Bayonets in the Wilderness: Anthony Wayne's Legion in the Old Northwest (review)

Anthony Wayne's 1793-94 campaign against the Indians of the Old Northwest was the first successful military action of new United States government under the Constitution. Alan D. Gaff's new work is the most recent study of this campaign.

Gaff has studied all the extant records, including numerous diaries, military records and even newspaper accounts of recruiting. Wayne's organization of the legion, his tactical adaptations and his logistical problems are covered in great detail. By studying courts-martial records, Gaff has demonstrated that Wayne's leadership was severely tested, not only by his Indian adversaries but by his own troops. Besides desertion and indiscipline, Wayne had serious problems with an officer corps that had not developed a sense of professionalism. Several officers were so busy conducting personal business that they either were late for the campaign or never served with the Legion. And several found it convenient to leave before the campaign was finished. However, these officers had a high sense of personal honor that would not brook the most minor slight. As a result, numerous duels interrupted the Legion's training and led to at least six fatalities amongst an already thin officer corps.

Another problem for Wayne was the machinations of his second-in-command, Brigadier James Wilkinson. "The Finished Scoundrel" seems to have been at the apogee of his professional competence during this campaign. However, Wilkinson constantly undermined and disparaged Wayne's' leadership and conduct of the campaign, which produced an army leadership divided into two warring factions.

Amazingly, despite these problems and the logistical nightmare of moving an army through a hostile wilderness against an aroused and competent enemy, Wayne successfully prosecuted his campaign. Building a series of forts to secure his supply line, Wayne moved deep into hostile territory, destroying his enemy's crops, towns, and his will to resist. At the Battle of Fallen Timbers an Indian ambush turned into a near-rout of the Indians, largely due to the discipline, training, and courage of Wayne's Legion and the attached mounted Kentucky Volunteers. The outcome of the battle, along with the demonstrated reluctance of the Indians' British allies to help them, broke the Northwest confederacy and led to white settlement in the Old Northwest

Gaff has solved two problems frequently encountered by historical writers: a known result and the participants' lack of immediacy or jeopardy to the reader's experience. By skillful use of the sources, Gaff has the reader wondering until the end, who will win? And the use of numerous first-person accounts reveals the uncertainty and the terror felt by settlers, soldiers, and their Indian adversaries as well.

Anyone interested in the early history of the United States Army or in the United States's first Indian war will find this enlightening and informative reading. Bayonets in the Wilderness is the definitive study of Wayne's campaign.