John Sullivan

John Sullivan, an early supporter of the American cause in the Revolutionary War as both a politician and a Continental Army officer, was born to Irish immigrants on 17 February 1740 in Somersworth, New Hampshire.

In 1763, Sullivan began to practice law in Durham, New Hampshire, where he became known for his quick temper. Initially aligned with the royal governor of New Hampshire, John Wentworth, Sullivan later allied with the revolutionaries because he objected to the Intolerable Acts (1774), or Coercive Acts. These acts punished Massachusetts residents for their participation in the destruction of the tea in Boston Harbor (1773), known today as the Boston Tea Party. Sullivan was a delegate from New Hampshire to the First Continental Congress in October 1774. Back in New Hampshire, Sullivan, a major in the militia, led a raid to capture gunpowder, cannons, and muskets from Fort William and Mary (New Hampshire) in December 1774 in response to  King George III’s  ban on the shipment of military provisions to the colonies.

A year later in 1775, Sullivan traveled to the Second Continental Conference to argue for war with Britain. He believed the war already had begun at the  Battle of Lexington and Concord.  While there, he was commissioned as a brigadier general in the Continental Army. He marched 500 reinforcements to  Boston  and then fought in Canada. Despite the early success of the  Canadian Campaign  at Montréal and Saint-Jean, the Americans met defeat in  Québec City . Disease, expiring troop enlistments, weapons and provisions shortages, lack of money, and low Canadian support doomed the campaign.

Sullivan marched his brigade to Saint-Jean in May 1776 to take command there after the death of Maj. Gen. John Thomas. He approved Brig. Gen. William Thompson’s counterattack on British forces under  Maj. Gen. Guy Carleton  at Trois-Rivières on 8 June, though the British forced the Americans back. On 14 June 1776, Sullivan organized and conducted the Northern Army’s retreat from Canada to Île-aux-Noix, an island in the Richelieu River with few trees and little potable water. Five thousand soldiers lay exposed on the island, which particularly affected the sick and wounded. Sullivan ran boat crews to exhaustion as they evacuated the sick to Crown Point, 90 miles away. Sullivan was promoted to major general on 9 August 1776.

Following his time in Canada, Sullivan took part in several important battles with varying degrees of success and failure. During the  Battle of Long Island  in August 1776, Sullivan led American soldiers south of Brooklyn Heights where they bravely faced heavy attacks by British and German troops and were forced to retreat. The British captured Sullivan and held him prisoner for three months.

Following his release in a prisoner exchange, he commanded a column of the Continental Army at the  Battle of Trenton , New Jersey, on 26 December 1776. After crossing the Delaware River with  George Washington , Sullivan maneuvered the soldiers under his command to attack from the south of town. They blocked a bridge over Assunpink Creek where they faced retreating German soldiers, thereby securing a major victory for the Americans. He did the same at the  Battle of Princeton , New Jersey, on 3 January 1777 when he forced 200–300 British soldiers to surrender.

In 1777, Sullivan again commanded part of the Army as it maneuvered against the British army in northern New Jersey, and raided Staten Island, with mixed results. He commanded the upper fords and the defense of Birmingham Hill at the  Battle of Brandywine , Pennsylvania, and then helped secure the retreat of the Army. At  Germantown , Pennsylvania on 4 October 1777, Sullivan’s soldiers quickly overwhelmed the 2d Light Infantry Battalion and the 40th Regiment of Foot but a thick fog reduced visibility and confusion on the battlefield led to an American retreat. He wintered at Valley Forge with Washington and often complained of being passed over for promotion, generally making more enemies than friends.

In the summer of 1778, he led an unsuccessful Franco-American assault on Newport, Rhode Island, along with  Maj. Gen. Marie-Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette  and  Maj. Gen. Nathanael Greene  (link) with the 1st Rhode Island Regiment, a unit consisting mostly of soldiers of color. When French naval support failed to materialize, he organized a successful defense that allowed his force to retreat safely. Sullivan would soon leave the Atlantic coast and head to the frontier lands of Pennsylvania and New York on what would be his last campaign.

The war divided many Native nations and people. Both the British and the Americans promised to honor their sovereignty and land. Some sided with the American revolutionaries, some with the British, and others strove to remain neutral. Among the Haudenosaunee, or Six Nations, the Oneida and Tuscarora forged alliances with the United States, whereas the Seneca, Cayuga, Onondaga, and Mohawk aligned with the British. In 1777, warriors from these nations, their allies, loyalists, and some British regulars, raided American towns in the Mohawk Valley of New York; the Allegheny, Susquehanna, and Wyoming Valleys of Pennsylvania; and parts of Kentucky. The raids threatened the production of much-needed food supplies for the Continental Army. Under pressure from several states, Congress authorized a raid into the Six Nations territory. On 31 May 1779, Washington ordered Sullivan to destroy as many Haudenosaunee villages and agricultural fields as he could find. He was to take as many prisoners as possible to force the British-aligned Haudenosaunee and their adherents into a peace agreement, and if practicable, capture Fort Niagara, New York.

The Sullivan Expedition failed to capture many prisoners, but they destroyed 40 Haudenosaunee villages and about 160,000 bushels of foodstuffs, and displaced 5,000 Haudenosaunee. Some Continental officers questioned this level of destruction and escalation of violence. The campaign, basically a punitive expedition, caused many Haudenosaunee to starve in the coming months and destroyed their ability to be self-sufficient. It did not, however, force the Seneca, Cayuga, Onondaga, and Mohawk into a peace agreement nor did it stop the raids because Sullivan was unable to strike at their bases, Niagara and Detroit.

Sullivan retired from military service after the campaign. He went on to serve in the Continental Congress (1780–1781), as New Hampshire’s attorney general (1782–1786), governor of New Hampshire (1786–1787, 1789), and U.S. district judge (1789–1795). He died in Durham, New Hampshire, on 23 January 1795.