[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 118 (Friday, August 19, 1994)]
[Senate]
[Page S]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: August 19, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
              BICENTENNIAL OF THE BATTLE OF FALLEN TIMBERS

 Mr. GLENN. Mr. President, tomorrow, August 20, is the 200th 
anniversity of Gen. Mad Anthony Wayne's victory over a confederation of 
Indians at the Battle of Fallen Timbers along the Maumee River near 
Toledo, OH. For many the battle and its general have slipped from 
memory. But the names remain all across the landscape of western Ohio 
and southern Michigan. This year many Ohioans remember the significance 
of this important event.
  President George Washington directed General Wayne and the Nation's 
first professional army to deal with the western Indian trouble; 200 
years ago places such as Fort Defiance, Fort Recovery, and Fallen 
Timbers became legend. The battle and the subsequent Treaty of Greene 
Ville, ended the Indian wars in Ohio and opened the Northwest 
territories to settlement.
  The Battle of Fallen Timbers took place on August 20, 1794, and 
actually lasted only about an hour. Wayne with his 1,500 regular troops 
and 2,000 Kentucky militia outnumbered the confederated Indian forces.
  Wayne was tempestuous and knew success in the Revolutionary War as a 
fighting military officer. He was a strict disciplinarian and looked 
out for his men. Wayne had his flaws but he was merciless on himself. 
Three weeks before the battle, a tree fell on him and nearly killed 
him. Despite internal injuries and gout, he was on the frontlines of 
the battle, urging his men to fight.
  Mr. President, on this anniversary of the Battle of Fallen Timbers, I 
note the significance of this historical event and I ask that an 
article entitled Mad Anthony's Battle by Randy McNutt that was 
published in the August 1994 issue of Ohio magazine appear in the 
Congressional Record.

                   [From Ohio Magazine, August 1994]

                          Mad Anthony's Battle

                           (By Randy McNutt)

       Once, Anthony Wayne's fame hung over Hamilton like a 
     crescent moon. As a boy I thought Wayne had been president. 
     We passed signs for Wayne Trace Road; Fort Wayne, Indiana; 
     Waynesville, Ohio; Wayne Township and the Anthony Wayne 
     Parkway, better known as U.S. Route 127. Once, my father took 
     us through two Wayne counties, in central Ohio and southern 
     Michigan, and every year my family shopped at Hamilton's Mad 
     Anthony Day Sale. While downtown, I admired the Anthony Wayne 
     Hotel, the architectural tribute to Wayne's good name and for 
     years Hamilton's social focal point. Today, I'm sorry to say, 
     the elegant 1920s hotel sits empty, facing resurrection or 
     the wrecking ball, and Wayne's memory isn't much different.
       Two hundred years after his greatest victory, Anthony Wayne 
     is still Ohio's most ubiquitous name. No other pioneer is so 
     easily recognized, no other so equally forgotten. On August 
     20, 1794, his army defeated a coalition of Indian tribes in 
     the Battle of Fallen Timbers. He was born to win this battle, 
     although once he was more famous for other ones. Probably the 
     bicentennial will come and go without much reflection, 
     despite its significance: Fallen Timbers opened the Ohio 
     country to settlers and led to statehood in 1803.
       History is anything that happened before Vietnam, thereby 
     making Gen. Anthony Wayne prehistoric. Before television 
     clouded our historic depth perception, people in Hamilton, my 
     hometown, remembered him as a hero. What they may not have 
     realized, however, was that without Wayne's victory, their 
     town--and many others--might not exist. Already the Indians 
     had defeated undisciplined volunteer armies under Gen. Josiah 
     Harmar in 1790 and territorial Gov. Arthur St. Clair in 1791. 
     St. Clair's defeat--he lost almost half his 2,000 men--
     presented an enormous setback. It's still one of America's 
     worst defeats. A slaughter. If Wayne had lost, the young 
     nation might have signed a treaty with the Indians, cutting 
     off the flow of settlers to the West at a critical time and 
     changing American history. Northern Ohio might be an Indian 
     buffer zone or a part of Canada.
       Ironically the biggest battle ever fought on Ohio soil--and 
     possibly the era's most important one--was an anti-climax. 
     Both sides had anticipated the battle for months, but when 
     the shooting stopped, fewer than 50 soldiers lay dead. Troops 
     complained more about ague than Indians that week, yet Fallen 
     Timbers veterans became mythical heroes. Today, the battle 
     site is a pleasant park with an understated monument. You 
     wouldn't know that the place is a famous old battleground, or 
     that Wayne, whose name adorns many public buildings and 
     political subdivisions in Ohio, spent less than four years in 
     the area.
       But here he trained the nation's first professional army, 
     opened the Northeast Territory to settlers, won the long 
     Indian war and signed a treaty with the tribes that ceded 
     much of what would become Ohio to the United States. 
     Naturally, his popularity haunted the region; states and 
     communities honored him. Besides George Washington, Wayne was 
     the old Northwest Territory's most praiseworthy figure.
       Some people in my town have heard his name so often that 
     they assume he built Fort Hamilton. Actually he took it over 
     from St. Clair, who named it for Alexander Hamilton, 
     secretary of the treasury. The fort grew into the town of 
     Hamilton, complete with paintings and other reminders of 
     Wayne. I have never seen a portrait of St. Clair in town. 
     About 1900 the community built a fancy Memorial Building to 
     honor its soldiers and pioneers. To mark the location of the 
     fort, builders erected limestone stockades and blockhouses 
     near the Great Miami. These days, only visitors stop long 
     enough to notice the stone oddities, and rarely does anybody 
     invoke the name of Wayne. Yet somehow his aura faintly 
     shines, as though he were an ancient god.
       Anthony Wayne, Ohio icon, was born not in the Northwest 
     Territory but in Easttown Township, Pennsylvania in 1745. He 
     studied surveying as a young man, grew bored, entered 
     politics, ran off to war as a colonel in Pennsylvania's 
     Revolutionary militia, slept on the ground when he had to, 
     ignored his wife for years, paid too much attention to 
     another woman, took command of his unit and captured 
     Ticonderoga, told George Washington he'd storm Hell itself 
     for him, was appointed major general, was grazed on the head 
     by a musket ball but continued to fight, went to Congress but 
     was defeated for re-election, headed west as commander of the 
     first U.S. Army, wrapped himself in flannel bandages when the 
     pain of gout became unbearable, longed to leave the field to 
     become Secretary of War, tried various investments without 
     much success, argued bitterly with some of his generals and 
     died disappointed and in pain.
       All his life, he acted confidently--too cocky for his 
     colleagues' tastes. One general called Wayne a blockhead. 
     Friends and enemies alike agreed that he sought to attract 
     attention to himself by boasting and posturing, but he backed 
     up his talk with his prowess on the battlefield. For example, 
     he incorporated centuries of European military tactics into 
     his strategies, but on the frontier he realized that man-to-
     man fighting--not walls of soliders--worked better. What 
     didn't change with the territory was his love for front-line 
     action, and the thrill of a righteous fight. ``He may at 
     times have seemed eager, even lustful, for combat,'' 
     biographer Glenn Tucker wrote.'' He was frankly a tradesman 
     in slaughter, a devotee of inflicting death.''
       Sent west in 1794 to salvage the new republic's battered 
     military position, Wayne had to fight two wars 
     simultaneously--on the frontier and on the bureaucratic front 
     back east, where anti-Federalist politicians and high-ranking 
     officers tried to discredit him at every bend. Their 
     criticism, though intense, didn't diminish his reputation as 
     a commander. As Theodore Roosevelt pointed out, Wayne was 
     America's best fighting general. Like Patton, however, Wayne 
     could thrive only in the turbulent years of war. If he hadn't 
     become a soldier, he would have ended up a politician, for 
     both occupations require the killer instinct.
       As an early proponent of quick and concentrated force--a 
     bayonet blitzkrieg--Wayne's theory of fighting was: When in 
     doubt, attack. ``The enemy,'' he explained, ``are taught to 
     dread--and our soldiery to believe--in the Bayonet.'' During 
     the Revolution, on the night before the Battle of Monmouth, 
     Washington asked his generals if he should hit Sir Henry 
     Clinton's forces as they crossed New Jersey. Most of them 
     said no. ``Fight, sir!'' said Wayne. At the war's end, he had 
     established a dual reputation--one of the Revolution's most 
     respected generals, behind Washington, Lafayette and 
     Nathanael Greene, and also a tempestuous dandy who swore 
     compulsively, dressed in full military regalia and enjoyed 
     playing the general's role. He acquired the nickname ``Mad'' 
     Anthony from an angry scout who had been lashed, some 
     historians think, or after he made some brash move at the 
     Battle of Green Spring Farm in 1781. Despite the nickname, 
     Wayne's madness always had method. No detail escaped his 
     scrutiny.
       At the same time, he often made rash statements that riled 
     his troops and enemies. He once said, ``A bloody track will 
     mark my setting sun,'' and soldiers took it literally. They 
     wondered if it was their blood. His comments received so much 
     attention in the newspapers that not even his admirers could 
     separate the words of Mad Anthony from those of Gen. Wayne. 
     In exasperation, Washington said Wayne could ``fight as well 
     as brag,'' but admitted that Wayne was ``more active and 
     enterprising than judicious and cautious.'' Henry ``Light 
     Horse Harry'' Lee, who sensed Wayne's special need for war, 
     put it more candidly: ``Wayne had a constitutional attachment 
     to the sword.''
       His soldiers, of course, did not always share his views of 
     battle. Many admired his courage and attention to detail, but 
     just as many thought he lacked compassion for them. ``Wayne 
     brutally overrode his subordinates,'' observes Larry Nelson, 
     manager of Fort Meigs State Memorial in Lucas County. ``Some 
     people romanticize this aspect of his personality and say 
     such stern treatment was good for discipline. The truth is, 
     his men and the Indians found Wayne hard to cope with. He was 
     not well-liked by any means. A definite camp supported him, 
     but another did not. At Fort Adams, a tree fell and almost 
     crushed him while he was in his tent one night--possibily an 
     assassination attempt. It is believed that Gen. Wilkinson, 
     Wayne's second in command, was responsible.'' Tough exterior 
     notwithstanding, Wayne was no more vicious than other 
     generals of the period, maintains Floyd Barmann, director of 
     the Clark County Historical Society and commander of the 
     First American Regiment re-enactment group. ``He wanted to 
     make sure his men did what they were supposed to do,'' 
     Barmann says. ``It was a difficult period''
       During the Revolution, Wayne once challenged a group of 
     angry soldiers to shoot him. They declined, mostly because he 
     acted so arrogantly. Another time, 12 soldiers were convicted 
     of refusing to march. They were shot by a firing squad, but 
     one lay wounded. Wayne ordered a soldier to kill the man with 
     a bayonet, but the soldier refused, saying he was a friend. 
     Wayne held a pistol against the squad member's head, 
     threatened to shoot and the order was obeyed. Wayne didn't 
     change his harsh disciplinary practices in 1792, when 
     Congress voted to raise a professional army and President 
     Washington asked Wayne to lead it. If anything, he became 
     more authoritarian. Wayne called his army the Legion of the 
     United States, and of it he demanded professionalism. ``When 
     he speaks Heaven shrieks,'' one officer wrote, ``and all 
     stand in awe.''
       Wayne thought American troops should look like soldiers--no 
     beards, no sloppy uniforms, no drinking on duty. ``I have an 
     inseparable bias of an elegant uniform and soldierly 
     appearance,'' he said. ``I would rather risk my life and 
     reputation at the head of the same men in an attack, merely 
     with bayonets and single charge of ammunition, than to take 
     them as they appear in common with 60 rounds of cartridges.''
       Trained by the spring of 1793, Wayne's army left its 
     Pennsylvania camp for a new one near Cincinnati. Soldiers 
     were restless; the weather was harsh. Pay suddenly stopped 
     when a yellow fever epidemic hit Washington, forcing 
     government workers to temporarily flee the city. Enraged by 
     an increasing number of desertions, Wayne ordered his 
     blacksmiths to forge branding irons marked ``deserter.'' 
     Before Wayne could test them, Secretary of War Henry Knox 
     forbade their use. Knox, a Wayne supporter, knew Wayne's 
     enemies would use such an incident against him.
       Wayne marched north from Cincinnati in the fall of 1793 
     with more than 3,600 regulars, to build a series of forts 
     between the Ohio and the Maumee rivers. They included Fort 
     Greene Ville, Fort Defiance, Fort Jefferson, Fort St. Clair 
     and, on the site of Arthur St. Clair's defeat, Fort Recovery. 
     Watching this ominous advance, Little Turtle, the tribes' top 
     strategist in the Northwest, warned that Wayne was too 
     formidable. ``We have beaten the enemy twice under different 
     commanders,'' he told them. ``We cannot expect the same good 
     fortune to attend us always. The Americans are now led by a 
     chief who never sleeps. The nights and days are alike to him, 
     and during all the time he has been marching on our villages, 
     notwithstanding the watchfulness of our young men, we have 
     never been able to surprise him. It would be prudent to 
     listen to his offers of peace.''
       The Legion's route north, roughly where Route 127 is today, 
     went through flat land then filled with trees and swamps. The 
     Indians--even his own troops--expected Wayne to follow the 
     path of previous American armies, but Wayne circulated rumors 
     that he would attack Indian tribes to his right and left. 
     Surprised warriors rushed to defend their homes, leaving the 
     Legion free to walk up the middle of western Ohio's Indian 
     country. On August 19, 11 days after leaving Greene Ville, 
     the Legion had marched 77 back-breaking miles through the 
     wilderness. By this time, Wayne spoke incoherently and he was 
     oblivious to the hardships of his troops. Privately he 
     predicted his death in battle soon. Near the Maumee, the 
     Legion waited, although Wayne still didn't think the Indians 
     were ready to fight. Brig. Gen. James Wilkinson, Wayne's old 
     nemesis and subordinate, bet him a cask of wine that the 
     Indians would fight. Wilkinson, who preferred traditional 
     methods of fighting and wrote anonymous newspaper attacks on 
     the commander, often questioned Wayne's competence and 
     credibility.
       On the morning of August 20, Wayne woke in agony. Tears 
     moistened his face. His gout had returned in crippling force, 
     so he told his men to wrap bandages around his arms and legs 
     and to lift him onto his horse. Lt. William Henry Harrison 
     said, ``General, I'm afraid you'll get into the fight 
     yourself and give the necessary field orders.'' Wayne 
     replied, ``And if I do, recollect that the standing order of 
     the day is, `Charge the damned rascals with the bayonets!''' 
     By 8 a.m., a light rain ended and the sun came out. As the 
     soldiers pushed forward, an Indian force estimated at from 
     1,000 to 2,000 warriors attacked the Legion's front line, 
     which faltered. Ignoring his pain, Wayne rode to the front 
     and urged his men to fight in the tall grass and decayed 
     timber that had been recently blown over by a tornado. 
     Soldiers howled as they swept into the woods, stabbing and 
     firing. The bloodiest combat lasted no more than 40 minutes. 
     By some accounts, the Legion suffered only 28 deaths and 100 
     wounded. Forty Indians lay scattered in the woods, but Wayne 
     thought more bodies had been carried away. Shaken by the 
     severity of the brief attack, the Indians ran to Fort Miami, 
     but the British would not let them enter. Wayne walked close 
     to the fort to taunt the British. When they wouldn't fight, 
     Wayne ordered the Legion to set fire to cornfields and 
     prairies around the fort.
       If Wayne had retired immediately after his victory, his 
     name still would have echoed throughout Ohio for the next two 
     centuries. But he continued to make history: he negotiated a 
     landmark treaty that allowed settlers the right to live in 
     territory from the Ohio to a line starting at Fort Recovery 
     and extending northeast to the Cuyahoga. Knowing the 
     countryside was secure, Wayne moved on to other duties in 
     Detroit. In December of 1796, on his way back to 
     Pennsylvania, he suffered a reoccurrence of the gout, the 
     disease that had plagued him for so long, and after a week of 
     high fever he died in the Presque Isle blockhouse. He was 
     only 51. Shortly before his death, he had asked to be 
     buried--in full uniform, of course--on Garrison Hill, by a 
     flagpole. He rested there until 1809, when the Society of 
     Cincinnati inquired about burying him with his family in a 
     Radnor churchyard. Wayne's son, Isaac, went to Erie in a 
     sulky to dig up his father. Aided by Wayne's old Legion 
     physician, J.G. Wallace, Isaac Wayne found the general well-
     preserved. The problem: How could Isaac carry his father's 
     body to Radnor in a sulky? Wallace decided to boil the body, 
     strip flesh from bone, send the flesh back to the Erie 
     gravesite for reburial, and to present the bones to Isaac. 
     For his trouble, Wallace ended up in a major scandal, for as 
     he learned, one doesn't dig up icons that easily. Meanwhile, 
     Isaac Wayne arrived in Radnor with the skeleton, which was 
     buried, appropriately enough, on July 4, 1809, giving the 
     general the distinction of being the only American hero with 
     two gravesites.
       Even in death, Anthony Wayne somehow managed to attract 
     attention.

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