As a partisan leader, Sumter was second only to Marion, and for two years the patriot fortunes in the South were in their hands. Together they joined Greene when he took charge of the southern army, and proved invaluable allies. Sumter lived to the great age of ninety-eight, and was the last surviving general officer of the Revolution. He was, too, the last survivor of the Braddock expedition, which he had accompanied at the age of twenty-one, and which had been cut to pieces on the Monongahela twenty years before the battle of Lexington was fought.
"Light Horse Harry" Lee, whose "Legion" won such fame in the early years of the Revolution and whose services with Greene in the South were of the most brilliant character, also lived well into the nineteenth century. It was he who, in 1799, appointed by Congress to deliver an address in commemoration of Washington, uttered the famous phrase, "First in war, first in peace, first in the hearts of his countrymen." His son, Robert Edward Lee, was destined to become perhaps the greatest general in our history.
So passed the era of the Revolution, and for thirty years the new country was called upon to face no foreign foe; but pressing upon her frontier was an enemy strong and cruel, who knew not the meaning of the word "peace." Set on by the British during the Revolution, the Indians continued their warfare long after peace had been declared. In the wilderness north of the Ohio they had their villages, from which they issued time after time to attack the white settlements to the south and east. No one knew when or where they would strike, and every village and hamlet along the frontier was liable to attack at any time. The farmer tilling his fields was shot from ambush; the hunter found himself hunted; children were carried away to captivity, and women, looking up from their household work, found an Indian on the threshold.
The land which the Indians held was so beautiful and fertile that settlers ventured into it, despite the deadly peril, and in 1787, the Northwest Territory was formed by Congress, and General Arthur St. Clair appointed its governor. A Scotchman, brave but impulsive, with a good military training, St. Clair had made an unfortunate record in the Revolution. Put in command of the defenses of Ticonderoga in the summer of 1777, to hold it against the advancing British army under Burgoyne, he had permitted the enemy to secure possession of a position which commanded the fort, and he was forced to abandon it. The British started in hot pursuit, and several actions took place in which the Americans lost their baggage and a number of men. St. Clair had really been placed in an impossible position, but his forced abandonment of the fort impressed the public very unfavorably. He still had the confidence of Washington, who assigned him to the important task of governing the new Northwest Territory, and subduing the Indians who overran it. With Braddock's bitter experience still vividly before him, Washington warned St. Clair to beware of a surprise in any expedition he might lead against the Indians, and the events which followed showed how badly that warning was needed.
In the fall of 1791, St. Clair collected a large force at Fort Washington, on the site of the present city of Cincinnati, and prepared to advance against the Miami Indians. He had fourteen hundred men, but he himself was suffering with gout and had to be conveyed most of the way in a hammock. By the beginning of November, the army had reached the neighborhood of the Miami villages, and there, on the morning of the fourth, was surprised, routed and cut to pieces. Less than five hundred escaped from the field, the Indians spreading along the road and shooting down the crazed fugitives at leisure. St. Clair's military reputation had received its death blow, but Washington, with wonderful forbearance, permitted him to retain the governorship of the Territory, from which he was removed by Jefferson in 1802. He lived sixteen years longer, poor and destitute, having used his own fortune to defray the expenses of his troops in the Revolution—a debt which, to the lasting disgrace of the government, it neglected to cancel. He grew old and feeble, and was thrown from a wagon, one day, and killed. Upon the little stone which marks his grave is this inscription: "The earthly remains of Major-General Arthur St. Clair are deposited beneath this humble monument, which is erected to supply the place of a nobler one due from his country."
The task which proved St. Clair's ruin was to be accomplished by another survivor of the Revolution—"Mad" Anthony Wayne; "Mad" because of his fury in battle, the fierceness of his charge, and his recklessness of danger—attributes which he shared with Benedict Arnold. He was thirty years of age at the opening of the Revolution, handsome, full of fire, and hungering for glory. He was to win his full share of it, and to prove himself, next to Washington and Greene, the best general in the army.
His favorite weapon was the bayonet, and he drilled his troops in the use of it until they were able to withstand the shock of the renowned British infantry, who have always prided themselves on their prowess with cold steel. His first service was with Arnold in Canada; he was with Washington at the Brandywine; and at Germantown, hurling his troops upon the Hessians, he drove them back at the point of the bayonet, and retreated only under orders when the general attack failed. At Monmouth, it was he and his men who, standing firm as a rock, repulsed the first fierce bayonet charge of the British guards and grenadiers.
So it is not remarkable that, when Washington found an unusually hazardous piece of work in hand, he should have selected Wayne to carry it through. The British held a strong fort called Stony Point, which commanded the Hudson and which Washington was anxious to capture. It was impossible to besiege it, since British frigates held the river, and it was so strong that an open assault could never carry it. It stood on a rocky promontory, surrounded on three sides by water and connected with the land only by a narrow, swampy neck. The only chance to take the place was by a night attack, and Wayne eagerly welcomed the opportunity to try it.
On the afternoon of July 15, 1779, Wayne, at the head of about thirteen hundred men, started for the fort. He arrived near it after nightfall, and dividing his force into three columns, moved forward to the attack. He relied wholly upon the bayonet, and not a musket was loaded. The advance was soon discovered by the British sentries, and a heavy fire opened upon the Americans, but they pressed forward, swarmed up the long, sloping embankment of the fort, and in a moment were over the walls.