152 Historic Tablet at Legionvillc

Pennsylvania Historical Commission Erects Tablet at Legionville, Marking Site of Wayne's Cantonment.

In the dedication on June 22nd of the tablet marking the site of Gen. Anthony Wayne's army cantonment at Le- gionville the State of Pennsylvania rendered a service to posterity by commemorating the location of the first camp for intensive military training in the United States. In his brilliant campaign against the Indians in 1793-4, Gen. Wayne's success was due quite as much to the organization and msciplining of his troops at the Legionville training camp as to generalship in the field. Intensive training, so- caued, was not found in the category of military usage in the days of Wayne and his courageous "Legion," but the reccrds leave no doubt as to the fitness of that overworked term in qualifying the process followed by the old Revolu- tionary veteran in fitting his men for rigorous warfare. After two campaigns against the Indians in the Ohio territory had failed, it is not surprising that the hero of Stony Point, on taking command, turned his attention first toward organizing his troops under strict discipline. He knew that iron discipline and the temptations of a frontier town such as Pittsburgh at that time were not compat- ible. It was impractical to remove the temptations from the town, so Gen. Wayne resolved to remove his troops. While still using Pittsburgh as a base, he selected the level plateau above the Ohio at Logstown and there for more than four months maintained a training camp which in its essential features was a prototype of scores of similar posts used to- day in fitting American manhood for military service in the War of the Nations. A war-time patriotic meeting marked the exercises at- tending the dedication of the tablet at Legionville. The me- morial was placed by the Pennsylvania State Historical Commission. The program was arranged by a committee under the auspices of the Historical Society of Wes tern Historic Tablet at Legionville 153

Pennsylvania. The historical address was made by Hon. H. W. Temple, representative in Congress from the Twenty-fourth Pennsylvania district. Hon. W. C. Sproul, chairman of the Historical Commission; Mr. William H. Stevenson, president of the Historical Society of Western Pennsylvania; Dr. George P. Donehoo and the Rev. Dr. J. H. Bausman were named on the program to speak. Patriotic societies invited to attend were the Pennsylvania Society, Sons of the American Revolution; the Fort Mcintosh and the Pittsburgh chapters, Daughters of the American Revo- lution; the Pennsylvania Society, Colonial Dames and the Dolly Madison chapter, United States Daughters of 1812. The tablet has been placed at the side of the Lincoln Highway marking the northern portion of the cantonment site.