew on board died. On June 21, 2007, it was announced that it was rediscovered by Thomas Kowalczk, an amateur shipwreck hunter.
• Mad Anthony is a rock band out of Cincinnati, Ohio. (www.myspace.com/madanthonyband)
• NASCAR driver Tony Stewart is named Anthony Wayne Stewart.
• The Fort Wayne NBA Development team (basketball) is called the Fort Wayne Mad Ants.
• A beer named after him by the Erie Brewing Company 'Mad Anthony's Ale'

References

ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

• United States Congressional Elections, 1788-1997: The Official Results, by Michael J. Dubin (McFarland and Company, 1998)

External links

• General Anthony Wayne
• National Park Service Museum Collection: American Revolutionary War Exhibit, Wayne portrait & bio
• Maumee Valley Heritage Corridor
• Anthony Wayne - The Man Buried in Two Places

Preceded by: Abraham Baldwin James Jackson, and George Mathews	Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Georgia's At-large congressional district 1791 - 1792 alongside: Abraham Baldwin and Francis Willis	Succeeded by: Abraham Baldwin John Milledge, and Francis Willis
Preceded by: Arthur St. Clair	Senior Officer of the United States Army 1792-1796	Succeeded by: James Wilkinson

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