A Dreadful scene of havock by Xavier della Gatta, 1782, commissioned for a British officer who participated in the attack
Battle of Paoli, (September 21, 1777
After the Battle of Brandywine (September 11, 1777), General George Washington still hoped to keep the British out of Philadelphia. As he withdrew across the Schuylkill River, Washington ordered General Anthony Wayne and 1,500 Pennsylvania Continentals to remain on the British side of the river to see if they could delay General William Howe’s advance. Wayne, who had grown up in Pennsylvania and knew the area well, maneuvered to a position near Paoli where he hoped to be able to strike at the British rear as Howe marched toward the Schuylkill. Unfortunately for Wayne, Howe quickly learned of his position-probably from local Loyalists-and ordered General Charles Grey and about 2,000 British soldiers to strike first.
Grey’s men broke camp at 11 p. m. on September 20 and marched on Wayne for a daring night attack. To maximize the surprise and avoid friendly fire casualties, Grey ordered his men to fix bayonets and keep their weapons unloaded and their flints removed, thus earning him the nickname “No Flint Grey.” A little after midnight, some Continental pickets detected the advance and fired a few shots, warning Wayne’s army of the approaching enemy. The British attack that followed was so swift and so fearsome that after a brief resistance, the Continentals were quickly scattered. The British lost only a handful of men-four killed and five wounded. Casualty figures for the Revolutionaries vary, but they probably lost 300 killed and wounded, with about 75 captured.
The victory allowed the British to occupy Philadelphia on September 26. The Revolutionaries, however, used the battle as an example of British barbarity. Claiming that the British had offered no quarter-a fact belied by the 1,000 men who escaped and the number of prisoners of war- and noting the messy and bloody nature of the wounded who had been stricken with bayonets, the Revolutionaries quickly dubbed the battle the “Paoli Massacre.”
In 1779 Brigadier General Anthony Wayne led the Revolutionaries to success at the Battle of Stony Point.
Anthony Wayne, (“Mad Anthony” Wayne) (1745- 1796)
Continental army officer, government official Nicknamed “Mad Anthony” because of his rash decisions in battle, Anthony Wayne was born on January 1, 1745 into a prosperous Pennsylvania farming family. He was educated at his uncle’s private academy and at the College of Philadelphia (now the University of Pennsylvania). On March 25, 1766, he married Mary Penrose, the daughter of a Pennsylvania merchant. He entered public life in 1774, when he was elected to the provincial convention to discuss the Coercive Acts (1774). In 1776 the Pennsylvania committee of safety nominated him to serve as a colonel in the Continental army, and later that year he assumed command of Fort Ticonderoga. Wayne disliked his time at Ticonderoga, but he impressed higher officials with his discipline, orderliness and military successes in Canada. In 1777 he was promoted to brigadier general.
Wayne suffered a disastrous defeat at the hands of the British army at the Battle of Paoli (September 21, 1777); during the Paoli “massacre,” General William Howe’s army killed 200 and injured 100 more colonial troops. A court-martial investigating the affair acquitted Wayne of any misconduct. He gained his greatest success at the Battle of Stony Point (July 16, 1779), when he led his men up a steep cliff in the Hudson Highlands and surprised and overwhelmed the British garrison. In 1781 General George Washington ordered Wayne to accompany the marquis de Lafayette to Virginia. There he enjoyed successful campaigns in Virginia and Georgia until the Revolutionary War (1775-83) ended.
After the war, Wayne entered private life. Sickness weakened his constitution, and he wanted to devote time to the rice plantation in Georgia he had acquired during the war. His plantation endeavor failed, however, and he returned to Pennsylvania, where he was elected to the House of Representatives. His political career was short-lived, but he used his time in Congress to expand the military and pressed for settler claims against Native Americans in the South. In 1792 President George Washington appointed Wayne commander of the Legion of the United States (an extension of the U. S. Army). The United States had experienced A. problems with Native Americans in the Old Northwest since the conclusion of the Revolutionary War. Many Indians in the Ohio River valley did not recognize land cessions that had occurred after the war and actively resisted European Americans settling on the frontier. Federal efforts to quell resistance failed, and in 1790 a pan-Indian army (mostly Miami and Shawnee) ambushed Josiah Harmar’s army. In 1791 another pan-Indian army routed Arthur St. Clair on the Wabash River.
Battling health problems, Wayne instilled his legion with discipline and prepared to move against the Native Americans in the Old Northwest in 1793. However, it was not until 1794 that he could strike a decisive blow, leading an army of about 3,000 troops who defeated the pan-Indian army at the Battle of Fallen Timbers (August 20, 1794). To assure peace between U. S. settlers and Native Americans, Wayne presided over the Treaty of Greenville (1795), which ceded the southeast half of the present- day state of Ohio to the United States and established two forts to prevent Indians and settlers from attacking each other. He did not live long after his military successes in the Old Northwest, dying on December 15, 1796, at Fort Presque Isle (now Erie, Pennsylvania).
Battle of Stony Point, (July 16, 1779)
On July 16, 1779, General Anthony Wayne led a successful assault on the British position at Stony Point, New York, on the west bank of the Hudson River near the King’s Ferry crossing. Defended by 500 British soldiers under the command of Colonel Henry Johnson, Stony Point looked impregnable since it sat on a peninsula and was atop a steep hill 150 feet above the river. Moreover, the landward approach was through a swamp. Wayne planned a midnight assault and divided his light-infantry corps into three columns. A small contingent would feign an attack from the landward side, firing their weapons and making as much noise as they could. The other two columns would advance in total silence and scale the heights along the river with unloaded muskets and fixed bayonets. The attack on the two wings was preceded by small detachments to clear the abatis (defensive obstacles with sharpened points) and other obstructions. The plan worked to perfection, and the men climbing both sides of the hill arrived almost simultaneously and overwhelmed the British garrison. After a brief but furious fight, Johnson surrendered. Of the 1,300 men in Wayne’s force, 15 were killed and 85 wounded; the British lost 20 killed and 442 captured (including 74 wounded). The victory was an important boost to the morale of the Continental army, although three days after the battle, General George Washington ordered Stony Point abandoned since he did not want to detach too many troops to defend a position that was vulnerable to British army and naval attack.
Further reading: Paul Nelson, Anthony Wayne: Soldier of the Early Republic (Bloomington: University of Indiana Press, 1985); John Preston, A Gentleman Rebel: Mad Anthony Wayne (Garden City, N. Y.: Garden City Publishing, 1930). Stephen R. Taffe, The Philadelphia Campaign, 1777-1778 (Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 2003). Paul David Nelson, Anthony Wayne: Soldier of the Early Republic (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1985).
