He drilled both officers and men with unwearied patience, and gradually the officers became able to do the drilling themselves, while the men acquired the soldierly self-confidence of veterans.

As the new recruits came in they found themselves with an army which was rapidly learning how to manoeuvre with precision, to obey orders unhesitatingly, and to look forward eagerly to a battle with the foe.

Throughout the winter Wayne kept at work, and by the spring he had under him twenty-five hundred regular soldiers who were already worthy to be trusted in a campaign.

He never relaxed his efforts to improve them; though a man of weaker stuff might well have been discouraged by the timid and hesitating policy of the National Government.

The Secretary of War, in writing to him, laid stress chiefly on the fact that the American people desired at every hazard to avert an Indian war, and that on no account should offensive operations be undertaken against the tribes.