"My mind and heart are upon that river," said Cornplanter, an Indian chief, pointing to the Ohio. "May that water ever continue to be the boundary between the Americans and the Indians."
Commissioned by Washington First Lieutenant of the Fourth Sub-Legion, on the first of September, 1792, William Clark crossed the Ohio and spent the winter at Legionville where Wayne was collecting and drilling his army.
"I will have no six months men," said Wayne. "Two years will it take to organise, drill, and harden them before we think of taking the field."
"We are certain to be scalped," whispered timorous ones, remembering St. Clair's slaughter. Hundreds deserted. The very word Indian inspired terror.
But horse, foot, and artillery, he drilled them, the tremblers took courage, and the government, at last awakened, stood firmly behind with money and supplies.
"Remember, Stony Point was stormed with unloaded muskets. See! You must know the use of the broadsword and of the bayonet, a weapon before which the savages cannot stand."
At work went "Mad Anthony" teaching his men to load and fire upon the run, to leap to the charge with loud halloos, anticipating all possible conditions.
"Charge in open order. Each man rely on himself, and expect a personal encounter with the enemy." The men caught his spirit. Wayne's Legion became a great military school.
Now he was drilling superb Kentucky cavalry, as perfectly matched as the armies of Europe, sorrel and bay, chestnut and gray, bush-whacking and charging, leaping ravines and broken timber, outdoing the Indians themselves in their desperate riding.
And with all this drill, Wayne was erecting and garrisoning forts. In the fall of 1793, Lieutenant Clark was dispatched to Vincennes.