Comitia Americana Medals Anthony Wayne

The Anthony Wayne medal celebrates the military hero's leadership at the Assault on Stony Point (July 15 1779). Though he had proven his military prowess earlier in the Revolutionary War, the strategy devised by Wayne and Washington, and Wayne’s leadership during the assault, earned him Congressional recognition. Wayne's tactics mimicked those used against him earlier in the war in which the British used only bayonets in a surprise attack. He personally led his men, under cover of night, in the attack which lasted only thirty minutes and produced 550 captured British soldiers. The medal to celebrate this victory was engraved by Nicolas-Marie Gatteaux in 1789. An earlier version of the medal was created by Duvivier at the request of Benjamin Franklin, but it proved to be in poor taste and quality as it was merely a duplicate of the de Fleury medal with the original text scratched out and re-engraved. The Gatteaux medal depicts the personified America and Wayne on the obverse and the Battle of Stony Point on the reverse.