USA > Pennsylvania > Pennsylvania in American history > Part 3
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on parade with their arms and without their offi- cers, took possession of the provisions and ammu- nition, seized six pieces of artillery, took the horses from the stables, swept the ground with round shot and grape, and proposed to march to Philadelphia and see to it that their grievances were redressed. Some of the officers who tried to stem the torrent were killed. Some of the men were stricken with swords and espontoons and their bodies trampled beneath the hoofs of the horses. Then there were conferences. Joseph Reed, President of Pennsyl- vania, and the Congress began to stir themselves and to make strenuous efforts to meet the troubles of the situation. For two weeks the men kept up a perfect discipline and permitted Wayne, with Colonels Butler and Stewart, to come and go among them. Sir Henry Clinton sent two emis- saries to them with a written proposition to afford them protection, to pay in gold all the arrears of wages due from the Congress, and to exempt them from all military service. It was no doubt a tempt- ing offer. It would have ended the war, and the Colonies would have remained dependencies. These patriots were not made of such stuff. They at once
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handed over to Washington the British agents, who were on the 12th promptly hanged. Reed had the indelicacy to offer a reward in money, which Bowser declined because the spies had been surren- dered "for the zeal and love of our country." In the end the Government discharged twelve hundred and fifty men whose terms had expired, thus admit- ting its delinquency, gave to each poor fellow a pair of shoes, an overall and a shirt, and promised that the "arrearages of pay (were) to be made up as soon as circumstances will admit." The greater number of the men willingly reënlisted and Israel went back to its tents. "The path we tread is justice and our footsteps founded upon honor," announced Sergeant Bowser.
The war now drifted to the southward, and Wayne with eight hundred men of the Pennsylva- nia Line appeared in Virginia. Washington ordered the Line to be transferred to the southern army, and wishing a brigadier to go with the first detach- ment so as to be ready to form the whole, wrote to Wayne: "This duty of course devolves upon you." Lafayette, then in Virginia, warmly expressed his gratification and Greene did not hesitate to declare:
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"You must know you are the Idle [Idol] of the legion."
A tragedy preceded the movement of the troops into the campaign. As has been shown, they had been promised that the arrearages of their wages would be paid to them. The money came while they were in York, in Pennsylvania, but it was the paper of the Continental Congress. Ac- cording to Wayne, this paper was then worth about one-seventh of its face value, and the people of the neighborhood declined to accept it in exchange for what they had to sell. On the 24th of May a few men on the right of each regiment, when formed in line, called out that they wanted "real, and not ideal, money," and that "they were no longer to be trifled with." These men were ordered to retire to their tents, and they refused to go. The officers, who had come prepared, promptly knocked them down and put them in confinement, a court-martial was ordered on the spot, the trial proceeded before the soldiers paraded under arms, and in the course of a few hours the accused were convicted of mutiny and shot. Says Wayne: "Whether by design or accident the particular friends and mess-
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mates of the culprits were their executioners." Our patriotic forefathers of the Revolutionary War were not altogether gentle and mild-mannered per- sons. To Polly, whose tender heart must have been moved by the painful recital, he explained : " I was obliged to make an exemplary punishment, which will have a very happy effect." But we find more relief in a letter he wrote about the same time to Nicholson, the paymaster: "My feelings will not permit me to see the widows and orphans of brave and worthy soldiers who have fought, bled and died under my own eye, deprived of those rights they are so justly entitled to." His careless servant Philip lost the greater part of his table linen and napkins; his carriage and its horses, his baggage wagon with its four horses, a driver and four sol- diers were at the plantation of Colonel Simm; " But hark, the ear piercing fife, the spirit stirring drum, and all the pomp and glorious circumstance of war" summoned him to horse, and away they hurried to Virginia, crossing the Potomac with artillery and baggage upon four little boats, one of which sank, drowning a few men, and reaching Leesburg, a distance of thirty miles, in two days.
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On another day, when there was no river to cross, they marched twenty-two miles. As had grown to become customary, in the Virginia campaign as elsewhere, Wayne went to the front. On the 25th of June Lafayette wrote: "Having given you the command of our advanced corps, consisting of Butler's advance and your Pennsylvanians, I request you to dispose of them in the best way you think proper."
Cornwallis had his headquarters at Portsmouth and held control of the peninsula between the York and the James rivers, while Lafayette, whose force was much inferior, marched hither and yon in an effort to prevent the British detachments from get- ting supplies and if possible to cut them off and effect their capture. On the 6th of July what he thought to be the coveted opportunity arose. In- formation came that Cornwallis, in moving down the James river, had left his rear guard on the eastern bank near Green Spring, and that his army was divided with a river between. Lafayette ordered Wayne, with eight hundred men, nearly all of them from Pennsylvania, and three field pieces, to make an attack upon this rear guard. After crossing a
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swamp by means of a causeway, and coming upon the enemy, they discovered too late that the infor- mation was erroneous, and that they were con- fronted by the whole British army of four thousand men under command of Cornwallis himself. The lion, awakened from his sleep, sprang forward in a dangerous mood and soon flanking parties began to envelop Wayne upon both sides. Here was a seri- ous problem-a swamp in the rear, an enemy on the front, and overwhelming forces closing around. What was to be done? Lafayette hurried off an aide to bring up his army, but they were five mile away, and what might not be accomplished while ten miles of country were being traversed? To retreat was to be utterly lost. To stand still meant ultimate capture. Situations such as these, requiring the capacity to think accurately in the midst of un- expected crises, which Hooker was unable to do at Chancellorsville, and the character bravely and vig- orously to act upon the conclusions reached, in which Lee failed at Monmouth, furnish the real test of military ability. Wayne boldly ordered a charge, the troops had entire confidence in his leadership, and he succeeded. Cornwallis, with
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an estimated loss of three hundred in killed and wounded, retired toward Portsmouth to meet his now threatened fate. Of the Americans one hun- dred and twenty were killed or wounded. Lafay- ette in general orders proclaimed: "The general is happy in acknowledging the spirit of the detach- ment commanded by General Wayne in their en- gagement with the total of the British Army. . . · The conduct of the Pennsylvania field and other officers are new instances of their gallantry and talents." Greene, who had a somewhat undue respect for the British general, wrote: "Be a little careful and tread softly, for depend upon it you have a modern Hannibal to deal with in the person of Cornwallis. Oh, that I had had you with me a few days ago."
Washington placidly wrote: "I cannot but feel myself interested in the welfare of those to whose gallant conduct I have so often been a wit- ness," while the more youthful and mercurial Light Horse Harry Lee could not restrain his enthusiasm, almost shouting: "I feel the highest joy in know- ing that my dear friend and his gallant corps dis- tinguished themselves so gloriously."
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The wounded soldiers lacked hospital accom- modations and supplies. Wayne ordered them to be furnished, and if there should be trouble about the payment, "place it to my account." This was not the first time he assumed individual pecuniary responsibility for the relief of his men and the welfare of the cause. In 1777, when there was great distress for want of provisions, he sent ten head of cattle to the army from his own farm and had not been paid for them as late as 1780.
The Continental army and the French fleet were about to concentrate and close in around Cornwallis, and in keeping him occupied and pre- venting the Virginia raids the army of Lafayette had borne its part in bringing about the result. On one occasion Wayne made, as he says, a push for Tarleton at Amelia, but the doughty Colonel had precipitately retreated. It seems almost a pity that they could not have come together. In August, for six days during a period of two weeks, the soldiers of Wayne had been "without anything to eat or drink except new Indian corn and water. . Neither salt, spirits, bacon or flour," but such inconvenience did not dampen their ardor. For a
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time Wayne had been at Westover, and he im- pressed his hostess, the courtly Mrs. Byrd, who wrote: "I shall ever retain the highest sense of your politeness and humanity, and take every op- portunity of testifying my gratitude." The part he took in holding Cornwallis was important. On August 3 1st, Lafayette thought that if Cornwallis did not that night cross to the south of the James, twenty-five ships of the Comte de Grasse having been sighted, he would have to stand a siege. The Marquis sent Wayne over the river and wrote, "now that you are over, I am pretty easy." Wayne posted his men at Cobham on the south side of the James, opposite to Cornwallis, with nothing but the river between them, selected a location on James island for three thousand of the French, who had landed too far below to be effective in preventing the possible retreat of Cornwallis, and then at eight o'clock in the night mounted his horse and rode ten miles to hold a conference with Lafayette, who had sent an express rider to point out the way. About ten o'clock he arrived at the camp, whereupon the sentry upon guard shot him. He had given the pass- word, but the unfortunate guard, whose mind was in-
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tent upon the proximity of the British, made a mis- take. In the midst of the alarm created, Wayne had great difficulty in preventing the whole squad from firing at him. The ball struck in the middle of the thigh, grazed the bone, and lodged on the other side. Instantaneously he felt a severe pain in the foot which he called the gout. For two weeks he was out of service and at the end of that time could only move around in a carriage. For the guard he had only sympathy, and he called him a " poor fellow," but he vented his indignation upon Peters: "Your damned commissary of military plays false. He has put too little powder in the musket cartridges. . . If the damned cartridge had a suf- ficiency of powder the ball would have gone quite through in place of lodging." In view of the pain and the patriotism we may surely, like the record- ing angel, pardon the profanity. That he accurately understood the surrounding conditions and that his judgment as to the outcome was sound, appears from a letter of September 12th, wherein he says: " We have the most glorious certainty of very soon obliging Lord Cornwallis with all his army to sur- render prisoners of war." What a contrast these
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thoughts present to those of another letter written on the same day to his little daughter: "If you have not already begun your French I wish you to request that lady to put you to it as soon as possible.
. . Music, dancing, drawing. Apropos have you determined to hold your head up?"
One of the final attacks at Yorktown was sup- ported by two battalions of Pennsylvania troops and the second parallel of the approaching works of the besiegers they and the Maryland troops completed. When Cornwallis on the 19th surrendered, the guards for one of his fortifications were selected from the French, and for the other from the Penn- sylvania and Maryland troops. Since the French had a fleet of thirty-seven vessels of war, and an army twice as numerous as that of the Colonies, Wayne was sufficiently just to concede that the vic- tory was not altogether due "to the exertions of America."
Soon after the surrender an incident occurred which shows what personal manliness and apprecia- tion of the duty of a soldier actuated Wayne in his conduct. He was suffering from the effects of his recent wound and asked for a short leave of absence.
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Washington, who was himself about to go north to Philadelphia, where he remained until March, but whose purpose was to send Wayne to the south, where the war still lingered, gave a not very cheerful assent. Whereupon Wayne wrote: "As a friend I told you that my feelings were hurt. As a soldier I am always ready to submit to difficulties.
. Your Excellency puts it upon a ground which prevents me from accepting," and getting into a carriage, with such rapidity of progress as was prac- ticable, he made his way to Greene in South Caro- lina along with the Pennsylvania Line.
Greene sent him to Georgia, and much to his regret, without his old troops. However, he had about four hundred dragoons, one hundred and sev- enty infantry, a detachment of field artillery, and such militia as could be raised from time to time. The British had possession of Savannah with thir- teen hundred regulars, five hundred militia, and an indefinite number of refugees and Creek and Cher- okee Indians. The people of Georgia were so impoverished that the Legislature authorized the Governor to seize ten negroes and sell them in order to secure his salary. The country below the Briar
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creek between the Ogeechee and Savannah rivers had become a complete desert. The Whigs and Tories maintained a partisan warfare of the most desperate character, in which mercy to prisoners was neither expected nor shown. Into this caul- dron Wayne plunged, and for the first time in his career he determined for himself the features of a campaign. It is interesting to observe what was ex- pected of him and what were the facilities afforded him for its accomplishment. At the outset Greene sounded this note of warning: "Your reputation depends more on averting a misfortune than on achieving something very great. Brilliant actions may fade, but prudent conduct never can. Your reputation can receive no additional lustre from courage, while prudential conduct will render it complete," and when it came to the methods to be pursued his suggestions were equally definite and helpful: "I think you should try to hold out en- couragement to the Tories to abandon the enemy's interest and though you cannot promise positively to pardon them you may promise to do all in your power to procure it." In brief, Greene had noth- ing to offer, and his utmost hope was that no dis-
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aster should occur. Wayne, in the early part of January, 1782, threw up intrenchments at a point on the Savannah river twenty-five miles above the city of Savannah and established a line across to the Ogeechee, intended to separate the British from their Indian allies and to cut off the sources of supplies. Immediately things began to move and the prospect to brighten. Wayne drafted a pro- clamation to be issued by the Governor of Georgia offering full pardon to the Tories. At the end of six weeks not an officer or soldier had had an op- portunity to remove his clothing, but by January 26th the British had been driven from three of their outposts. The Choctaws, on their way to Savannah, January 30th, were intercepted, twenty- six warriors, six white men and ninety-three pack- horses captured, and while hostages were held the chiefs were sent back to their tribe with messages of friendliness and peace. By the middle of Feb- ruary the British were confined to the city. On the last day of the same month he burned a lot of British forage within half a mile of Savannah. On one occasion he had a personal rencontre with a Creek chief, in which the chief killed his horse,
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and he cut down the Indian with his sword. On the 21st of April he heard again from Greene, who wrote: "General Barnwell tells me you talk of taking position nearer the enemy. It is not my wish you should," to which Wayne, who held a different view, replied: "I never had an idea of taking a position within striking distance, but such a one as would tend to circumscribe the enemy without committing myself. Such a position is about six miles in our front, and if I am joined by a corps of gentlemen under Colonel Clarke agreeable to promise, I shall take it." The next day Greene wrote that there was no ammunition with which to meet the demands of Wayne, that he had no arms to send, that the cartouche-boxes were all in use, and ordering that Captain Gill be withdrawn to join his own army. With the order recalling Gill, Wayne instantly and reluctantly complied.
On the 21st of May the Seventh Regiment of British Infantry, with a force of cavalry, Hessians, Choctaw Indians, and Tories, moved out to the dis- tance of four miles from Savannah. In the night Wayne crossed the swamp, which was thought to
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be a protection, attacked and routed them with great loss, made a number of captures, including Lieutenant Colonel Douglass and thirty horses, and the next morning rode within sight of the city.
" Wise commanders always own
What's prosperous by their soldiers done,"
and Greene expressed his pleasure by saying : "You have disgraced one of the best officers the enemy have." In an effort to drag Greene along still further, Wayne wrote: "Do let us dig the caitiffs out. It will give an éclat to our arms to effect a business in which the armament of our great and good ally failed." Fortunately we have more than the usual amount of information concerning the minor incidents and the manner of life through this campaign. Captured Indians were treated with kindness and kept in a room with fire so that they could do their cooking. We are told by Wayne that "Cornell is a dangerous villain. He must be properly secured or bought." To Polly, "My dear girl," he wrote, "tell my son when he is master of his Latin grammar I will make him a present equal to his sister's when she is mistress of her French."
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The whole force of the militia of Georgia consisted of ninety men. There were numbers of the men who had nothing like a coat. There was only one camp kettle to every twenty men. An officer who came to camp with a letter of introduc- tion was entertained with cold beef, rice and "alli- gator water," but at a more happy time we catch sight of "a quarter cask of Madeira wine, ten and a half gallons of rum, and about two hundred weight of Muscavado sugar." When a dragoon was scalped and his body dragged about the streets of Savannah, Wayne proposed to make victims of an Indian chief and a British officer. He prevented Mrs. Byng, a free quadroon, from being sold as a slave with her children, though her husband had been executed "as a villain, a murderer and outlaw." A lady asked to see him and sent him a union cockade, to which he gallantly replied: "Nature has been but too partial in furnishing Miss Maxwell with every power to please. Notwithstanding these dangerous circumstances, the general as a soldier cannot decline the interview." The personal servant of the British Captain Hughes, who had been cap- tured, he on request sent back, and the captain
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appreciated "the uncommon attention and extreme courtesy."
Through it all Greene kept up a constant nag- ging. "You will please order the same issues as are directed in this army. I am willing the troops should have what is sufficient, but by no means more," and at another time, "I was told you pro- posed to get some clothing from Charlestown and pay in rice .... I wish you therefore to avoid it nor attempt anything of the kind," were some of his cheering messages. On the 6th of June he rather overdid himself, writing : "Far less regular- ity and economy has been made use of in the subsistence of your troops than I could have wished. . I find one pound and a quarter of beef and one pound and a quarter of rice is a sufficient ration for any soldier ... both men and officers should be allowed a reasonable subsistence, but nothing is more pernicious than indulgence." In one sense no letter was ever more happily conceived. It called forth and secured for our benefit a pen sketch by Anthony Wayne of one of his campaigns, which is a contribution to historical literature. In response Wayne said: "I have received yours of the 6th
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inst. on the subject of rations and economy. I am extremely obliged to you for the anxiety you express for every part of my conduct to appear in the most favorable light. . .. On the 19th of Jan- uary we passed the Savannah river in three little canoes, swimming the horses ; that by manœuvres we obliged the enemy to abandon every outpost and to retire into the town of Savannah ; that we found the country a perfect desert, neither meat or bread kind, except what was within the influence of their arms; that notwithstanding this circumstance and surrounded by hostile savages we subsisted ourselves from the stores of the enemy at the point of the sword until with the assistance of a few reclaimed citizens, artificers and slaves we built a number of large boats and rebuilt twelve capital bridges for the purpose of transportation, and three respectable re- doubts to enable us to hold the country, without any other expense to the public than a few hun- dred bushels of rice and beef in proportion, which beef as well as at least one-third of all that has yet been issued in this army cost the United States nothing except the lives of three or four men; the very salt we used was made by ourselves, and the
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iron, etc., with which our horses were shod, boats built, wagons repaired, espontoons made and every kind of smithwork done were also procured without any cost to the public except for a very small pro- portion for which, as well as the labor, we were necessitated to barter some articles of provisions. We were also obliged to exchange some rice and meat for leather and thread to make and repair the horse accoutrements, harness, etc., or to abandon the country. No army was ever supported for less expense or more service rendered in proportion to numbers than on the present occasion. . .. If severe discipline, constant duty, perpetual alarm, and facing every difficulty and danger be an indulgence, I candidly confess that the officers and men under my command have experienced it to a high degree."
At half after one o'clock on the night of June the 24th the Creek Indians, with British assistance, made an attack upon the post, but after the first surprise were soon routed, leaving many dead, in- cluding two white men, on the field. One hundred and seven horses were among the spoils, but their masters, the Indian braves, were subjected to "the bayonet to free us from encumbrance."
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The end of it all was that, on the 11th of July, the British sailed away from Savannah to the West Indies. On the 12th Wayne, at the head of his horsemen, rode in triumph through the streets of the city and the soil of Georgia was never again trodden by the feet of the enemy. The grateful State set apart four thousand guineas to buy for Wayne a tract of land, and the captious but con- verted Greene bore tribute before the Congress to his "singular merit and exertions."
He had one further and final service to render to his country in the War of the Revolution. When on the 14th day of December, 1782, the British forces marched out of the city of Charleston, leav- ing at last the southern colonies to rest and peace, two hundred yards in their rear, at the head of that part of the Continental army, bringing with him promise and hope, Anthony Wayne rode into the relieved city, a fitting climax to his many efforts and trials through the eventful struggle.
The ensuing ten years Wayne spent in civil pursuits and private life, endeavoring to recover from the effects of a malarial fever contracted in Georgia, at one time believed to be fatal, and strug-
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gling with those financial difficulties which beset men who devote their energies to the public service instead of to the betterment of their own fortunes. Throughout all of this period, notwithstanding the treaty of peace, the embers of the war were still smouldering, and it was not until after the close of the second contest of 1812 that Americans could feel secure in their independence. The country west of the Ohio was occupied by Indian tribes ever ready to bring devastation, destruction and desola- tion to the homes of the border settlers, and ever incited and aided by the British, who held a num- ber of posts along the lakes. Washington, who had become President of the United States, selected, to command forces sent to overawe them, Harmar and St. Clair in succession, and each was in turn defeated, the latter with circumstances of peculiar horror and dismay from the loss of such noted soldiers as Butler and Crawford, the latter burned at the stake. Then he sent for Anthony Wayne, gave him at last the commission of a major general, and placed him in command of the Army of the United States. In modest and serious words Wayne accepted the re- sponsibility. "I clearly foresee that it is a com-
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