Bonus Episode Wayne's Return #ohiohistory #history

Added: 2026-05-24

[00:00:00]December 1793 2 years and 1 month after the disaster General Anthony Wayne marched his Legion of the United States back to the site of St. Clair's defeat. He knew what he would find, the bones of his comrades, 900 men left in the Wabash Valley since November 1791.

[00:00:25]The army had fled. There was no time to bury the dead, and so they lay.

[00:00:31]Wayne gathered what remained. He treated the fallen with the dignity the chaos of battle had stolen from them, and then he built. On the banks of the Wabash, in the Ohio wilderness, in the dead of winter, he constructed a fort. He named it Fort Recovery.

[00:00:50]Recovery That word wasn't accidental.

[00:00:54]Wayne understood what this ground meant, not just strategically, but morally. You don't move forward from a defeat like St. Clair's. You recover from it, and you come back.

[00:01:06]One year later, in June and July of 1794, the fort withstood an attack by the same confederation that had shattered St. Clair's army. This time, the Americans held. Recovery was complete.

[00:01:22]Follow Brick Walls and Buckeyes.

[00:01:25]And this Memorial Day, take a moment to remember the men of Fort Recovery.