ry it.

On the afternoon of July 15, 1779, Wayne, at the head of about thirteen
hundred men, started for the fort. He arrived near it after nightfall,
and dividing his force into three columns, moved forward to the attack.
He relied wholly upon the bayonet, and not a musket was loaded. The
advance was soon discovered by the British sentries, and a heavy fire
opened upon the Americans, but they pressed forward, swarmed up the
long, sloping embankment of the fort, and in a moment were over the
walls.

A bullet struck Wayne in the head, and he staggered and fell. Two of his
officers caught him up and started to take him to the rear, but he
struggled to his feet.

"No, no," he cried, "I'm going in at the head of my men! Take me in at
the head of my men!"

And at the head of his men he was carried into the fort.

For a few moments, the bayonets flashed and played, then the British
broke and ran, and the fort was won. No night attack was ever delivered
with greater skill and boldness.

Wayne soon recovered from his wound, and took an active part in driving
Cornwallis into the trap at Yorktown. Then he had retired from the army,
expecting to spend the remainder of his life in peace; but Washington,
remembering the man, knew that he was the one above all others to teach
the Ohio Indians a lesson, and called him to the work. Wayne accepted
the task, and five thousand men were placed under his command and
started westward over the mountains.

He spent the winter in organizing and drilling his forces on the bank of
the Ohio where Cincinnati now stands, but which was then merely a fort
and huddle of houses. He made the most careful preparations for the
expedition, and early in the spring, he commenced his march northward
into the Indian country. The savages gathered to repulse him at a spot
on the Maumee where, years before, a tornado had cut a wide swath
through the forest, rendering it all but impenetrable. Here, on the
twentieth of August, 1794, he advanced against the enemy, and, throwing
his troops into the "Fallen Timbers," in which the Indians were
ambushed, routed them out, cut them down, and administered a defeat so
crushing that they could not rally from it, and their whole country was
laid waste with fire and sword. Wayne did his work well, burning their
villages, and destroying their crops, so that they would have no means
of sustenance during the coming winter. Thoroughly cowed by this
treatment, the Indians s