Yet the qualities that on a dozen occasions had enabled
Wayne to snatch success from almost certain defeat--alertness,
decisiveness, bravery, and sheer love of hard fighting--were
those now chiefly in demand.
The first task was to create an army. A few regulars were
available; but most of the three or four thousand men who were
needed had to be gathered wheresoever they could be found. A call
for recruits brought together at Pittsburgh, in the summer of
1792, a nondescript lot of beggars, criminals, and other
cast-offs of the eastern cities, no better and no worse than the
adventurers who had taken service under St. Clair. Few knew
anything of warfare, and on one occasion a mere report of Indians
in the vicinity caused a third of the sentinels to desert their
posts. But, as rigid discipline was enforced and drilling was
carried on for eight and ten hours a day, by spring the survivors
formed a very respectable body of troops. The scene of operations
was then transferred to Fort Washington, where fresh recruits
were started on a similar course of development.
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