Legionville | |
Nearest city | Harmony Township, Beaver County, Pennsylvania |
---|---|
Coordinates | 40°37′16″N80°13′42″W / 40.62111°N 80.22833°W |
Area | 20 acres (8.1 ha) |
Built | 1792 |
Architect | Legion of the United States |
NRHP reference No. | 75001617 [1] |
Significant dates | |
Added to NRHP | March 27, 1975 |
Designated PHMC | September 25, 1946 [2] |
Legionville (or Legion Ville) was the first formal basic training facility for the military of the United States. The camp, which was established in winter 1792 under the command of Major General Anthony Wayne, was near present-day Baden, Pennsylvania, a suburb of Pittsburgh. It was used to train the soldiers which would become the Legion of the United States.
Throughout the winter of 1792-93, existing troops along with new recruits were drilled in military skills, tactics and discipline. The following spring the newly named Legion of the United States left Legionville for the Northwest Indian War, a struggle between American Indian tribes affiliated with the Western Confederacy in the area north of the Ohio River.
The overwhelmingly successful campaign was concluded with the decisive victory at the Battle of Fallen Timbers on August 20, 1794. The training the troops received at Legionville was seen as instrumental to this victory.
The United States military realized it needed a well-trained standing army following St. Clair's Defeat on November 4, 1791, when a force led by General Arthur St. Clair was almost entirely wiped out by the Western Confederacy near Fort Recovery, Ohio. [3] The plans, which were supported by U.S. President George Washington and Henry Knox, Secretary of War, would lead to the creation of the Legion of the United States. The command would be based on the 18th-century military works of Henry Bouquet, a professional Swiss soldier who served as a colonel in the British army, and French Marshal Maurice de Saxe.
In 1792 Anthony Wayne, a renowned hero of the American Revolutionary War, was encouraged to leave retirement and return to active service as Commander-in-Chief of the Legion with the rank of Major General. The Legion, which was recruited and raised in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, was formed around elements of the 1st and 2nd Regiments from the disbanded Continental Army. These units then became the First and Second Sub-Legions. The Third and Fourth Sub-Legions were raised from additional recruits. From June 1792 to November 1792, the Legion remained cantoned at Fort LaFayette in Pittsburgh.
By October 1792, Major General Wayne had been seeking a suitable place to winter and train his army away from the distractions of the city. Wayne eventually found the perfect site 22 miles from Pittsburgh on the eastern bank of the Ohio River near the modern town of Baden, Pennsylvania. The site was either on or near a former Indian village called Logstown (circa 1727-1758). On November 9, an advance party arrived and began preparing the camp for the arrival of the main army. On November 28, 1792, Wayne left Pittsburgh by boat with a fanfare and good wishes from its citizens. Within four hours, he disembarked at the new cantonment that he dubbed Legion Ville. [4]
The camp, which was laid out on an east-west axis, had steep ravines to the north, east and west. Four redoubts, numbered 1-4, ringed the cantonment. Each redoubt garrisoned 36 men with an additional 120 men stationed at guard posts around the perimeter. The defensive ditch surrounding the entire garrison area was more than a mile long. In total 260 men, guarded the camp seven days a week, twenty-four hours a day. In less than a month, Legion Ville had grown to more than 500 buildings and had a population five times larger than the city of Pittsburgh. Single story wooden barracks were built for the enlisted men of the dragoons, infantry, artillery and rifle-corps. Officers of the dragoons and artillery had two-story buildings. Major General Wayne's house and the hospital were two-story log cabins with chimneys on both sides. The total area of the cantonment was about 35 acres (140,000 m2). Estimates of the personnel at Legion Ville vary, but 2,500 is the popular figure.
After all Wayne's forces had been properly quartered, training started in earnest. The troops fired at targets every day as Wayne wanted marksmen. Bayonet drills, hand-to-hand combat, mock battles and overnight encampments outside the installation were also common. The dragoons (cavalry) under the command of Captain Robert MisCampbell built an obstacle course south of Legion Ville. The artillery lieutenants and captains built an artillery range. An auxiliary rifle range was built a half-mile west of the site. Troops were marched continually and battle formations and tactics taught to new officers. Discipline was harsh as courts martial were common; even minor infractions were dealt with severely (often lashing with a Cat o' nine tails). Captain William Eaton who would lead the U.S. Marines ashore at Tripoli in 1804 was often a presiding judge.
During the winter, 16 private soldiers died at Legion Ville and were buried in an unmarked cemetery near Redoubt Number 2 inside the camp. The exact location was identified by local archaeologists via a cadaver dog in 2013. Among the dead were: Henry Dundalo, [5] William Perry, James White, Randolph Hutchins, William Williamson, John Patterson, John Fry and Jarrett Rogers. [6]
An officer duel between Lieutenant Daniel Jenifer and Ensign William Pitt Gassaway resulted in the ensign being killed. He was buried in the unmarked military cemetery. Colonel Thomas Proctor visited the camp and stayed for months helping the artillery become proficient. On February 26, 1793, Dr. Joseph Strong of Connecticut climbed the western bank of the hill and drew a picture of the site in a letter to a friend, Dr. Mason Cogswell. This letter, the only known depiction of the site, is kept within the archives at Yale University.
On March 25, 1793 the Grand Masonic Lodge of the State of Pennsylvania granted the first Masonic Lodge in Beaver County. This was to be at Legion Ville and was known under charter as Lodge 58. The Master was Captain Robert MisCampbell, Senior Warden Captain Robert Tinsley and Junior Warden, William Eaton.
With Spring, Seneca leaders Guyasuta, Cornplanter and Big Tree met Wayne at Legion Ville in March 1793 to discuss peace terms. [7] : 997 When the talks failed, George Washington gave the go-ahead for the campaign against the Indians. On April 30, 1793, the largest flotilla of military barges ever assembled on the Ohio River departed Legion Ville for Fort Washington, Cincinnati, Ohio. On August 20, 1794, the Legion of the United States defeated the Indian Confederacy at the Battle of Fallen Timbers. The Treaty of Greenville was signed on August 3, 1795 opening the Northwest Territory to settlement.
The discipline and intense training at Legion Ville was a key factor in the United States' winning of the Northwest Indian War. [8]
In 1824 the Harmony Society purchased the property on which Legion Ville stood. The site was later bought by the A.M. Byers Ironworks Company who in turn sold it to National Tire and Rubber Company of Akron, Ohio. In 1973, the Anthony Wayne Historical Society was formed to preserve the site. In 1994, the name was changed to the Legion Ville Historical Society.
Republican senator John Heinz from Pennsylvania wanted to make the site a national park but the Bill was pocket-vetoed due to a clerical error by President Jimmy Carter. National Tire and Rubber eventually sold the site. In 2005 it was acquired by developers. A portion of the site was proposed as the location of a car dealership in Spring 2013.
Anthony Wayne was an American soldier, officer, statesman, and a Founding Father of the United States. He 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 brigadier general and the nickname "Mad Anthony". He later served as the Senior Officer of the Army on the Ohio Country frontier and led the Legion of the United States.
The Continental Army was the army of the United Colonies representing the Thirteen Colonies and later the United States during the American Revolutionary War. It was formed on June 14, 1775 by a resolution passed by the Second Continental Congress, meeting in Philadelphia after the war's outbreak. The Continental Army was created to coordinate military efforts of the colonies in the war against the British, who sought to maintain control over the American colonies. General George Washington was appointed commander-in-chief of the Continental Army and maintained this position throughout the war.
The Northwest Territory, also known as the Old Northwest and formally known as the Territory Northwest of the River Ohio, was formed from unorganized western territory of the United States after the American Revolution. Established in 1787 by the Congress of the Confederation through the Northwest Ordinance, it was the nation's first post-colonial organized incorporated territory.
The Battle of Fallen Timbers was the final battle of the Northwest Indian War, a struggle between Native American tribes affiliated with the Northwestern Confederacy and their British allies, against the nascent United States for control of the Northwest Territory. The battle took place amid trees toppled by a tornado near the Maumee River in northwestern Ohio at the site of the present-day city of Maumee, Ohio.
The Northwest Indian War (1785–1795), also known by other names, was an armed conflict for control of the Northwest Territory fought between the United States and a united group of Native American nations known today as the Northwestern Confederacy. The United States Army considers it the first of the American Indian Wars.
Fort Recovery was a United States Army fort ordered built by General "Mad" Anthony Wayne during what is now termed the Northwest Indian War. Constructed from late 1793 and completed in March 1794, the fort was built along the Wabash River, within two miles of what became the Ohio state border with Indiana. A detachment of Wayne's Legion of the United States held off an attack from combined Indian forces on June 30, 1794. The fort was used as a reference in drawing treaty lines for the 1795 Treaty of Greenville, and for later settlement. The fort was abandoned in 1796.
The Legion of the United States was a reorganization and extension of the United States Army from 1792 to 1796 under the command of Major General Anthony Wayne. It represented a political shift in the new United States, which had recently adopted the United States Constitution. The new Congressional and Executive branches authorized a standing army composed of professional soldiers rather than relying on state militias.
The Regular Army of the United States succeeded the Continental Army as the country's permanent, professional land-based military force. In modern times the professional core of the United States Army continues to be called the Regular Army. From the time of the American Revolution until after the Spanish–American War, state militias and volunteer regiments organized by the states supported the smaller Regular Army of the United States. These volunteer regiments came to be called United States Volunteers (USV) in contrast to the Regular United States Army (USA). During the American Civil War, about 97 percent of the Union Army was United States Volunteers.
Camp Curtin was a major Union Army training camp in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, during the American Civil War. It was located north of Pennsylvania's state capitol building on 80 acres of what had previously been land used by the Dauphin County Agricultural Fairgrounds.
The riverside village of Logstown also known as Logg's Town, French: Chiningue near modern-day Baden, Pennsylvania, was a significant Native American settlement in Western Pennsylvania and the site of the 1752 signing of the Treaty of Logstown between the Ohio Company, the Colony of Virginia, and the Six Nations, which occupied the region. Being an unusually large settlement, and because of its strategic location in the Ohio Country, an area contested by France and England, Logstown was an important community for all parties living along the Ohio and tributary rivers. Logstown was a prominent trade and council site for the contending British and French colonial governments, both of which made abortive plans to construct forts near the town. Logstown was burned in 1754 and although it was rebuilt, in the years following the French and Indian War it became depopulated and was eventually abandoned.
The Indiana National Guard (INNG) is a component of the United States Armed Forces, the United States National Guard and the Military Department of Indiana (MDI). It consists of the Indiana Army National Guard, the Indiana Air National Guard, and the Adjutant General's Office.
Fort Washington was a fortified stockade with blockhouses built by order of Gen. Josiah Harmar starting in summer 1789 in what is now downtown Cincinnati, Ohio, near the Ohio River. The physical location of the fort was facing the mouth of the Licking River, above present day Fort Washington Way. The fort was named in honor of President George Washington. The fort was the major staging place and conduit for settlers, troops and supplies during the settlement of the Northwest Territory.
The Battle of Fort Recovery, 30 June – 1 July 1794, was a battle of the Northwest Indian War, fought at the present-day village of Fort Recovery, Ohio. A large force of warriors in the Western Confederacy attacked a fort held by United States soldiers deep in Ohio Country. The United States suffered heavy losses, but maintained control of the fort. The battle exposed a division in the Western Confederacy's military strategy at a time when they seemed to hold the advantage, and the United States pressed farther into the Northwest Territory.
The Northwestern Confederacy, or Northwestern Indian Confederacy, was a loose confederacy of Native Americans in the Great Lakes region of the United States created after the American Revolutionary War. Formally, the confederacy referred to itself as the United Indian Nations, at their Confederate Council. It was known infrequently as the Miami Confederacy since many contemporaneous federal officials overestimated the influence and numerical strength of the Miami tribes based on the size of their principal city, Kekionga.
The First American Regiment was the first peacetime regular army infantry unit authorized by the Confederation Congress after the American Revolutionary War. Organized in August 1784, it served primarily on the early American frontier west of the Appalachian Mountains. In 1815, following the end of the War of 1812, it was consolidated with several other regiments to form the 3rd Infantry Regiment.
Fort Lafayette, later renamed Fort Fayette, (1792–1814) was an American fort in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. It was constructed in June 1792 by Major General Anthony Wayne upon his commission to form the Legion of the United States.
Michael Rudolph (1758–1795), an officer in the United States Army, served as acting adjutant general and acting Inspector General of the U.S. Army in 1793.
St. Clair's defeat, also known as the Battle of the Wabash, the Battle of Wabash River or the Battle of a Thousand Slain, was a battle fought on 4 November 1791 in the Northwest Territory of the United States. The U.S. Army faced the Western Confederacy of Native Americans, as part of the Northwest Indian War. It was "the most decisive defeat in the history of the American military" and its largest defeat ever by Native Americans.
The Pluckemin Continental Artillery Cantonment Site in Pluckemin, New Jersey, at the southern section of Bedminster Township, New Jersey, holds historic American Revolutionary War importance as the Continental Army's artillery winter cantonment during the winter of 1778–79. It was nestled on the western side of the Second Watchung Mountain just to the North of the village of Pluckemin. The major significance of the site lies with the very different picture it yields of military organization during the Revolutionary War, although some point to it as the birthplace of the American military academy, 24 years prior to the founding of the United States Military Academy at West Point.
Fort Jefferson was a fortification erected by soldiers of the United States Army in October 1791 during the Northwest Indian War. Built to support a military campaign, it saw several years of active fighting. Today, the fort site is a historic site.
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