Mary Stockwell

One of the hardest tasks a biographer can do is to take a one-time national hero turned to marble and turn that image back into a man; the author having done a very fine job of that mission. Stockwell's Anthony Wayne started out his military career with a hankering for liberty and a desire for glory and adventure, only for the hard years of the Revolution to break his health, his family life and, sometimes, his mental health. This story is intertwined with Wayne's travails in creating the Legion of the United States; the U.S. government's instrument to try and secure the Ohio lands. That this force won a battle that absolutely had to be won at Fallen Timbers almost amazed Wayne himself; you can call August 20th the real birthday of the United States Army.

Besides that Stockwell does a fine job of intertwining her military life of Wayne with the political situation of the time, as real party politics became a factor in American governance and as the course of the French Revolution led the American leadership to second-guess what their values really were. For someone interested in the early days of the American Republic I really can't recommend this book enough.… (mehr)