arrison. They were much disheartened at the check, and
the Upper Lake Indians began to go home. The savages were as fickle as
they were ferocious: and though terrible antagonists when fighting on
their own ground and in their own manner, they lacked the stability
necessary for undertaking a formidable offensive movement in mass. This
army of two thousand warriors, the largest they had ever assembled, was
repulsed with loss in an attack on a wooden fort with a garrison not one
sixth their strength, and then dissolved without accomplishing anything
at all.

Wayne Starts on his March.
Severity of Wayne's Discipline.

Three weeks after the successful defence of Fort Recovery, Wayne was
joined by a large force of mounted volunteers from Kentucky, under
General Scott; and on July 27th he set out towards the Miami towns. The
Indians who watched his march brought word to the British that his army
went twice as far in a day as St. Clair's, that he kept his scouts well
out and his troops always in open order and ready for battle; that he
exercised the greatest precaution to avoid an ambush or surprise, and
that every night the camps of the different regiments were surrounded by
breastworks of fallen trees so as to render a sudden assault hopeless.
Wayne was determined to avoid the fates of Braddock and St. Clair. His
"legion" of regular troops, was over two thousand strong. His discipline
was very severe, yet he kept the loyal affection of his men. He had made
the officers devote much of their time to training the infantry in
marksmanship and the use of the bayonet and the cavalry in the use of
the sabre. He impressed upon the cavalry and infantry alike that their
safety lay in charging home with the utmost resolution. By steady drill
he had turned his force, which was originally not of a promising
character, into as fine an army, for its size, as a general could wish
to command.

Excellence of his Troops.

The perfection of fighting capacity to which he had brought his forces
caused much talk among the frontiersmen themselves. One of the
contingent of Tennessee militia wrote home in the highest praise of the
horsemanship and swordsmanship of the cavalry, who galloped their horses
at speed over any ground, and leaped them over formidable obstacles, and
of the bayonet practice, and especially of the marksmanship, of the
infantry. He remarked that hunters were apt to undervalue the soldiers
as marksmen, but that Wayne'