Ohio History Journal

OHIO

Archaeological and Historical

SOCIETY PUBLICATIONS

 

OHIO'S MONUMENT TO GENERAL ANTHONY

WAYNE UNVEILED

ADDRESS OF HONORABLE JAMES W. GOOD, SECRETARY OF

WAR, IN HOTEL COMMODORE OLIVER HAZARD

PERRY, TOLEDO, OHIO, SEPTEMBER              14, 1929.

[In introducing the Secretary of War, Toastmaster Mr. Grove Patter-

son spoke as follows:

"Now, ladies and gentlemen, I am sure that I speak for the Ohio State

Archaeological and Historical Society, under the auspices of which this

monument was constructed, and these exercises and this banquet have been

prepared, when I say that the officers and members of that society, are glad

to have this spirit of patriotism from the Sons of the American Revolution

as expressed by the President of the Anthony Wayne Chapter.

I want at this juncture to express the appreciation of all the members

of the society for the number of women who have come to this banquet. It

always helps the toastmaster to have this kind of an audience, though I am

reminded at the moment of what Dusty Miller said about wives at the

Rotary Club, last Monday. He said a wife is a person who has just seen

a good place to park a little way back. (Laughter.)

But be that as it may, we are glad there are so many wives and others

here on this occasion. As I said a moment ago we have a feeling of secu-

rity when our public officials are willing to carry on and do things that

really mark some sort of human progress. I am sure that sense of security

is very much enlarged when we find the President of the United States

calling in to his official family, men who are not in any sense office seekers

and who, in their exalted position, are by natural heritage and by attain-

ments, men of statesman-like proportions.

I think we in Toledo, the home of a member of the President's official

family, the Postmaster-General, feel a sort of a chumminess and a sense of

comfort and friendliness that we would not otherwise feel in quite so great

a measure in welcoming another member of the President's family.

The exploits of General Wayne were the exploits of war and it seems

to me that it is fitting that those exploits should be celebrated by one who

stands at the head of the war department of the national government. I am

sure that we at this banquet are peculiarly fortunate and that the whole city

of Toledo is distinctly honored in that we are privileged to entertain on this

occasion the Secretary of War, and one who, as most of you know, partici-

(3)

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4        Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications

 

pated in the recent triumphant campaign of the President, and now sits at the

council table of Mr. Hoover.

I am happy indeed to introduce as the principal speaker of this evening

the Hon. James W. Good, the Secretary of War." (Applause).]

ADDRESS OF SECRETARY OF WAR JAMES W. GOOD

Mr. Toastmaster, Ladies and Gentlemen:      I am

happy to be here on this occasion, first because I am

complying with the wish of your distinguished fellow

townsmen and my very good friend, Walter Brown,

(applause), and second, I am happy to be present and

have a part in the exercises which have a significance

more than local, more than state-wide, even nation-wide.

In all history there is no more heroic or inspiring

chapter than that which records the conquest of this

continent from savagery for civilization. It began with

the great migrations of the seventeenth and eighteenth

centuries which settled the Atlantic seaboard. It con-

tinued in the westward movements of American popula-

tion in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. In a

short space of time, as the history of humankind is

measured, it has transformed a vast wilderness, inhab-

ited by savage beasts and little less savage men, into a

seat of civilization which is the marvel of the world, the

happy abode of increasing millions, whose standard of

living, whose progress and aspirations touch the high-

water mark of advancement for the masses of men.

As we look about us and see these modern monu-

ments of progress, these fruitful fields and busy cities,

these miracles of construction, of transportation, and

inter-communication, these schools and churches and all

the institutions which stand for human betterment, it is

well for us to remember that this tremendous task has

been accomplished at no small toil and sacrifice by the

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Ohio's Monument to General Anthony Wayne  5

men who have gone before. We are the inheritors of

the brave and laborious deeds of our forebears, who in

their frail ships crossed the Atlantic to plant outposts

of civilization in the New World, and who, mile by mile,

fought their way across this continent, conquering the

forests, the swamp, the mountain and the arid plains,

the wild beast and the savage, facing disease and hunger

and death, that we might enjoy the heritage of their de-

votion and valor.

It is well that on occasions like this we should recall

the debt we owe to the pioneer fathers, whose enduring

monument is our civilization itself. For in the thought

of our debt to them we may gain some realization of the

measure of our reciprocal obligations to the future. We

cannot honorably accept this heritage without some

thought of what we shall bequeath to the generations

that shall come after us. If we do not bring to the duties

of the present, some of that spirit, some of those noble

qualities which have made it possible for us to enjoy the

privileges and opportunities so dearly won for us, then

we are unworthy sons of worthy sires.

We have come together tonight in obedience to one

of our finer instincts--a natural impulse in the heart

of a people which prompts them to consecrate battle-

fields that drank the blood of their fathers, and to erect

monuments to the memory and honor of their distin-

guished benefactors and defenders. This instinct

arouses veneration for great leaders in thought and in

action. It moved the old Greeks of two thousand years

and more ago to reserve for their military heroes and

great philosophers the most prominent seats in the thea-

ters, and today it reserves in the playhouse of the world's

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6        Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications

activities seats of honor for the unselfish servants who

devote their talents and consecrate their lives to further

the material prosperity, the spiritual development, and

the happiness of their fellow-men.

Here today the great State of Ohio honored the man

who assured her independence and made certain her ul-

timate destiny as one of the greatest of our common-

wealths.

In paying tribute to Wayne today you paid honor to

the second soldier, and the first fighter, of the Revolu-

tion. (Applause.) The second soldier because, after

Washington, he was our greatest military leader, giving

the most unswerving loyalty to our cause and bringing

his genius to the service in almost every hard-fought

battle from Canada in the North to Florida in the South.

He was the first fighter of the Revolution, loving

battle as the eagle loves the sun, impetuous in action,

quick in conception, prompt in execution, and withal,

most careful in preparation and unfailing in resource.

He performed the most striking exploit of the war: the

storming of Stony Point at midnight, leading a mad

charge into the hot mouths of cannon loaded with death,

inspiring Washington to pit his rude battalions against

British Grenadiers at Monmouth, he was instrumental

in destroying the charm of invincibility that till then

had always attended the British regulars.

In paying honor to men like Anthony Wayne we pay

tribute to those qualities of fortitude, of loyalty, of in-

tegrity, of vision which alone in this generation and in

generations to come, can preserve and advance the re-

public. If our nation is to endure in the fulfillment of

its high mission of service to humanity, these virtues

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Ohio's Monument to General Anthony Wayne  7

must be emulated by the millions who throng the

mighty western empire Wayne's valor won for order

and for freedom.

Here was the last act in the colorful drama of the

American Revolution. Here, as the guns of Wayne's

soldiers volleyed, and his Legions rushed through the

forests with shouts of victory, vanished the dreams of

Indian, of Spanish, of French, and of British empire in

the great Western Territory, now the very heart of the

United States. Alone among the great commanders of

the Revolution, it was the destiny of Anthony Wayne

to draw his sword at the very dawn of the Revolution

and to sheath it on the field of battle as his eyes beheld

the flag of an alien sovereignty lowered forever on the

soil of this Republic.

One of the chief causes of the American Revolution

was the determination of Great Britain to prevent the

rising power of the colonies from surmounting the Alle-

ghanies. The colonists of Virginia and Pennsylvania

especially were as determined to seek homes for increas-

ing population in the new, rich lands of the West. It

was the desire of the British Government that this vast

area should remain in the hands of the Indian tribes, as

a barrier to the expansion of colonies which had given

many evidences of a spirit of independence. It was

doubtless believed the continuance of this border danger

would exercise a limiting influence on the aspiration to

separate nationality. Migration into this area was

finally forbidden, and this was looked upon by the col-

onists as an unreasonable and tyrannical restriction.

The American Revolution did not come about from

causes to which it is usually ascribed, but because the

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8        Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications

moment for American nationality had arrived, and

Destiny demanded an outlet for the spirit of a virile

people incapable of being assigned to a colonial condi-

tion, or shut out by mountain ranges from this Promised

Land beyond the Ohio.

We celebrate this year the one hundred and fiftieth

anniversary of the conquest of the Northwest by the

gallant General George Rogers Clark, bearing the com-

mission of Governor Patrick Henry of Virginia. His

expedition, ending in the capture of Fort Sackville on

the Wabash, ranks among the foremost military ex-

ploits of history. Leading a small band of frontiers-

men, he floated down the Ohio, struck across country to

Kaskaskia, capturing the British fort at that point. By

shrewd diplomacy he won the confidence and support of

the French natives and secured the neutrality of the

Indians in Illinois. In the fierce cold of February he

struck across the flooded prairies and swollen rivers of

Illinois to Vincennes. There the remorseless fire of his

riflemen secured the surrender of a strong fort, de-

fended by cannon and by a superior force of the best

troops of Europe. It was upon this battle, small in itself

but in its consequences one of the great decisive engage-

ments of our history, that the American claim to the

Northwest Territory chiefly rested when the treaty of

peace was signed between Great Britain and the United

States. Despite this cession this area remained a center

of British occupation and intrigue. Five forts, includ-

ing two in this area, floated the British flag, and the

Indians were incited by British traders and officers to

resist American occupation. As a result the Indian tribes

stubbornly clung to the claim of exclusive right to oc-

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Ohio's Monument to General Anthony Wayne  9

cupy the lands west of the Ohio, and by frequent forays

upon scattered white settlements, with cruel massacre of

men, women and children, they sought to keep back the

resistless tide of white migration. And when General

Anthony Wayne was called to the task of establishing

the authority of the young republic in the empire west

of the Ohio, it was only after two disastrous American

defeats had made the task seem almost impossible.

The correspondence of General Wayne reveals the

neglect of the Continental Army even during the darkest

days of the Revolution. Many of his letters, addressed

to the civil authorities of his state of Pennsylvania, re-

vealed the sad plight into which the armies of Washing-

ton fell through failure to provide for their necessities.

We are all familiar with the story of Valley Forge,

where hundreds of soldiers died from insufficient food

and clothing. Following the achievement of independ-

ence, and even after the establishment of the Constitu-

tion and the inauguration of Washington as President,

the Army was almost totally neglected. The people of

the young republic feared military power. They dreaded

a standing army even of modest proportions. The So-

ciety of the Cincinnati, the organization of Revolution-

ary officers, was savagely denounced as a conspiracy

against free government. One of Anthony Wayne's

effective letters was written in answer to these charges

of ulterior motives of an association of Revolutionary

comrades-in-arms headed by no less distinguished a pa-

triot than George Washington.

This popular attitude reflected itself in an American

Army incapable even of resisting the Indian, British

and Spanish pretensions to sovereignty over the vast

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10      Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications

area west of the Ohio. The inglorious failure of two

expeditions against the Indians who in eight years

slaughtered fifteen hundred settlers, was due not so

much to incapable leadership as to lack of a disciplined

and adequately supported army. General Harmar was

ingloriously beaten by the confederated Indians in a

battle near the present site of Fort Wayne. Even

greater alarm spread in the Northwest Territory and

throughout the colonies when an American army under

General St. Clair was put to flight after great slaughter.

The vast area won by the valor of George Rogers Clark

and confirmed to American possessions by the peace

treaty between Great Britain and the United Colonies,

seemed on the point of being wholly lost to the Republic.

It was then that President Washington turned, as he

had often turned during the trying days of the Revolu-

tion, to the great soldier, the great patriot, whose mem-

ory we honor today, and placed him in command of the

armies of the United States. The history of the Amer-

ican Revolution is glorified by many heroic figures, but

among them all none braver, more picturesque, more in-

spiring may be found than that of Anthony Wayne.

(Applause.) No other officer of the Revolution fought,

as he did, from the snows of Canada to the sands of

Florida. No other was possessed in the same degree as

he was of a daring which stopped at nothing when the

cause of his country was at stake. Master of strategy,

he believed with Caesar and Napoleon that audacity in

attack was half the battle. His daring was not reckless,

but reasoned, strategy. Again and again he had won

victories where lack of confidence and faint-heartedness

would have failed.

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Ohio's Monument to General Anthony Wayne  11

To General Anthony Wayne, as we were told this

afternoon, has been applied the title "Mad Anthony." It

has fixed upon succeeding generations the belief that An-

thony Wayne was a mere dare-devil. Nothing could be

farther from the truth. This name was given him in

the campaign which culminated in the capture of Corn-

wallis, in a spirit of levity, by a drunken soldier who had

been arrested for disorderly conduct on Wayne's order,

and who inquired if Wayne was "mad" when he issued

the order. No reckless act of General Wayne caused a

disaster throughout his long career as an officer. The

massacre of his troops at Paoli was due to no fault on

his part, but to his failure to receive orders. Among the

military advisers of Washington, it is true, he was one

of two or three who counseled fighting when others ad-

vised retreat or inaction.

It was not madness that caused Wayne to advise the

attack at Germantown in which Howe's army so nar-

rowly escaped complete defeat. It was not madness

which caused Wayne to counsel the attack at Monmouth,

which was, as General Lee described it, a great American

victory. More than any other American general, Wayne

believed in the ability of the Continental soldier to cope

with the best soldiery of Europe, and these two attacks,

just before and just after the dark winter at Valley

Forge, were essential in maintaining the morale of the

American army and of the Colonies. It was not mad-

ness which prompted General Wayne to attempt the

scaling of the heights of Stony Point and the capture

of its garrison. Washington assigned him to that per-

ilous task, and he accepted it, with absolute confidence

in the outcome of an undertaking which caused all

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12       Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications

America to ring with the praises of Wayne's valor. It

was not madness which caused Wayne, unexpectedly

confronted by a heavily superior force under Cornwallis

on James Island, with a swamp and a narrow causeway

obstructing his retreat and seemingly rendering it hope-

less, to instantly order an attack on the British center

which threw the enemy into a confusion during which

he escaped with his entire force. It was not madness

which caused Wayne to attempt the pacification of

Georgia after eight years of internal strife between

Tories and patriots, with strong British forces garrison-

ing Savannah and Charleston, and formidable allied In-

dian forces harrying the interior. By the use of di-

plomacy and a few swift blows he accomplished the task

assigned to him and marched as a conqueror into the

two chief ports of the colony. Here Wayne had his

first extensive experience with Indian warfare, with

such close conflict that an Indian Chief shot the Gener-

al's horse from under him as Wayne struck the warrior

down with his sword.

In this campaign, as in later years, Anthony Wayne

demonstrated that he was a statesman as well as a sol-

dier. One of his first acts upon reaching Georgia was

to issue a proclamation offering amnesty to all Loyalists

who had remained true to the British crown, thus quel-

ling the civil strife which in Georgia had made it im-

possible to present a common front to the enemy. Upon

his return to civil life in Pennsylvania we find him lead-

ing the contest for the restoration of civil rights to the

Loyalists and religious objectors, constituting more

than one-half of the population of that state, who had

refused or neglected to take the prescribed oath of al-

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Ohio's Monument to General Anthony Wayne  13

legiance during the Revolutionary War. Those who

seek to keep alive the flame of hatred after war is over

are not those who have borne the heat and burden of

battle.

With the fate of the Northwest Territory at stake,

the future of this great empire of the West in doubt,

there strode upon the scene of action this civilian sol-

dier, this farmer, tanner, statesman, warrior, this

patriot whose first thought was never of self, but of the

welfare of his beloved country. Here his last years

were to be glorified by new achievements: here under

the old banner of the Revolution he was to fight vic-

toriously again: here his eyes were to close, along Lake

Erie's shores, on the fair land he had delivered.

It was no mere dare-devil soldier who began at Pitts-

burgh the patient work of restoring order from chaos

in the American army, smarting under inglorious de-

feat. We are told that so unpopular was the profession

of the soldier, so great was the fear of the Indians,

following the massacre of two American armies in the

West, that Wayne was compelled to accept much un-

promising material in his volunteer force. Upon this

new army was conferred the name of United States

Legion. The name may have been suggested by

Wayne's careful study of Caesar's Commentaries: as

Caesar had led his legions into the Transalpine Gaul

against barbarians, so Wayne was to lead his legion

across the Ohio to cope with the savage. The process

of recruiting and drilling was continuous at Legionville,

below Pittsburgh. The force was then transported

down the Ohio to a point near Cincinnati, where con-

stant drilling continued. Thus this great drill-master

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14       Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications

fashioned a rabble into an army. His men were en-

couraged by the dispatching of a force to the very spot

where St. Clair had been defeated. There a fort was

built. Wayne marched to the center of the area now

the State of Ohio, where Ft. Greenville was established.

Thus marching through the forest, cutting a trail

through the woods three hundred miles in length, out of

touch with the national capital at one time for some

months, and receiving little from Philadelphia but ad-

monitions of caution lest the very reputation of Wash-

ington's administration be destroyed by another defeat

in the West, we see Anthony Wayne slowly, surely, pa-

tiently, moving on to his triumph, leaving nothing to

chance.

The short engagement at Fallen Timbers was the

culmination of long months of skillful preparation. This

warrior with a reputation for recklessness, was the one

commander charged with the duty of conquering the

West who committed no acts of rashness in his advance

upon a dangerous foe, well armed, choosing a strong

position, known and dreaded for superior skill in forest

fighting. Once Wayne had reached the scene of con-

flict, there was no question as to the result. Flanking

forces were sent to the right and the left of the Indian

line stretching over a front of two miles. His main

force, now inspired with confidence in their commander

and in each other through many months of discipline,

went straight into battle with instructions from Wayne

to root the Indians out from behind the trees with the

bayonet, and shoot them in the back as they ran. These

orders were so literally carried out that the quick flight

of the Indian army, the most dangerous ever sent

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Ohio's Monument to General Anthony Wayne  15

against an American army in all the history of the Re-

public, prevented the flanking forces from ever getting

into action.

It was significant that this great Indian force had

collected around a British fort: that in its ranks were

officers and men from Canada; that its weapons had

been furnished by the British traders whose house

Wayne burned in sight of the fort. And when the com-

mander of the British fort asked for what reason this

American army was so near the walls of his post,

Wayne replied that the answer could be had from the

muskets of his victorious army, and that if this fort had

been in the way during the pursuit, it would not have

been much of an obstacle to his troops. Moreover, he

did not know of the existence of a British post on this

territory of the United States. Here again the caution

of Wayne, rather than rashness, was in evidence. He

avoided a clash with the British force though he believed

it to be illegally on American soil. He had been confi-

dentially advised by General Knox that if the capture

of the British fort was necessary to his operations, he

was at liberty to undertake it. But such capture would

have been an act of war and Wayne avoided it.

Had Wayne failed in the Battle of Fallen Timbers--

had he failed in the treaty council--it is very probable

that the Ohio River would have been the boundary be-

tween the Americans and Great Britain. For, in the

Quebec Act of years before, the British Parliament had

declared the country between the Great Lakes and the

Ohio to be a part of Canada and in spite of subsequent

treaties the British still hoped to hold it. It was the

news that Anthony Wayne had broken the back of the

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16      Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications

Indian power west of the Ohio, reaching London as

John Jay was negotiating a treaty with Great Britain,

that was decisive in causing the British government to

agree to withdraw the posts which had been established

south of the Canadian border. And to General Wayne,

after he had been received in triumph in Philadelphia,

President Washington entrusted the agreeable duty of

receiving these forts on behalf of the United States. He

was received with the highest honor and respect by his

Indian foemen and the officers of the British posts. As

this work neared completion he died at Presque Isle, on

the shores of Lake Erie. His service to the Republic

was over: his name was enrolled among the Republic's

Immortals.

It is well that in this great western land, which

Wayne's valor made secure under the shelter of the flag

of Washington, monuments should be reared to this

heroic patriot. His greatest, his most enduring monu-

ment will ever be the vast empire he redeemed. Today

it is the happy home of millions. It is the very axis of

the Republic. For three-quarters of a century the influ-

ence of the Middle-West in national life has been very

great. During the past sixty years the nation has been

half the time under the Presidency of men either born

or resident of this one State of Ohio. It has been pre-

dicted that within another half-century the greatest cen-

ter of population and industry in the world will fill the

area that we call the Middle-West. (Applause.)

If we visualize a map of the United States as it

would have been without the victory at Fallen Timbers,

we see the great states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Wis-

consin, Michigan and Minnesota forming the south-

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Ohio's Monument to General Anthony Wayne  17

central portion of Canada,--a Canada reaching deep

down into the very heart of our Mid-West. Such a gi-

gantic wedge driven into the very vitals of our young

nation would have discouraged all westward expansion

and our future history might well have been the story

of a few stunted colonies penned in between the Appa-

lachians and the sea. It was only by the retention of

the Northwest Territory that the Louisiana Purchase

was made possible, followed inevitably by the addition

of Texas and California to the national domain and the

westward march of the most triumphant migration in

all the history of mankind.

In this campaign Anthony Wayne made two con-

quests--one with arms, the other with the no less honor-

able, and perhaps more potent, weapon of peace. The

first is great only because it made way for that which

followed. The second is great because it made full use

of the advantages gained by the first. Without Green-

ville, Fallen Timbers would have been but another

bloody incident in the long struggle between the red man

and the white. Followed, as it was, by the Council at

Greenville, it marks an epoch in the development of a

continent and the vanquishing of a primitive race whose

tents from then on slowly receded before the oncoming

waves of western civilization.

The Pennsylvanians and the Virginians had worked

their way up into the eastern foothills of the last range

of mountains separating them from the interior, and the

pioneer waves were surging in the troughs of the Alle-

ghanies, ready to overflow into the new lands of the

West. The time for the American colonists to attempt

Vol. XXXIX--2.

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18      Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications

the Great Mountains in force had been long in coming,

but it had plainly arrived.

Ohio was the first of the Northwestern states to re-

ceive the western migration. The tide of patriotism

which had borne our country to freedom and estab-

lished the Constitution drew to the West many of the

patriots whose fortunes had been maimed or broken by

their sacrifices during the Revolutionary War, and this

pure stream, pouring over the mountains, found its first

basin in Ohio. Through the mountain passes poured

the mighty pioneer flood, to spread over the valley of

the Ohio and lay the foundations of the "Inland Em-

pire."

On they came, men of courage and great vision, to

rear the black loneliness of their solitary cabins against

a wilderness sky and to build numerous forts within

your borders--outposts of an all-conquering civilization

which when once established knew no abandonment or

turning back.

We honor today not the sword of Wayne, but the

brave, devoted heart which directed his stout arm in the

cause of freedom and order and human happiness. This

hero fought not with lust for blood, but because he loved

freedom more than he loved life. He hated force and

bloodshed with such ardor that he would not submit to

the oppression of his countrymen, the thwarting of their

destiny, the destruction of their lives and homes, by

force and bloodshed, and was therefore willing to use

force to repel force rather than permit violence enlisted

in an unjust cause to triumph.

We have faith to believe that with the advancement

of civilization, war will be totally rejected as a means

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Ohio's Monument to General Anthony Wayne  19

of governing the world. So long as force may be in-

voked in behalf of injustice and wrong, so long must

force be ready to meet and crush force when thus em-

ployed; as Washington said, "We must keep ourselves

in a reasonable posture of defense." (Applause.)

After more than one hundred and fifty years of na-

tionality, the sword of Washington and Wayne was

never drawn except in defense of American rights or

human rights and was never sheathed in dishonor. To-

night that sword rests securely in its scabbard. But if

it shall ever be necessary again to draw it, it will only

be drawn in defense of American rights or in defense

of human rights and it will never be sheathed in dis-

honor. (Applause.)

But in peace as well as in war, the perpetuity of this

nation depends upon keeping alive the spirit of Wash-

ington and Wayne in the hearts of American people.

Forgetful of self, rejecting ease and comfort and peace

for the arduous service of the camp and field, these

heroes will ever be an inspiring example to all Ameri-

cans. Let us build monuments to them like this, com-

memorating their valorous deeds; let us build monu-

ments to them in a Republic strong, prosperous and just;

above all, fellow countrymen, let us build shrines to

them in our hearts, upon which shall ever be kept glow-

ing the love of country.

 

BANQUET IN COMMEMORATION OF GENERAL AN-

THONY WAYNE AND THE BATTLE OF

FALLEN TIMBERS

The banquet at the Commodore Perry Hotel, To-

ledo, Ohio, was a fitting climax to the ceremonies inci-

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