In the spring of 1792, President George Washington chose "Mad" Anthony Wayne to defend the fledgling nation from a potentially devastating threat. Native American forces had decimated the standing army and Washington needed a champion to open the country stretching from the Ohio River westward to the headwaters of the Mississippi for settlement. A spendthrift, womanizer, and heavy drinker who had just been ejected from Congress for voter fraud, Wayne was an unlikely savior, yet he raised a new army and scored a decisive victory at the Battle of Fallen Timbers. Drawing from Wayne's eloquently written letters, Mary Stockwell sheds light on this fascinating and underappreciated figure.