ashing commander of
Pennsylvania troops at Ticonderoga, Brandywine, Germantown, Stony Point,
and other important engagements. Finally he obtained a major-general's
commission in Greene's campaign in Georgia, and at the close of the war
he settled in that State as a planter. His vanity--displayed chiefly in
a love of fine clothes--brought upon him a good deal of criticism; and
Washington, who in a Cabinet meeting characterized him as "brave and
nothing else," was frankly apprehensive lest in the present business
Wayne's impetuosity should lead to fresh disaster. Yet the qualities
that on a dozen occasions had enabled Wayne to snatch success from
almost certain defeat--alertness, decisiveness, bravery, and sheer love
of hard fighting--were those now chiefly in demand.

The first task was to create an army. A few regulars were available;
but most of the three or four thousand men who were needed had to be
gathered wheresoever they could be found. A call for recruits brought
together at Pittsburgh, in the summer of 1792, a nondescript lot of
beggars, criminals, and other cast-offs of the eastern cities, no better
and no worse than the adventurers who had taken service under St. Clair.
Few knew anything of warfare, and on one occasion a mere report of
Indians in the vicinity caused a third of the sentinels to desert their
posts. But, as rigid discipline was enforced and drilling was carried
on for eight and ten hours a day, by spring the survivors formed a very
respectable body of troops. The scene of operations was then transferred
to Fort Washington, where fresh recruits were started on a similar
course of development. Profitting by the experience of his predecessors,
Wayne insisted that campaigning should begin only after the troops were
thoroughly prepared; and no drill-master ever worked harder to get his
charges into condition for action. Going beyond the ordinary manual
of arms, he taught the men to load their rifles while running at full
speed, and to yell at the top of their voices while making a bayonet
attack.

In October, 1793, the intrepid Major-General advanced with twenty-six
hundred men into the nearer stretches of the Indian country, in order
to be in a position for an advantageous spring campaign. They built
Fort Greenville, eighty miles north of Cincinnati, and there spent the
winter, while, on St. Clair's fatal battle-field, an advance detachment
built a post which they hopefully christened Fort Recovery