Sullivan Expedition
The Sullivan Expedition was a United States military campaign under the command of General John Sullivan during the American Revolutionary War, lasting from June to October 1779, against the four British-allied nations of the Iroquois. The campaign was ordered by George Washington in response to the Iroquois and Loyalist destruction of American settlements in the Wyoming Valley, and Cherry Valley. The campaign had the aim of "the total destruction and devastation of their settlements." Four Continental Army brigades carried out a scorched-earth campaign in the territory of the Iroquois Confederacy in what is now central New York.
The expedition was largely successful, with 40 Iroquois villages razed and their crops and food stores destroyed. The campaign drove just over 5,000 Iroquois to Fort Niagara seeking British protection, and depopulated the area for post-war settlement. Some scholars argue that it was an attempt to annihilate the Iroquois and describe the campaign as a genocide, although this term is disputed. Today this area is the heartland of Upstate New York, with thirty-five monoliths marking the path of Sullivan's troops and the locations of the Iroquois villages they razed dotting the region, having been erected by the New York State Education Department in 1929 to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the expedition.
Overview
Led by Major General John Sullivan and Brigadier General James Clinton, the expedition was conducted during the summer of 1779, beginning on June 18 when the army marched from Easton, Pennsylvania, to October 3 when it abandoned Fort Sullivan, built at Tioga, to return to George Washington's main camp in New Jersey. While the campaign had only one major battle at Newtown on the Chemung River in western New York, the expedition severely damaged the Iroquois nations' economies by destroying their crops, villages, and chattels. The death toll from exposure, starvation and disease the following winter dwarfed the casualties received in the Battle of Newtown, during which Sullivan's army of 3,200 Continental soldiers decisively defeated about 600 Iroquois and Loyalists.In response to 1778 attacks by Iroquois and Loyalists on American settlements, such as on Cobleskill, German Flatts, the Wyoming Valley and Cherry Valley, as well as Iroquois support of the British during the 1777 Battles of Saratoga, Sullivan's army carried out a scorched-earth campaign to put an end to Iroquois attacks. The American force methodically destroyed 40 Iroquois villages throughout the Finger Lakes region of western New York. Thousands of Indigenous refugees fled to Fort Niagara on Lake Ontario at the mouth of the Niagara River. The devastation created great hardship for those who sheltered under British military protection outside Fort Niagara that winter, and many starved or froze to death, despite efforts by the British authorities to supply food and provide shelter using their limited resources.
Background
When the Revolutionary War began, British officials, as well as the colonial Continental Congress, sought the allegiance of the Iroquois Confederacy, also known as the Six Nations. The Iroquois eventually divided over what course to pursue. Most Senecas, Cayugas, Onondagas, and Mohawks chose to ally themselves with the British. Most Oneidas and Tuscaroras joined the American revolutionaries, thanks in part to the influence of Presbyterian missionary Samuel Kirkland. For the Iroquois, the American Revolution became a civil war.The Iroquois homeland lay on the frontier between the Province of Quebec and the provinces of New York and Pennsylvania. Following the October 1777 surrender of British General John Burgoyne's forces after the Battles of Saratoga, Loyalists and their Iroquois allies began raiding American frontier settlements, as well as the villages of the Oneida. From a base at Fort Niagara, men such as Loyalist commander Major John Butler, Mohawk military leader Joseph Brant, and Seneca war chiefs Sayenqueraghta and Cornplanter led the joint British-Indigenous raids.
On May 30, 1778, a raid on Cobleskill by Brant's Volunteers resulted in the deaths of 22 regulars and militia. On June 10, 1778, the Board of War of the Continental Congress concluded that a major Indian war was in the offing. Since a defensive war would prove inadequate, the board called for an expedition of 3,000 men against Fort Detroit and a similar thrust into Seneca country to punish the Iroquois. Congress designated Major General Horatio Gates to lead the expedition and appropriated funds for the campaign. Despite these efforts, the campaign did not occur until the following year.
On July 3, 1778, Butler, Sayenqueraghta and Cornplanter led a mixed force of Indigenous warriors and Rangers in an attack on the Wyoming Valley, a rebel granary and settlement along the north branch of the Susquehanna River in what is now Pennsylvania. Roughly 300 of the armed Patriot defenders were killed at the Battle of Wyoming, after which houses, barns, and mills were razed throughout the valley.
In September 1778, a response to the Wyoming defeat was undertaken by Colonel Thomas Hartley who destroyed a number of abandoned Delaware and Seneca villages along the Susquehanna River, including Tioga. At the same time, Joseph Brant led an attack on German Flatts in the Mohawk Valley, destroying numerous houses, barns and mills. In October, further American retaliation was taken by Continental Army units under Lieutenant Colonel William Butler who destroyed the substantial Indigenous villages at Unadilla and Onaquaga on the Susquehanna River.
On November 11, 1778, Loyalist Captain Walter Butler led two companies of Butler's Rangers, a detachment of the 8th Regiment of Foot, about 300 Seneca and Cayuga led by Cornplanter, and a small group of Mohawks led by Joseph Brant, on an assault at Cherry Valley in New York. While the rangers and regulars blockaded Fort Alden, the Seneca rampaged through the village, killing and scalping 16 soldiers and 32 civilians, mostly women and children, and taking 80 captives. In less than a year, Butler's Rangers and their Iroquois allies had reduced much of upstate New York and northeastern Pennsylvania to ruins, causing thousands of settlers to flee and depriving the Continental Army of food.
The Cherry Valley massacre convinced the Americans that they needed to take action. In April 1779, Colonel Goose Van Schaick led an expedition of 558 Continental Army troops against the Onondaga people. About 50 houses and a large quantity of corn and beans were burned. Van Schaick reported that they took "thirty three Indians and one white man prisoner, and killed twelve Indians." Despite Van Schaick's superior James Clinton ordering him to prevent his soldiers from assaulting any Onondaga women, the Americans committed numerous atrocities during the expedition. American soldiers "killed babies and raped women", and an Onondaga chief recounted to the British in 1782 how the Americans "put to death all the Women and Children, excepting some of the Young Women, whom they carried away for the use of their Soldiers & were afterwards put to death in a more shameful manner".
When the British began to concentrate their military efforts on the southern colonies in 1779, Washington used the opportunity to launch a major offensive against the British-allied Iroquois. His initial impulse was to assign the expedition to Major General Charles Lee, however, Lee as well as Major General Philip Schuyler and Major General Israel Putnam were all disregarded for various reasons. Washington offered command of the expedition to Horatio Gates, the "Hero of Saratoga," but Gates turned down the offer, ostensibly for health reasons. Finally, Major General John Sullivan accepted command.
Washington's issued his specific orders in a letter to Sullivan on May 31, 1779:
Expedition
The expedition was one of the largest campaigns of the Continental Army, involving more than one third of its soldiers. Sullivan was assigned four Continental Army brigades totalling 4,469 men. By the time the expedition set out this number had fallen to just under 4,000 due to disease, desertions and expired enlistments.In April 1779, Edward Hand's brigade was ordered from Minisink to the Wyoming Valley to establish a base camp for the expedition. In May 1779, the brigades of Enoch Poor and William Maxwell assembled at Easton where they were joined by Sullivan and Thomas Proctor's 4th Artillery Regiment. Before they could proceed to Wyoming a road had to be hewn through the wilderness between the Delaware and Susquehanna rivers. The road was completed in mid-June and Sullivan's forces arrived at Wyoming on June 23 after a five-day march. A number of smaller units, including three companies of Morgan's Riflemen, joined the expedition at Wyoming.
Supply shortages delayed Sullivan's departure from Wyoming until July 31 when the expedition set out for Tioga at the confluence of the Chemung and Susquehanna rivers. The expedition proceeded cautiously, slowed by the mountainous terrain and the need to keep abreast of the 134 flatboats carrying Sullivan's artillery and supplies up the Susquehanna. With the expedition were 1,200 pack horses, 700 head of cattle, four brass three-pound cannons, two six-pound cannons, two 5½-inch howitzers, and one coehorn. The expedition arrived at Tioga on August 11 and construction began on a temporary fort that was named Fort Sullivan.