Stony Point (Town, New York)

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Bear Mountain Bridge from the top of Bear Mountain

en:User:Mwanner took this photo on 6/6/99

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Positionskarte vom Bundesstaat New York, USA

Stony Point State Park.jpg
Autor/Urheber: Tony, Lizenz: CC BY 2.0

Visit the site of the Battle of Stony Point, one of the last major Revolutionary War battles in the northeastern colonies. This is where Brigadier General Anthony Wayne led his corps of Continental Light Infantry in a daring midnight attack on the British, seizing the site's fortifications and taking the British garrison as prisoners on July 16, 1779.

By the late 1770s, the war had been raging for four years and both sides were eager for a conclusion. Sir Henry Clinton, commander of the British forces in America, attempted to coerce General George Washington into one decisive battle to control the Hudson River. As part of his strategy, Clinton fortified Stony Point. Washington devised a plan for Wayne to lead an attack on the fort. Armed with bayonets only, the infantry captured the fort in short order, ending British control of the river.

The site features a museum, which offers exhibits on the battle and the 1826 Stony Point Lighthouse, as well as interpretive programs, such as reenactments highlighting 18th century military life, cannon and musket firings, cooking demonstrations, and children's activities.

source: State of New York

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(c) Daniel Case at the English Wikipedia project, CC BY-SA 3.0
William H. Rose House, Stony Point, NY, USA

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Autor/Urheber: dbking from Washington, DC, Lizenz: CC BY 2.0

"Mad" Anthony Wayne statue in Valley Forge National Military Park, Valley Forge, PA

Anthony Wayne (January 1, 1745 - December 15, 1796), was a United States Army general and statesman. Wayne adopted a military career at the outset of the American Revolutionary War, where his military exploits and fiery personality quickly earned him a promotion to the rank of brigadier general and the sobriquet of Mad Anthony Wayne.

Wayne was born to Isaac Wayne in Easttown Township, Pennsylvania in Chester County, near present-day Paoli, Pennsylvania and educated as a surveyor at his uncle's private academy in Philadelphia. He was sent by Benjamin Franklin and some associates to work for a year surveying land they owned in Nova Scotia, after which he returned to work in his father's tannery, while continuing his surveying. He became a leader in Chester County and served in the Pennsylvania legislature in 1774-1775.

At the onset of the American Revolutionary War in 1775, Wayne raised a militia and in 1776 became colonel of the Fourth Regiment of Pennsylvania troops. He and his regiment were part of the Continental Army's unsuccessful invasion of Canada, during which he commanded the distressed forces at Fort Ticonderoga. His service resulted in the promotion to brigadier-general in February 21, 1777.

Later, he commanded the Pennsylvania line at Brandywine, Paoli, and Germantown. After winter quarters at Valley Forge, he led the American attack at the Battle of Monmouth.

The highlight of Wayne's Revolutionary War service was probably his victory at Stony Point. On July 16, 1779, in a nighttime, bayonets-only assault lasting thirty minutes, light infantry commanded by Wayne overcame British fortifications at Stony Point, a cliffside redoubt commanding the southern Hudson River. The success of this operation provided a boost to the morale of an army which had at that time suffered a series of military defeats. Congress awarded him a medal for the victory.

Subsequent victories at West Point and Green Spring in Virginia, increased his popular reputation as a bold commander. After the British surrendered at Yorktown, he went further south and severed the British alliance with Native American tribes in Georgia. He then negotiated peace treaties with both the Creek and the Cherokee, for which Georgia rewarded him with the gift of a large rice plantation. He became major general on October 10, 1783.

After the war, Wayne returned to Pennsylvania and served in the state legislature for a year in 1784. He then moved to Georgia and settled upon the tract of land granted him by that state for his military service. He was a delegate to the state convention which ratified the Constitution in 1788.

In 1791, he served a year in the Second United States Congress as a U.S. Representative of Georgia but lost his seat during a debate over his residency qualifications and declined running for reelection in 1792.

President George Washington recalled Wayne from civilian life in order to lead an expedition in the Northwest Indian War, which up to that point had been a disaster for the United States. Many American Indians in the Northwest Territory had sided with the British in the Revolutionary War. In the Treaty of Paris (1783) that had ended the conflict, the British had ceded this land to the United States. The Indians, however, had not been consulted, and were now resisting annexation of the area by the United States. A confederation of Miami, Shawnee, Delaware (Lenape), and Wyandot Indians had achieved major victories over U.S. forces in 1790 and 1791 under the leadership of Blue Jacket of the Shawnees and Little Turtle of the Miamis. They were encouraged (and supplied) by the British, who had refused to evacuate British fortifications in the region, as called for in the Treaty of Paris.

Washington placed Wayne in command of a newly-formed military force called the "Legion of the United States." Wayne established a basic training facility at Legionville to prepare professional soldiers for his force. He then dispatched a force to Ohio to establish Fort Recovery as a base of operations.

On August 20, 1794, Wayne mounted an assault on Blue Jacket's confederacy at the Battle of Fallen Timbers, just south of present-day Toledo, Ohio, which was a decisive victory for the U.S. forces, ending the war. Soon after, the British abandoned their Northwest Territory forts in the Jay Treaty. Wayne then negotiated the Treaty of Greenville between the tribal confederacy and the United States, which was signed on August 3, 1795.

Wayne died of complications from gout during a return trip to Pennsylvania from a military post in Detroit, and was buried at Fort Presque Isle (now Erie, Pennsylvania). His body was disinterred in 1809 and after boiling the body to remove the remaining flesh where the modern Wayne Blockhouse stands, was relocated to the family plot in St. David’s Episcopal Church Cemetery in Radnor, Pennsylvania. A legend says that many bones were lost along the roadway that encompases much of modern PA-322, and that every January 1st (Wayne's birthday), his ghost wanders the highway searching for his lost bones.

Wayne's was the first attempt to provide formalized basic training for regular Army recruits and Legionville was the first facility established expressly for this purpose.

The Treaty of Greenville, which was procured due to Wayne's military successes against the tribal confederacy and gave most of what is now Ohio to the United States, clearing the way for that state to enter the Union in 1803.

There are many political jurisdictions and institutions named after Wayne, especially in Ohio, Michigan, and Indiana, the region where he fought many of his battles. A small sample:

Counties, cities, towns, communities, rivers Wayne County, Georgia Wayne County, Illinois Wayne County, Indiana Wayne County, Michigan Wayne County, North Carolina Wayne County, Ohio Wayne County, West Virginia Wayne City, Illinois The City of Waynesville, North Carolina The City of Fort Wayne, Indiana The City of Wayne, Michigan The City of Waynesboro, Virginia The City of Waynesburg, Pennsylvania The City of Waynesboro, Pennsylvania The Village of Waynesfield, Ohio The community of Wayne, Pennsylvania The former Wayne Township, Montgomery County, Ohio (now the City of Huber Heights) The Village of Waynesville, Ohio Wayne Township, New Jersey the former Mad River Township and Mad River Township Local School District (now Riverside, Ohio) the Mad River, a tributary of the Great Miami River, Dayton, Ohio

Fort Wayne in Fort Wayne, Indiana Fort Wayne in Detroit, Michigan Anthony Wayne Recreation Area in Harriman State Park, New York Anthony Wayne Suspension Bridge near downtown Toledo, Ohio Anthony Wayne Trail, in Toledo, Ohio Wayne High School in Fort Wayne Anthony Wayne Local School District in Whitehouse, Ohio, whose high stepping marching band is known as the Generals. The Anthony Wayne Movie Theater in Wayne, Pennsylvania The former Anthony Wayne Bank in Fort Wayne Wayne State University, Detroit Wayne High School, Huber Heights, Ohio Waynesfield-Goshen Schools, Waynesfield, Ohio Wayne Middle School Erie, Pennsylvania Anthony Wayne Drive, in Detroit, Michigan Anthony Wayne Middle School, in Wayne, New Jersey Anthony Wayne Restaurant, defunct, in Wayne, New Jersey (Anthony)Wayne Avenue, Ticonderoga, NY Anthony Wayne Avenue in Cincinnati, Ohio Anthony Wayne Barber Shop in Maumee, Ohio General Wayne Elementary School, in Paoli, Pennsylvania Wayne Elementary School, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Mad Anthony Ale, a product of the Erie Brewing Company Wayne Corporation defunct school bus manufacturer, originally Wayne Agricultural Works, then Wayne Works

The comic book character 'Batman' whose true identity is 'Bruce Wayne' is said to have been named after Anthony Wayne

Actor John Wayne was initially given the stage name of Anthony Wayne, after the general, by Raoul Walsh who directed The Big Trail (1930), but Fox Studios changed it to John Wayne, instead. John Wayne was leading man in 142 of his 153 movies, more than any other actor.

Stony Point Light - Rockland County NY.jpg
Autor/Urheber: Michele Schaffer, Lizenz: CC BY 2.0
Stony Point Light in Stony Point, New York, USA