General Anthony Wayne statue at Valley Forge National Historical Park

VALLEY FORGE ENCAMPMENT TOUR STOP 4

General Anthony Wayne Statue

The fourth stop on the Valley Forge Encampment Tour is at the statue of General Anthony Wayne, a Pennsylvania man from a town that would later be named Waynesboro in his honor. Of all stops on the tour, this is the least involving for there is nothing here other than the statue and an information panel. The stop shouldn’t take any more than five minutes.

Anthony Wayne was the commander of the First and Second Pennsylvania Brigades. He was supposedly some sort of a character, earning the nickname Mad Anthony due to his temper. After the war he served in the Pennsylvania state legislature before moving to Georgia where he owned two plantations. Due to bad business decisions, he ended up having to sell everything to pay bills. After this, he renewed his military career at the request of President George Washington, fighting the British-backed Indians in the Northwest Indian War (1786-1795). In 1792 he became the commander of the Legion of the United States, a reorganized version of the Continental Army. He continued in the military until his death under suspicious conditions (maybe murder) in 1796, a year after the Treaty of Greenville ended the Northwest Indian War.

Notice that starting at the National Memorial Arch (Stop #3) that there are a lot of Pennsylvania-related monuments. This is because the Pennsylvania troops camped in this area of Valley Forge (not to mention that there were more men from Pennsylvania in the Continental Army than from any other state). The way recruiting typically worked during the American Revolution was that a wealthy man would put together a militia, often paying out of his own pocket for weapons and supplies. Thus, men who fought together tended to be from the same states.

If you are hiking or biking on the Joseph Plumb Martin Trail, it does not pass the Wayne Statue. However, you can hop off the trail and onto the park road at the Wayne’s Woods Picnic Area and ride a quarter mile to the Wayne Statue. When done, instead of backtracking, continue down the road to the next intersection where you can get back onto the J. P. Martin Trail. The road through this area of Valley Forge is exclusively a park road, not a public road, so vehicles tend to travel at slow speeds, making road biking relatively safe.

As you continue down the park road towards Stop 5, Washington’s Headquarters, be on the lookout for a monument marking the area where Virginia troops camped (there is a reconstructed soldier cabin as well) and a memorial for unknown soldiers who died and were buried at Valley Forge.