The owner of a tannery and extensive property in Pennsylvania, Wayne was commissioned a colonel in the Continental Army in January 1776. That spring his regiment was sent to reinforce American forces retreating from the disastrous Canadian expedition, after which he was put in command of Fort Ticonderoga, N.Y. Promoted to the rank of brigadier general in early 1777, he played a prominent role that fall in the battles of Brandywine, Paoli, and Germantown, Pa. After spending the winter at the Valley Forge encampment, he led an attack on the British at the indecisive Battle of Monmouth, N.J., the following June.

His most brilliant exploit of the war was the successful storming of the British fort at Stony Point, N.Y. (July 16, 1779). This feat gave a huge boost in morale to the American armies. Wayne earned the name “Mad Anthony” because of his tactical boldness and his personal courage in the field. In 1781 he was sent with 1,000 men to join in the successful siege of Yorktown, Va. He was then dispatched to join the Continental Army in the South. He served largely in Georgia, recovering that state and defeating the Indians allied to the British. Elected in 1790 to the Georgia House of Representatives, he served nearly two years before his seat was declared vacant because of election frauds.

In 1792 Wayne was appointed by President George Washington to serve as commander in chief of the modest U.S. Army, which had suffered several defeats at the hands of the intertribal Indian Confederation formed to resist the white man's incursions into the Midwest. At the Battle of Fallen Timbers, Wayne effectively ended Indian resistance when his seasoned force of 1,000 men routed the 2,000 warriors gathered for a final confrontation near Fort Miami on the Maumee River. This victory enabled Wayne to negotiate the Treaty of Greenville (August 1795), by which the Indians ceded most of Ohio and large sections of Indiana, Illinois, and Michigan.