In Washington’s report to Congress about this battle he mentioned only one general by name, General Anthony Wayne.
Wayne’s most daring exploit was the capture of Stony Point, on the Hudson. This was accomplished by 1300 men in a bayonet attack at night. Wayne was wounded and afterward was spoken of by envious officers as “Mad Anthony.”
He performed conspicuous service at Yorktown, and was afterward sent to Georgia, where he fought Indians as well as British. The State of Georgia gave Wayne a rice plantation in token of gratitude.
After Washington resigned the active command of the army, General Josiah Harmar, one of a family living along the Perkiomen, succeeded him. Harmar led an expedition against the Miami Indians in the Northwest in 1790, but was defeated.
General Arthur St. Clair, who had been a major general of the Pennsylvania Line and President of the Continental Congress, succeeded Harmar. St. Clair at the time was also Governor of the Northwestern Territory. He, too, suffered a humiliating defeat in a serious engagement November 4, 1791, by the Miami, led by their chiefs and aided by Simon Girty, the notorious Tory and renegade, another Pennsylvanian.
After his reverse Washington appointed Anthony Wayne a major general and put him in command of the Army of the United States. The Indians were aided by the British.
Within seven years they had killed 1500 people, and their object was to prevent the settlements beyond the Ohio River.
General Wayne organized an army of 2631 men at Pittsburgh. A large proportion of the soldiers were Pennsylvanians.
The war lasted more than two years. Wayne moved his army down the Ohio, thence to the site of Cincinnati, to the Miami River, 400 miles into the wilderness.
On August 20, 1794, at the Fallen Timbers he encountered a force of 2000 Indians and won the most important victory ever secured over the Indian foes. Almost all the dead warriors were found with British arms.