The Winning of the West, Volume 4: Louisiana and the Northwest, 1791-1807Roosevelt, Theodore
History
The Winning of the West, Volume 4: Louisiana and the Northwest, 1791-1807
Roosevelt, Theodore
Northwest, Old -- History; United States -- Territorial expansion; West (U.S.) -- History
As soon as Wayne reached the Ohio, in June, 1792, he set about
reorganizing the army. He had as a nucleus the remnant of St. Clair's
beaten forces; and to this were speedily added hundreds of recruits
enlisted under new legislation by Congress, and shipped to him as fast
as the recruiting officers could send them. The men were of precisely
the same general character as those who had failed so dismally under St.
Clair, and it was even more difficult to turn them into good soldiers,
for the repeated disasters, crowned by the final crushing horror, had
unnerved them and made them feel that their task was hopeless, and that
they were foredoomed to defeat. [Footnote: Bradley MSS. Letters and
Journal of Captain Daniel Bradley; see entry of May 7, 1793, etc.] The
mortality among the officers had been great, and the new officers,
though full of zeal, needed careful training. Among the men desertions
were very common; and on the occasion of a sudden alarm Wayne found that
many of his sentries left their posts and fled. [Footnote: "Major
General Anthony Wayne," by Charles J. Stillé, p. 323.] Only rigorous and
long continued discipline and exercise under a commander both stern and
capable, could turn such men into soldiers fit for the work Wayne had
before him. He saw this at once, and realized that a premature movement
meant nothing but another defeat; and he began by careful and patient
labor to turn his horde of raw recruits into a compact and efficient
army, which he might use with his customary energy and decision. When he
took command of the army--or "Legion," as he preferred to call it--the
one stipulation he made was that the campaign should not begin until his
ranks were full and his men thoroughly disciplined.
He Makes a Winter Camp on the Ohio.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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